Christology and the Current Crisis

Men are not flattered by being shown that that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them. To deny it, however, is to deny that there is a God governing the world.

—-Abraham Lincoln, 1865

I have previously stated Lincoln’s Second Inaural was among hte top ten sermons I have ever read. You should remember I am a preacher and I have read a lot of sermons, heard more, written many and considered others. Lincoln had been converted (but not baptized, ever, putting him beyond the pale for those who need sacramental salvation) effort hte Second Inaugural Address was ever penned. President Lincoln had no more formal theological education than he did of any other kind but he knew his Bible and interpreted it beautifullly on the steps of the Capitol Building on March 4, 1865, six weeks before his murder and with his assassin looking on from the crowd.

On that day, in that place and amid a mostly approving, if quiet mass of men, Lincoln appealed first to the book of Genesis, moved to Matthew’s gospel, from there to John’s historical account and then back to the Hebrew Bible for a direct recitation of Psalm 19. He did all this in good form without citing any passage by name or number.

To begin Mr. Lincoln insisted human failure what we call sin) brought about the scourge of war, cited slavery as its cause and insisted Men could not give any reason why any race of Men should take their bread from the forced labor of another man. He moved from Genesis to the Gospelof Matthew, insisting his hearers should not judge their enemies for to do so would bring down judgement on themselves. Here he was hinting at what he would do in Reconstruction, had he lived, in holding no others man no guiltier before God than the Union. He adjusted his hearers and the nation to do unto others only as they would have others do to them.

He then quotes Matthew in announcing woe to the world if the pronouncements of the Lord’s Kingdom are not kept. Sin brings judgement and slavery was wrong, as he had said previously, if anything is wrong (at Cooper Union he had actually said, “If slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong”); it should be cut off and cast away as a right arm that offends you. Lincoln has Matthew and Mark prosaically tying the crucifixion to the fallen nature of Man. He then has John showing this was exactly, literally what brought about the ritual execution of the Christ.

Mr. Lincoln starts to wrap up his sermon by appealing to the righteousness of the Lord’s judgements. Some in the crowd mocked Mr. Lincoln’s theological thinking on slavery as sin. His assassin would kill him for it. Still, on this cloudy day, as Mr. Lincoln launched into the part of his sermon wherein he called the “judgements of Lord Just and righteous” the clouds parted and the sun shone though, to remain so during his final words that day, “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the war we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among outselves and with all nations.”

At his application the crowd cheered for the only time during his address. The content prior had weighed them down with deep thought and heavy emotion. As the sun conquered the clouds the crowd caught a glimpse of one great man’s belief in a Holy God who operated in history and expected Man to do the same.