Isabella D. Bunn - 444 Surprising Quotes About Jesus. A Treasury of Inspiring Thoughts and Classic Quotations

2006 Isabella D. Bunn

Published by Bethany House Publishers
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Bethany House Publishers is a division of
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Ebook edition created 2012

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ISBN 978-1-4412-6288-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Unless otherwise identified, Scripture quotations are from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations identified KJV are from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations identified NLT are from the Holy Bible , New Living Translation, copyright 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Kevin Keller

Contents

PREFACE

To think about what has been thought about Jesus is a revelation in itself.

As I leafed through hundreds of volumes spanning the centuries, I encountered both the God and the Man of religion, history, philosophy, art. Some responses to Jesus are grounded in the intellect; surely no one has been subject to more intense study and exposition. Other expressions are inspired by faithprayer and praise and worship. Many reflections center on relationshipsChrist as savior, shepherd, king, and Son of God. A range of ideas links Jesus to doctrinal questions of incarnation, salvation, resurrection. Some enter into the life of Christ with passion and imagination, distilling the moments of his existence that have become turning points in ours. Still others unveil how his human example and divine power continue to transform lives and circumstances.

Working to gather a collection of such thoughts has engaged my mind and heart and soul, sometimes in surprising ways. I experienced a sense of intimacy and awe, of clarity and mystery, of finitude and timelessness. As I came to know more of him, I was humbled by how little I knew.

For over two millennia, Jesus of Nazareth has provoked an astonishing range of reactions. My hope is that this book encourages us to consider anew the question Jesus asked of his own disciples: Who do you say that I am?

JESUS AS GOD AND MAN

A s soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.

M ATTHEW 3:1617

Jesus Christ, the condescension of divinity, and the exaltation of humanity.

P HILLIPS B ROOKS (18351893)
BISHOP OF MASSACHUSETTS

To be a Christian is to believe in the impossible. Jesus was God. Jesus was Human.

[Jesus] is a divine figure sent down from the celestial world of light, the Son of the Most High coming forth from the Father, veiled in earthly form and inaugurating the redemption through his work.

R UDOLPH B ULTMANN (18841976)
GERMAN THEOLOGIAN

Following the Holy Fathers, we all with one voice confess our Lord Jesus Christ to be one and the same Son, perfect in divinity and humanity, truly God and truly human, consisting of a rational soul and a body, being of one substance with the Father in relation to His divinity, and being of one substance with us in relation to His humanity.

THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON, 451

The Son whose birth from the Father is unsearchable was born in another birth which can be searched out. By the one birth we should learn that his greatness has no limits, by the other we may recognize that his grace has no measure.

E PHRAEM THE S YRIAN ( C . 303373)
CHURCH FATHER AND WRITER OF COMMENTARIES
HOMILY ON OUR LORD

The Divine Vision still was seen,
Still was the Human Form Divine,
Weeping in weak & mortal clay,
O Jesus, still the Form was thine .

And thine the Human Face, & thine
The Human Hands & Feet & Breath,
Entering thro the Gates of Birth
And passing thro the Gates of Death .

W ILLIAM B LAKE (17571827)
BRITISH POET, ARTIST AND MYSTIC
JERUSALEM

Jesus Christ in an incomprehensible way veiled the divine nature with finite human nature, and from the finite human nature he displayed the actions of the infinite God.

I GNATII B RIAN C HANINOV (18071867)
RUSSIAN BISHOP

Christ, therefore, is one, perfect God and perfect Man; and Him we worship along with the Father and the Spirit.... We worship Him not as mere flesh, but as flesh united with Divinity, and because His two natures are brought under the one Person and one subsistence of God the Word.

S T . J OHN OF D AMASCUS ( C . 675749)
GREEK THEOLOGIAN
EXPOSITIONS OF THE ORTHODOX FAITH

We call Marys child Emmanuel because we see in him the God who has always been with us, always in the midst. There is no need for him to intervene as a stranger from the outside world. He is already here.

J OHN V. T AYLOR
ANGLICAN BISHOP OF WINCHESTER
THE GO-BETWEEN GOD , 1972

At the name of Jesus every knee shall bow,
Every tongue confess him King of Glory now;
Tis the Fathers pleasure we should call him Lord,
Who from the beginning was the mighty Word .

C AROLINE M ARIA N OEL (18171877)
ENGLISH HYMN WRITE
RHYMN, THE NAME OF JESUS, 1870

The properties of each nature and substance were preserved in their totality, and came together to form one person. Humility was assumed by majesty, weakness by strength, mortality by eternity; and to pay the debt that we had incurred, an inviolable nature was united to a nature that can suffer.

P OPE L EO I ( FIFTH CENTURY )
ST. LEO THE GREAT, BORN IN TUSCANY
LETTER,449

In his moral sonship to God Jesus Christ is not a median figure, half God, half man; he is a single person wholly directed as man toward God and wholly directed in his unity with the father toward men.

H. R ICHARD N IEBUHR (18941962)
PROFESSOR OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS AT YALE DIVINITY SCHOOL
CHRIST AND CULTURE , 1951

Every passage in the history of our Lord and Savior is of unfathomable depth, and affords inexhaustible matter of contemplation. All that concerns Him is infinite, and what we first discern is but the surface of that which begins and ends in eternity.

J OHN H ENRY N EWMAN (18011890)
ENGLISH CARDINAL AND LEADER OF THE OXFORD MOVEMENT
DISCOURSES TO MIXED CONGREGATIONS

For the Christian believer and theologian, the Agony in the Garden is one of the most solemn moments in the Passion. It is the point where Christ in his human nature wishes that the cup of suffering could pass from him, but in his divine nature he knows that he, and he alone, can take upon himself the expiatory death which will deliver the world from sin.

A. N. W ILSON
ENGLISH JOURNALIST AND BIOGRAPHER
JESUS: A LIFE , 1992

What does the Church think of Christ? The Churchs answer is categorical and uncompromising, and it is this: That Jesus Bar-Joseph, the carpenter of Nazareth, was in fact and in truth, and in the most exact and literal sense of the words, the God by whom all things were made.... He was in every respect a genuine living man. He was not merely a man so good as to be like GodHe was God.