Clay Feet

I enjoyed reading John Piper's thoughts on Lincoln in honor of his 200th birthday at DesiringGod.org. I've always known Lincoln as a hero for ending the injustice of slavery. And it is true, he was considered to be a progressive in that area in his time and is credited with ending slavery in America.

But consider these comments made by Lincoln:

• [H]e had “no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races.”
  
• He was not in favor of “making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry.”
  
• He said there is a “physical difference between the two” that would “probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality.”

Shockingly, in 2009, Lincoln would have been a considered racist! John Piper relates:

"[L]ike every hero, his [Lincoln's] feet are clay. That is what human greatness is—deeply flawed.

There is one hero, and only one, who will not let you down—Jesus Christ. All other heroes fail us, and the reason they do is to point us to Christ. There is no one more admirable, and more worthy of our praise, than Christ. At the very moment when he looked least praiseworthy, he was achieving the highest triumph of love—his death.

I thank God for Abraham Lincoln today. And among other great reasons one of them is: admiring and disillusioned I turn to Jesus."

It made me think of some men and woman I have 'heroized' in the past. It's true: The failures of men have served to point me to Jesus as the hero that will never, ever fail. Thinking of clay feet makes me think of how Jesus' feet are described in Revelation 1:15 "like fine copper when glowing in a furnace." Wow. What a comparison.

All items in italics were taken directly from Desiring God, Admiring and Disillusioned I turn from Lincoln to Jesus, by John Piper.