JESUS CHRIST

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JESUS CHRIST, DEFACED, UNFAZED:

BARRISTER OF BLISS

Rev. Dr. Robert E. Donaldson

Published by World Wide Web Witness Inc.

November 2006

ISBN 0 9802972 1 4

PREFACE

There is about the majesty of God - even when it is tabernacled in flesh, tented in an envelope of protoplasm for serviceable purposes, yes for salvation for that element of His creation called mankind, which increasingly becomes less manly and less kind - something which never loses its atmosphere, depth, brilliance and impact of utter reality.

This, it is scarcely surprising in view of who He is: the Creator of all. Yet it is always astounding to see it actually happen before one's eyes, as one reads of His entry into this world and performances, His attitudes and principles, sagacity and insight, oversight and power. It is staggering that a man could be so endued; but not so at all, when one finally grasps the whole point: this IS GOD!

It is not some elevation of human desire, essentialisation of human thought, concentration of human philosophy, arrangement of human power: it is wholly other, not in the Barthian sense, as if it did not belong, far removed as that is from Hebrews 2 with its emphasis on the brotherhood and the Lord's taking of kinship with those in His image. It is rather in the sense of utterly devoid of pride, proficient in dominion and efficient in serviceability, integumental in meekness and illimitable in holiness. This, yes: but as a man!

Again, this is the whole point. Nothing less could bear the brunt of the deaths of millions of sinners, in justice to truth; and nothing less could bear up to the infinite God the race, that special people, who are that section of this human race, which is redeemed (has been, and will be as well).

We are thus to meet EITHER the fancy dress ball of human invention, convention and comedy dressed in the drab robes of approaching doom, well deserved and pursued as relentlessly as recklessly, or God. To meet God, you come where He is available, just as you do to enter a house, using the door provided. You do not rant and rave as if it were an offence to your extended sensibilities to have to lower your important or yes, even imposing self to the designated entry point. You just go there and enter.

Christ put it: "I am the door, by Me if any man enter, He will be saved and go in and out and find pasture." That, it is just like Him: completely categorical, characterising the situation with authority backed by the power that meets EVERY test. It is not that this is done effortlessly (Hebrews 5:7, Luke 22:42ff.), but it is done both nobly and totally with nothing withheld, lacking or missing. You take it or leave it; and if like Thomas (John 20), you want to contest the case honestly, then honestly you are met.

Christ was as He repeatedly announced would occur, defaced in multiple ways. Further, it was as the prophets declared for up to a millenium in advance of its happening, ,many times, with varied and extraordinary details, all testable and fulfilled. Thus, there is NOTHING factual that any one either has shown or does show that lacks of all the criteria that He, as Messiah, had to meet to establish His authenticity. Obviously, with such a Person, you need an infinite assurance; and in the work of infinite perfection with infinite power to back, fulfilling in the meantime what with infinite wisdom has been predicted, fulfilling all to the last detail with relish if not indeed passion: you have precisely this. Indeed, it is set in a milieu of power to match assurance, of tenderness to illustrate love, and immiscibility with presumption, to sanctify majesty.

Even death did not faze Him: no ugly groans of splitting soul or anguished body. To be sure, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me!" was a one liner, but it was foretold to the word as to the world, in Psalm 22 (cf. Joyful Jottings 25). His heart was stricken before any struck His body (Hebrews 5:7). Yet the adventure of salvation was worse than any operation or torture, and He met it AS MAN, to the full, not with the anaesthesia of inadvertence, but with the aesthetic horror of love covering the case of the loved ones.

From all this, He has become the barrister of bliss, legislating free pardon (Isaiah 55:1-6) with a satisfaction correlative to His sufferings (Isaiah 53:10-11). He earned it. He paid.

In this volume, this glorious divine character of His as man and that wonderful way of His as God is considered in various applications, not least those of our own time; for He lives, and in living, He acts, and in acting in the many millions who know Him, He leaves that impact, atmosphere and vision of wonder, through His power, His purposes and His performances. These He provided in purity illimitable, and He continues in thrust inexorable.

Thus, as the Book of Acts 1:1 indicates: the Gospels showed what Jesus did; and the Acts what He continued to do (by His Spirit, according to His word, in this world as He moves to His return - Acts 1:7). What He meets through His people, and in this world, and how He shapes the result to the ends of wisdom and proceeds with the career that ends of triumph: this is part of our scope, beneath the arch of His majesty and the aura of His glory.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH - Acts and the Gospels

Chapter 2

BARRISTER OF BLISS

Chapter 3

A MATTER OF RISE AND FALL, AND THAT'S NOT ALL

Isaiah 66:1-2, Reflections and Applications as we consider
Charles, Coronations and the Tempests of Change

Chapter 4

THE WORD, LANGUAGE AND SYMBOL

THE FRUITION OF CREATIVE CONCEPTUALISATION:

in Life, in Death, in Program and in Personality