“It is the grandeur of Christ's character which constitutes the chief power of His ministry, not His miracles or teachings apart from. His character. The greatest truth of the gospel is Christ Himself — a human body become the organ of the Divine nature, and revealing, under the conditions of an earthly life, the glory of God.”

— Horace Bushnell

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 60.

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Horace Bushnell 32

American theologian 1802–1876

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“Christ's miracles were vivid manifestations to the senses that He is the Saviour of the body — and now as then the issues of life and death are in His hands — that our daily existence is a perpetual miracle. The extraordinary was simply a manifestation of God's power in the ordinary.”

Frederick William Robertson (1816–1853) British writer and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 65.

“Human learning, with the blessing of God upon it, introduces us to divine wisdom; and while we study the works of nature the God of nature will manifest himself to us; since, to a well-tutored mind, “The heavens,” without a miracle, “declare his glory, and the firmament showeth his handy-work.””

George Horne (1730–1792) English churchman, writer and university administrator

George Horne (bp. of Norwich.) (1799). Discourses on several subjects and occasions. Vol. 1,2, p. 357; As quoted in Allibone (1880)

“Do away with the miracles, and the superhuman character of Christ is destroyed. He becomes what he really was—a man. Do away with the wonders, and the teachings of Christ cease to be authoritative. They are then worth the reason, the truth that is in them, and nothing more. Do away with the miracles, and then we can measure the utterances of Christ with the standard of our reason. We are no longer intellectual serfs, believing what is unreasonable in obedience to the command of a supposed god.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Orthodoxy (1884)

“In Christ, God enters human affairs and takes sides with the oppressed. Their suffering becomes his; their despair, divine despair. Through Christ the poor man is offered freedom now to rebel against that which makes him other than human.”

James H. Cone (1938–2018) American theologian

Source: Black Theology and Black Power (1969), p. 36

“Our Lord's miracles were all essential parts of His one consistent life. They were wrought as evidences not only of His power, but of His mercy. They were throughout moral in their character, and spiritual in the ends contemplated by them. They were in fact embodiments of His whole character, exemplars of His whole teaching, emblems of His whole mission.”

James McCosh (1811–1894) British philosopher

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 66.

“He stands alone in unapproachable grandeur. Nineteen centuries roll away, and His character so lives that He inspires, millions of men with impassioned love. Other men may seem to be children of their surroundings; He became what He was despite His surroundings, and is the only one who can say in truth and holiness, "Do as I have done." He, the ideal, the perfect one of our race, appears in an age when such an ideal could not have been developed in act — could not have been conceived in thought. In the theory of development the perfection of humanity is the final result of man's history ages hence. Christ therefore is the great miracle which more than any other establishes the fact of miracles. Christ Himself is proof of His own miracles.”

Richard Reynolds (bishop) (1674–1743) Bishop of Lincoln

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 57.

“He said nothing to gratify curiosity, or to satisfy man's ambition by opening doors to worldly greatness. In all His teaching, Christ brought the mind of man in contact with the Infinite Mind. He did not direct the people to study men's theories about God, His word, or His works. He taught them to behold Him as manifested in His works, in His word, and by His providences.
Christ did not deal in abstract theories, but in that which is essential to the development of character, that which will enlarge man's capacity for knowing God, and increase his efficiency to do good. He spoke to men of those truths that relate to the conduct of life, and that take hold upon eternity.”

Ellen G. White book Christ's Object Lessons

Source: Christ's Object Lessons (1900), Ch. 1, p. 23

“Is the Gospel story historically true? Is it a mystical tale of great beauty and of real teaching value but nevertheless of no vital import to the intelligent men and women of today, who pride themselves on their reasoning powers and upon their independence of ancient mental trammels and of old and dusty traditions? As to the perfection of the portrayed character of Christ there is never any question. The enemies of Christianity admit His uniqueness, His basic profundity and His understanding of the hearts of men. They recognise the intelligence of His ideas and sponsor them in their own philosophies. The developments which the Carpenter of Nazareth brought about in the fabric of human life, His social and economic ideals, and the beauty of the civilisation which could be founded upon the ethical teaching of the Sermon on the Mount are frequently emphasised by many who refuse to recognise His mission as an expression of divinity.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Source: From Bethlehem to Calvary (1937), Chapter One

“Who God is and what it is to be divine is something we have to learn where God has revealed Himself and His nature, the essence of the divine.”

Karl Barth book Church Dogmatics

4:1
Church Dogmatics (1932–1968)

“The Gospel that we preach is the power of God unto salvation; and the first principle of that Gospel is, as I have already said, faith in God, and faith in Jesus Christ His Son our Savior. We must believe that he is the character he is represented to be in the holy Scriptures. Believe that he told the truth when he said to his disciples, "Go ye forth and preach the Gospel to every creature; he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned." We must believe that this same Jesus was crucified for the sins of the world, that is for the original sin, not the actual individual transgressions of the people; not but that the blood of Christ will cleanse from all sin, all who are disposed to act their part by repentance, and faith in his name. But the original sin was atoned for by the death of Christ, although its effects we still see in the diseases, tempers and every species of wickedness with which the human family is afflicted.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses 13:143 (July 11, 1869)
1860s

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