quotations about Jesus Christ
Christianity as a specific doctrine was slain with Jesus, suddenly and utterly. He was hardly cold in his grave, or high in his heaven (as you please), before the apostles dragged the tradition of him down to the level of the thing it has remained ever since.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
preface, Androcles and the Lion
The great military leaders of the past have gone, their empires have crumbled and burned to ashes. But the empire of Jesus, built solidly and majestically on the foundation of love, is still growing.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
1957
Like every man who appears at an epoch which is historical and rendered famous by his works, Jesus Christ has a history, a history which the church and the world possess, and which, surrounded by countless memorials, has at least the same authenticity as any other history formed in the same countries, amidst the same peoples and in the same times. As, then, if I would study the lives of Brutus and Cassius, I should calmly open Plutarch, I open the Gospel to study Jesus Christ, and I do so with the same composure.
HENRI-DOMINIQUE LACORDAIRE
Jesus Christ: Conferences Delivered at Notre Dame in Paris
He who knoweth and understandeth Christ's life, knoweth and understandeth Christ Himself; and in like manner, he who understandeth not His life, doth not understand Christ Himself. And he who believeth on Christ, believeth that His life is the best and noblest life that can be, and if a man believe not this, neither doth he believe on Christ Himself.
MARTIN LUTHER
The Theologia Germanica
The imitator of Jesus Christ is one who, being interested in him as his propitiation, cannot but choose to follow him as his pattern: for he knows that though it be not the only or principal end why the Son of God was manifested; it is, however, a very considerable part of his errand, in visiting these regions of mortality, to give us a fair transcript, and a living copy of all those graces and duties that are pleasing unto God, and that are commanded in the law.
WILLIAM MCEWEN
"On Imitating Christ", Select Essays Doctrinal & Practical on a Variety of the Most Important and Interesting Subjects in Divinity
No one can truly see Christ, and drink in the influence of his character, and not be a Christian at heart.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Then I sought a way of obtaining strength sufficient to enjoy Thee; and found it not, until I embraced that Mediator betwixt God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who is over all, God blessed for evermore, calling unto me, and saying, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and mingling that food which I was unable to receive, with our flesh.
ST. AUGUSTINE
Confessions
There are many actions of the man Christ Jesus which were performed by him, as a human creature, in conformity to the moral law, which are to be imitated in the letter of them. If he obeyed his parents, prayed to his God, forgave his enemies, paid tribute to Caesar, despised no man for his poverty, esteemed no man for his wealth; if he pleased not himself, nor sought his own glory; if he was heavenly in his discourse, cheerful in his obedience, unwearied in his application to his work, and mortified to the world in the whole tenor of his conversation: these are branches of his behavior, in which the servant of Christ follows him in the most literal sense, though at a humble distance; not as Asahel followed Abner, but as Peter followed his Master, afar off. These duties are not only incumbent upon him by the authority of the precept, but are sanctified unto him, are rendered sweet and easy, by the example of the Lord.
WILLIAM MCEWEN
"On Imitating Christ", Select Essays Doctrinal & Practical on a Variety of the Most Important and Interesting Subjects in Divinity
If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify him. They would ask him to dinner, and hear what he has to say, and make fun of it.
THOMAS CARLYLE
Even yet Christ Jesus has to lie out in waste places very often, because there is no room for him in the inn--no room for him in our hearts, because of our worldliness. There is no room for him even in our politics and religion. There is no room in the inn, and we put him in the manger, and he lies outside our faith, coldly and dimly conceived by us.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
"The words of Jesus," I continued more slowly than before "have changed the life and character of more than half the world, that half which alone possesses modern civilization, that half with which you and I, Mr. Gear, are most concerned. There was wonderful power in the doctrines of Buddha. But Buddhism has relapsed everywhere into the grossest of idolatries. There is a wonderful wealth of moral truth in the ethics of Confucius. But the ethics of Confucius have not saved the Chinese nation from stagnation and death. There is wonderful life-awaking power in the writings of Plato. But they are hid from the common people in a dead language, and when a Prof. Jowett gives them glorious resurrection in our vernacular, they are still hid from the common people by their subtlety. Every philosopher ought to study Plato. Every scholar may profitably study Buddha and Confucius. But every intelligent American ought to study the life and words of Jesus of Nazareth."
LYMAN ABBOTT
Laicus: Or, The Experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish
Too long have we stood at the foot of the cross or at the door of the tomb, and not seen the stone rolled away and the triumphant Saviour emerging. Too long we have thought of the life of Christ ending with his passion and death. But the greatest part of his life is his post-resurrection life. For the message of the Gospel is not merely that Jesus Christ lived and died eighteen hundred years ago, living here for three short years and then disappearing, to be an absentee Christ; it is that God is always pouring out his life upon men and into their hearts, lifting them up out of their sins, succoring them from their remorse, and making them live again.
LYMAN ABBOTT
The Personality of God
They want you to be Jesus
They'll got down on one knee
But they'll want their money back
If you're alive at thirty-three,
And you're turning tricks
With your crucifix.
U2
"Hold Me
Take away the personal Christ from the gospels, leaving the same precepts and doctrines, and the whole aspect of Christianity would change, as the aspect of the earth changes when the sun goes down. The same eternal mountains lift their heads to heaven; the same rivers flow onward. But their animation is gone; they are cold, and gray, and dark. Thus would Christianity be without that central personage, around which all its glories cluster--from which they stream.
E. H. CHAPIN
Living Words
Peace, perfect peace, in this dark world of sin?
The Blood of Jesus whispers peace within.
EDWARD HENRY BICKERSTETH
Peace
Jesus is eternally right. History is replete with the bleached bones of nations that refused to listen to him.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
1957
It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ. My hosanna is born of a furnace of doubt.
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
attributed, Kierkegaard: The Melancholy Dane (Harold Victor Martin)
Christ ought to be preached with this goal in mind--that we might be moved to faith in him so that he is not just a distant historical figure but actually Christ for you and me.
MARTIN LUTHER
The Freedom of a Christian
But the Only Begotten is Himself made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and was numbered among us, and paid tribute unto Caesar.
ST. AUGUSTINE
Confessions
There was need of a phantastic, indestructible optimism, and one far removed from all sense of reality, in order, for example, to discover in the shameful death of Christ really the highest salvation and the redemption of the world.
CARL JUNG
Psychology of the Unconscious