All other greatness has been marred by littleness; all other wisdom has been flawed by folly; all other goodness has been tainted by imperfection. Jesus Christ remains the only Being of whom, without gross flattery, it could be asserted, "He is altogether lovely."

This loveliness of Christ consists in His perfect humanity. Am I understood? I do not now mean that He was a perfect human, but that He was perfectly human.

In everything but our sins, and our evil nature, He is one with us. He grew in stature and in grace. He labored, and wept, and prayed and loved. He was tempted in all points as we are—sin apart. With Thomas, we confess Him Lord and God. We adore and revere Him. Beloved, there is no other who establishes with us such intimacy, who comes so close to these human hearts of ours, no other in the universe of whom we are so little afraid. He enters as simply and naturally into our present day lives as if he had been reared on the same street.

How wholesomely and genuinely human He is. John, who has seen Him raise the dead, still the tempest and talk with Moses and Elijah on the Mount, does not hesitate to make a pillow on His breast at supper. His perfection does not glitter, it glows. The saintliness of Jesus is so warm and human that it attracts and inspires. We find in it nothing austere and inaccessible. The beauty of His holiness reminds one rather of a rose, which warmly beckons to all who see it.

Jesus receives sinners and eats with them—all kinds of sinners such as Nicodemus, the moral, religious sinner, and Mary of Magdala, "out of whom went seven devils"—the shocking kind of sinner. He comes into sinful lives as a bright, clear stream enters a stagnant pool. The stream is not afraid of contamination but its sweet energy cleanses the pool.

It is in His way with sinners that the supreme loveliness of Jesus is most sweetly shown. How gentle He is, yet how faithful; how considerate, how respectful. His gentleness is never weak. His courage is never brutal. My friends, you may study these things for yourselves. Follow Him through all the scenes of outrage and insult on the night and morning of His arrest and trial. Behold Him before the high priest, before Pilate, before Herod. See Him brow-beaten, bullied, scourged, smitten upon the face, spit upon, mocked. How His inherent greatness comes out: not once does He lose His self poise, His high dignity.

Let me ask you to follow Him still further to His crucifixion. Go with the jeering crowd without the gates; see Him stretched upon the great, rough cross and hear the dreadful sound of the sledge as the spikes are forced through His hands and feet. See, as the yelling mob falls back, the cross, bearing this gentlest, sweetest, bravest, loveliest man, upreared until it falls into the socket in the rock. "And sitting down, they watched Him there."

Listen too. Hear Him ask the Father to forgive His murderers, hear all His cries from the cross. "When they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified Him. … Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:33,34). Is He not altogether lovely? "Yea, He is altogether lovely" (Song of Solomon 5:16).

—C. I. Scofield, abridged