The Christ of the Bible

Christ of the Bible and Christ of personal experience must be the same. There are those who immediately will challenge this statement and will seek to refute it.

Sometime ago we heard a man ask a radio audience, “Is your Christ God?” The first reaction was one of surprise and curiosity but the more we thought of it the more relevant the question appeared.

The Christ portrayed in Scriptures has ascribed to him certain attributes both as to his person and his work. Here we find historical record and divine revelation combined. Here we are told who he was and what he did. The Bible also reveals truths about him that could come only through a revelation from God.

The affirmation has been made that we may reject the scriptural record about Christ and at the same time accept Christ. But the question immediately arises, What Christ?

If we reject the Christ of the Bible then we accept someone who is the product of human rationalization, deduction and imagination. Nothing basically wrong results from using all of our God-given faculties in thinking of Christ. However, if we use these while rejecting revealed truth about him the person we conjure may not be the real Christ at all.

But someone will argue: We accept the Christ of our own personal experience as led by the Holy Spirit. Good enough, but if the Christ of experience differs from the Christ of the Scriptures the question is whether we have been led by the Holy Spirit or by the imagination of our own hearts.

Unregenerate man notoriously goes off at tangents. The non-Christian religions of the world and the cults surrounding us are products of man-directed rather than Spirit-directed thinking.

The importance of obtaining the true view of Christ cannot be overestimated. A false Christ of the imagination, one different from the real Christ, can do inestimable harm. The pilot, whether on the sea or in the air, makes certain that the compass he follows is one worthy of confidence. How much more important when eternal destinies are at stake!

But someone asks, Is not the Christ of all men essentially the same? The answer is an emphatic NO.

The Christ of the Bible is the eternal Son of God, entering into this world of a virgin, manifesting himself as and declaring himself to be the Son of God, and showing himself both sinless and sovereign over all creation.

The Christ of the Bible deliberately and by design gave himself as a ransom for sinners; died on the cross and shed his blood that those who believe in him might be delivered from the guilt and penalty of sin.

This same Christ arose from the dead with a physical body that was seen and touched. His body bore the evidences of the crucifixion. He talked to and ate with his disciples and showed himself alive on a number of occasions. He then ascended into heaven while they watched him go.

The Christ of the Bible will come again someday in great glory and power. His coming will bring to an end this age in which we live.

The Christ of the Bible was the Son of God. He was also the Son of man. He is portrayed to us in terms of supernatural pre-existence, supernatural advent into the world, supernatural characteristics and power while in this world, dying a death with a supernatural effect on those who believe. His resurrection was a supernatural event bringing with it supernatural power and hope for Christians; his ascension into heaven was supernatural as to manner and his promised coming will be with supernatural manifestations.

On the other hand—and how vital the difference—the Christ of human reason coupled with unbelief is a man divested of his divine attributes, a man from whom the supernatural is stripped, a man who attained the highest ever achieved by any in the human race and one to whom we look only as an example to follow and a pattern to live by.

But there are those who give him some degree of deity, vigorously affirming their faith in the divine Christ but rejecting what they assume to be the man-made records in the Scripture by claiming they are the writings of ignorant and enthusiastic disciples. What Christ do they then worship? Is he not also a Christ who is the product of a discipleship even more ignorant? For the Christ they affirm is also a Christ of man’s own imagination and not the Christ of the Bible.

Why this vigorous attempt to present another Christ? It is basically a rejection of the authority and integrity of the Scriptures, a denial of the supernatural. We are told that advanced scholarship can no longer agree to the biblical record, but this is untrue for there are others of equal scholarship and deep piety who bow their hearts and minds and wills to the Christ of the Bible and accept him in all of his supernatural manifestations, attributing to him the glory and honor and power accorded him in the record.

Some attributes of the Christ of the Bible:

He is the Creator of the universe, “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 3:3).

He was pre-existent, “And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was” (John 17:5).

He was the Son of God, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (Mark 1:1).

He was virgin born, “Fear not, Mary, … and behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, … the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:31–35).

He performed many miracles to prove his deity, “Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves know” (Acts 2:22).

He died on the Cross as an atonement for our sins, “In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace” (Eph. 1:7).

He arose from the dead, “Jesus said: Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have” (Luke 24:39).

He ascended up to heaven and is coming again, “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.” (Acts 1:11).

Finally, the Christ of the Bible is the only Saviour, our sure hope of eternal life, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

God in his infinite love and mercy has provided for us through his Son cleansing and forgiveness for sin and power to live for him through his indwelling Holy Spirit.

The Christ of the Bible is our one hope. It would be folly to trust in some other Christ.

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