Page:The Moslem World - Volume 02.djvu/26

 ther person, acknowledged prophet or apostle, has ever dared to make one of these claims. Yet the holiest men who have lived during the last 1900 years have, with one consent and gladly, accepted them all as right and true as applied to Jesus Christ. The significance of these claims of Jesus Christ is evident. God became flesh. This is the statement in three words of the great doctrine of the Incarnation. Our inquiry is not how could this be, but why did God become man? We are not discussing divine omnipotence, but divine compassion and love toward a race of sinful men. We are contemplating an act of infinite condescension, a manifestation of God's love in sacrifice. The appeal of the doctrine is to our hearts, not to our heads; to our affection, not to our intellect. God loved men so much that He took on our nature that so He might win us from the love of sin to the love of God, the Father of our souls. And then, to impress on our dull minds the meaning of His love, the significance of love's sacrifice. He yielded that human nature which He had assumed to death, that men might love Him and live. Jesus Christ's projection of divine love into human life is the mightiest act in human history, for by that act He made it possible for us to possess spiritual and immortal life, and that life is life freed from the corrupting, destroying power of sin.

In our day the attempt is made to reform society by civilisation, by education, by material progress, by change of policies and organisations. No! the change needed is vital. It is the change from moral death to moral life. Nor do spiritual life, salvation from sin, the favour of God, fellowship with our Heavenly Father come to us through the acceptance by our minds of sacred writings. But these great blessings come through our faith in Him who is ordained of God to do for those who believe in Him these three things: (1) Trul}^ to reveal God to men. (2) To be the means of restoring men to the favour of God. (3) To break the power and destroy the dominion of sin over the believing soul by means of an atoning work, a divine sacrifice.

This is the way to the Moslem heart.

Constantinople.