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Bible Dictionaries
Attraction
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or ATTRACTION.—Under this head we shall consider the attraction possessed and exerted by the character and the teaching of Christ as portrayed and expressed in the four Gospels. That character and that teaching are, of course, inseparable; for the work and the message of Christ are vitally and absolutely a personal work and a personal message. Thus the supreme appeal of the gracious invitation is: ‘Come unto Me’ (Matthew 11:28). Christ’s character and teaching have an attraction, both extensive and intensive, which goes far beyond the merely aesthetic: it is a dynamical and spiritual attraction including and permeating man’s personality. On the one hand, there is the uniqueness of the message (John 7:46); on the other, the beauty of the character (John 1:14); and yet the attraction of Christ for all men is something deeper than expression or analysis, the attraction of One lifted up from the earth, drawing all men to Himself (John 12:32). This attraction is the continual directed pressure of His Holy Spirit in the hearts of men, and its reality is suggested by Ignatius’ comparison of the Cross to a crane of which the Holy Spirit is the rope to draw mankind upwards to the Father in heaven (Eph. 9). The universality of this attraction is exemplified in the Gospel records. Jesus was the centre of attraction for multitudes, men and women and children (Mark 1:27; Mark 2:2, Luke 19:48 etc.); and Zacchaeus (Luke 19:4), Nicodemus (John 3:2), the ‘Greeks’ (John 12:21) are only instances of this attractive power which had its culmination in the response of the Apostles to their Master’s call. In these cases the attraction was visibly, audibly, and sensibly personal; the objects of it saw, heard, and often felt the Man that is called JESUS (John 9:11, 1 John 1:1).
To-day, the attraction of the teaching must be held to be personal still, through that action of the Holy Spirit which is implied in the inspiration of the Gospels. This attraction may also be said to have its seat in the fact of the revelation of God-in-man vouchsafed to the race of men fashioned in the likeness of God. Thus no limits can be set to the efficacy of the attraction of Christ which starts from such a source: witness the unfailing attractiveness of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and the last discourses (John 13-17). The attraction, too, increases many-fold as it takes effect in drawing us nearer to the Master. One feature of this will be the more easy and quick perception of fresh beauties and glories in the fourfold Gospel of Christ, the acquisition of grace upon grace (Matthew 11, Mark 10, Luke 15, John 9).
More difficult of expression, and intertwined with this attraction of the teaching, is the attraction of the character. Christ appealed to it. ‘Me ye have not always’ is the pathetic appeal He made as man (Matthew 26:11); ‘I am with you all the days’ is the glorious promise He makes as God (Matthew 28:20). Above all, however, it is the work of Christ in the sacrifice of self for love of others that draws the heart of man with cords stronger and surer than any variable and uncertain attractions. ‘Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end’ (to the uttermost, εἰς τέλος, John 13:1). It is the Cross of Christ which is the supreme instrument of the attraction, the Cross on which He was lifted up in glory and in shame.
Literature.—Seeley, Ecce Homo15 [Note: 5 designates the particular edition of the work referred] , p. 156 f.; Bruce, Galilean Gospel, p. 30 ff. and passim; Dale, Living Christ, p. 42 ff., Atonement7 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] , p. 438 f.
W. B. Frankland.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Attraction'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/a/attraction.html. 1906-1918.
