It is one of the greatest of wonders that all men do not love Christ.
Nothing manifests more clearly the utter corruption of our race than the
fact that “He was despised and rejected of men.” Those, however, who
have seen the fountains of the great deep of human depravity broken up,
are not at a loss to account for the treatment of the Messiah. It was
not possible that darkness should have fellowship with light, or Christ
with Belial. Fallen man could not walk with Jesus, for the two were not
agreed. It was but the necessary result of the contact of two such
opposites that the guilty creature should hate the Perfect One. “Crucify
Him, crucify Him,” is the natural cry of fallen man. Our first wonder is
displaced, and another wonder fills the sphere of thought. Did we marvel
that all men do not love?–it is a greater marvel still that any man
does love Jesus. In the first case we saw the terrible blindness which
failed to discover the brightness of the sun–with a shudder we saw it,
and were greatly amazed; but in this second instance we behold Jesus of
Nazareth opening the fast-closed eye, and scattering the Egyptian
darkness with the Divine radiance of His marvellous light. Is this less
a wonder? If it was a strange thing to witness the fearful ravings of
the demoniac among the tombs, it is surely far more a prodigy to see
that same man sitting at the feet of Jesus clothed and in his right
mind. It is indeed a triumph of grace when man’s heart is brought to
give its affection to Jesus, for it proves that the work of Satan is all
undone, and that man is restored from his fallen state.