Invisible Science

  The Freedom of Christ By Alfred Heidenreich First published in The Christian Community Journal Sept.-Oct. 1956   On my recent journey to South America I repeatedly met people who said that they could not see that Christ was “necessary”. In a way, one can deal with this question fairly easily if one enlarges the conception of man’s fallen nature and awakens a picture of the  sickness  of sin which no mere teaching, even of the greatest Founders of Religions could take away.  But in a sense, there is truth in the thought that Christ was not “necessary”. There is nothing in the scheme of things that made His coming inevitable, in the sense that spring necessarily follows winter and day follows night. No necessity of desire or natural law compelled Him to come. In fact, the New Testament has always said so. Christ’s coming was a deed of love, of grace, of utter freedom. “God so  loved  the world….”   And therefore Christ and His deed can only be understood by an act of free loving cognit