The Person of Christ - Book Recommendations

I can't even begin to imagine how many books dealing with the person of the Lord Jesus Christ have been written down through church history. John says at the end of his gospel that "there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written;" but that hasn't kept people from trying! And as Christians, we should be thankful that there are some wonderful books available for our edification that deal with this most wonderful of subjects. In this post, I want to recommend two such books to you. I'm sure almost everyone has heard of the first book, but I would be surprised if anyone has heard of the second (Thanks go to Charles for introducing me to it.). Both are wonderful in their own way, and would make a great Summer reading project and, best of all, both can be downloaded for FREE from online!

The first book, which I'm sure almost everyone reading this blog will have heard of, is Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ by John Piper. In this short book, John does a wonderful job of giving the reader a glimpse of "the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" by considering the divine glory of the God-Man from various perspectives. John explains his aim for the book in the introduction:

The aim of this book is to help you see and savor Christ. The only way for this to happen is to use your physical eyes and ears to see or hear the testimonies to Jesus Christ told by those who knew him when he was here. That is why these chapters are permeated with Bible quotations. It is not my word that counts, but God’s. He has borne witness to his Son. His witness is compelling. May he give you eyes to see and hearts to savor.

Again, this is a wonderful book. Get it, read it slowly, and allow your mind to be renewed by "the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus." Seeing and Savoring can be freely downloaded here.

The second book I would like to commend to you is The Person of Christ by Philip Schaff. This book has a slightly different (and wonderfully unique) feel to it than Piper's, as Schaff seeks to set before us the glory of Christ as that glory came to expression in the humanity of Jesus of Nazareth. In fact, the full title of Schaff's book is: The Person of Christ - The Perfection of His Humanity Viewed as a Proof of His Deity. This is a book on the person of Christ that is unlike any other book I have ever read on the subject. It makes a great complement to Piper's book, and would be very much worth your time to get acquainted with. It can be read online or freely downloaded here.

Though the internet has been the source of innumerable amounts and kinds of evil since Al Gore invented it several years ago =), it has also been a great source of distributing edifying Christian materials that many people would not even have known about otherwise. Beloved, let us avail ourselves of these resources, and let us thank God that they are so accessible to us! Even more, let us be thankful for godly men who write such wonderful books and make them freely available to all.