Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen

The life which [Jesus] now lives in the Gospels is simply the old life lived over and over again. And in that life we have no place; in that life we are spectators, not actors. The life in which Jesus lives in the Gospels is after all, for us, but the spurious life of the stage. We sit silent in the playhouse and watch the absorbing Gospel drama of forgiveness and healing and love and courage and high endeavor; in rapt attention, we follow the fortunes of those who came to Jesus laboring and heavy laden and found rest. For a time, our own troubles are forgotten. But suddenly the curtain falls, with the closing of the book, and out we go again into the cold humdrum of our own lives' with our own problems and our own misery, and our own sin, And still seeking our own Savior. Let us not deceive ourselves, A Jewish teacher of the first century can never satisfy the longing of our souls. Clothe Him with all the art of modern research, throw upon Him' modern sentimentality; and despite it all, common sense will come to its rights again, and for our brief hour of self-deception - as through we had been with Jesus - will wreak upon us the revenge of hopeless disillusionment.

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