(Photo posted on the Facebook page “Last Call”)

Jesus Christ is liberal, but He is not a liberal.

Jesus Christ is generous.

He said in Deuteronomy 15:11-14, “For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land.  And if thy brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.   And when thou send him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty:  Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the LORD thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him.”

He counsels us to be as generous as He is.  We are told in Isaiah 32:7-8 that, “The instruments also of the churl (miserly) are evil: he devises wicked devices to destroy the poor with lying words, even when the needy speaks right.  But the liberal devises liberal things; and by liberal things shall he stand.”

Yet Jesus Christ is not a liberal.

He is neither man-centered nor self-centered in his thinking.  He is not humanistic in His philosophy.  He is not ecumenical in His faith.  He is God the Father-centered in His thinking, philosophy, and faith.  And since God is love  (1 John 4:8), He is others-centered in His work.  He is THE Way, THE Truth, and THE Life; no one comes to the Father but by Him  (John 14:6).  He is the Lamb of God that came to take away the sins of the world  (John 1:29).  He is the only Begotten Son sent by God because He so loved the world to save from eternal death whoever would trust Him (John 3:16).

Jesus Christ is the ultimate in inclusiveness, generous beyond measure with Life and Love. Jesus Christ is the ultimate in exclusiveness;  there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved  (Acts 4:12).

Jesus is liberal, but He is simultaneously too exclusive and too inclusive to be a liberal.