IT was a, new and startling doctrine, when first preached to heathen sages, that God would take humanity into so intimate a connection with Himself as really and truly to be man and God in the same person; but it is a doctrine which must be received by you, or else you cannot receive Christ.
My Master will not be satisfied with the acknowledgment that His character is lovely, His doctrine pure, and His moral teaching superexcellent.
He will not be content with your admission that He is a Prophet greater than any prophet who ever came before or after Him. He will :not rest satisfied with your admission that He is a. Teacher sent from Heaven, and a being who, on account of His virtues, is now peculiarly exalted in Heaven.
All this is true, but it is not the whole truth; you must also believe that He who, as man, was born of the Virgin, and was dandled upon her lap at Bethlehem, was, as God, none other than the everlasting Lord, without beginning of days or end of years. You do not receive Christ in very deed and truth unless you believe in His real humanity and actual Godhead.
Indeed, what is there for you to receive if you do not receive this truth? A savior who is not Divine can be no Savior for ‘us. How can a mere man, however eminent, deliver his fellows from sins such as yours and mine?
How can he bear the burden of our guilt any more than we can ourselves bear it, if there be nothing more in him than in any’ other singularly virtuous man? An angel would stagger beneath the load of human criminality, and much more would this be the case with even a perfect man, if such an one could be found. It needed those mighty shoulders — “Which bear the earth ’s huge pillars up, ” — to sustain the weight of human sin, and carry it into the wilderness of forgetfulness. So, in order to be saved by Him, you must receive Christ as being God as; well as man.
John calls Him “The Word,” or the speech of God. God :in nature has revealed Himself, as it were, inarticulately and indistinctly; but, in His Son, tie has revealed Himself as a man declares his :inmost thoughts, ‘by distinct and intelligible speech. Jesus is to the Father what speech is to us; He is the unfolding of the Father’s thoughts, the revelation of the Father’s heart. He that hath seen Christ hath seen the Father. “Wouldst thou have me see thee?” said Socrates, “then speak;” for speech reveals the, man. Wouldst thou see God? Listen to Christ, for He is God’s Word, revealing the very heart of Deity.
Lest, however, we should imagine Jesus to be a mere utterance, simply a word spoken, and then forgotten, John is specially careful that we should know that Jesus is a real and true Person, and therefore he tells us that the Divine Word, of whose fullness we have received, is :most assuredly God.
No language can be more distinct and explicit than that which John uses, concerning Jesus. He ascribes to Him the eternity which belongs alone to God: “In the beginning was the Word.” He peremptorily claims Divinity for Him: “The Word was God.” He ascribes to Him creative :power: “All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was, made.” He ascribes to Him self-existence, which is the essential characteristic of God: “In Him was life.” He claims for Him a nature peculiar to God. ’ “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all;” and he says that the Word is “the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” No writer could be more definite in the expressions he uses; and beyond all question he sets forth the true and proper Deity of that Blessed One whom we all must receive if we would Obtain eternal salvation. ‘Yet John does not fail to set forth that our Lord was also man. He saith, “the Word was made flesh,” — not merely assumed manhood, but was made flesh; made not merely man, as to His nobler part, His soul, but man as to His. flesh, His lower element. Our Lord was not a phantom, but one who, as John declares in his first Epistle, could be seen, and heard, and touched, and handled. “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” He tabernacled with the sons of men, — a carpenter’s :shed His lowly refuge, and the caves and mountains ,of the earth His midnight resort in His after life,. He dwelt among sinners, and sufferers, among mourners and mortals, Himself completing His citizenship among us by becoming obedient unto death, “even the death of the cross.” Thus, while He is so august a person that Heaven and earth tremble at the :majesty of His presence, yet is He so humble a person that: He is not: ashamed to call us “brethren.”
