As a seminary student withering beneath the hot breath of year-end finals, it’s easy to get lost in the haze. Topics flood like tides, roll across my tongue and my mind, coming to invade even my sleeping self. Historical criticism and its impact on the destabilization of faith, the “unlimited plurality of hypotheses” leading to an inevitable “capitulation to the spirit of the age” — important every one. But in the middle of this burning sea of study, the simple words of Robert Murray M’Cheyne came and refreshed my soul with an upward glance at Christ, centering me again in the purpose and pursuit of the study — not of books, but of Him.
“The wounds of Christ were the greatest outlets of his glory that ever were. The Divine glory shone more out of His wounds than out of all His life before. The veil was then rent in twain, and the full heart of God allowed to stream through. It was a human body that writhed, pale and racked, upon the accursed tree; they were human hands that were pierced so rudely by the nails; it was human flesh that bore that deadly gash upon the side; it was human blood that streamed from hands, and feet, and side; the eye that meekly turned to His Father was a human eye; the soul that yearned over His mother was a human soul. But O, there was Divine glory streaming through all; every wound was a mouth to speak of the grace and love of God.”
Robert Murray McCheyne, The Works of the Late Rev. Robert Murray McCheyne, Vol. 2 (New York: Robert Carter, 1847), 125.
Diapsalmata 