Part 4 (2/2)

Stopping for a moment and surveying his audience, the speaker said: ”When I came to the city this afternoon (it was the city of Edinburgh) there was a beautiful, fleecy cloud spreading itself like a thing of glory in the upper sky, and I said, 'O cloud, where do you come from?' and the cloud answered me and said, 'come from the slums and the low, vile places of the city. The sun of heaven reached down and lifted me up and transfigured me with his s.h.i.+ning.'”

Looking about upon the now deeply impressed throng, the speaker, after a solemn pause, said:

”I do not know whether this young man is here or not, but if he is, I can say to him that my Saviour and my Master, Jesus Christ, he who is our great G.o.d and Saviour, he can reach down from the highest heaven to the lowest depths into which a human soul can sink, and can lift you, and lift you up and up, till he s.h.i.+nes in you and through you, and transfigures you with the light of his love and glory.”

He can.

He does.

He is doing it now.

And who is he who can do this but the living G.o.d alone?

That Jesus Christ was G.o.d is the testimony of the men who lived in intimate communion with him and knew him best.

John leaned on his breast at supper. John heard and knew the beating of the Master's heart, and John says:

”In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with G.o.d, and the Word was G.o.d (G.o.d was the Word). The same was in the beginning with G.o.d. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. . . . And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth.”

Again this same John writes:

”Jesus Christ . . . THIS IS THE TRUE G.o.d.”

Writing to the Philippians, Paul declares, that Jesus Christ was in the ”form of G.o.d,” laid aside his glory as such, took upon him the ”form” of sinful man, became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, carried his humanity through hades and the grave, rose out from among the dead, and took that humanity to the throne of the highest. There G.o.d the Father reclothed him with the unbegun and uncreated glory which he had laid aside, gave him a name which is above every name, even the name of Jesus, and has highly and eternally ordained that every knee in the wide extended universe shall bow, and every tongue confess, that he is Lord to the glory of G.o.d the Father.

In his epistle to the Colossians, the Apostle Paul announces that this ”same Jesus” is the ”image of the invisible G.o.d; by him were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions, or princ.i.p.alities or powers; _all things were created by him_, and for him.”

To the same Colossians he further writes:

”In him dwelleth all the fulness of the _G.o.dhead bodily_.”

To the Hebrews he says: ”He is the brightness of the Father's glory, and the _express image of his person_” (the word ”image” is charakter and signifies an ”engraving,” the very engraving of G.o.d in the flesh, _the engraving of G.o.d in humanity_) and upholding all things by the word of his power. ”Upholding all things!” this earth in its...o...b..t about the sun; the sun in its...o...b..t about some other sun; all suns and systems in their orbits of splendor, whirling onward in ever-widening distances over highways of infinite s.p.a.ces, through extensions that are measureless, and where time does not count. In that unmeasured expansion where the points of the compa.s.s are lost and ”dimension” is a meaningless term; in that incomprehensible and indefinable vastness, filled with the might and the majesty of form, of weight, of motion and limitless power--all things--are hanging on his word and obeying his will.

Not only does the New Testament proclaim him G.o.d--the Old Testament does likewise, and with unmistakable speech.

The prophet Isaiah says:

”Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, _the mighty G.o.d, the everlasting Father_.”

Micah, the prophet, glorifies the little town of Bethlehem, least as it is among the thousands of Judah, and foretells that he who shall be born there, and is to be ruler in Israel, is he ”_whose goings forth have been from old, from everlasting_.” He who has been the outgoing and the forth-putting of the invisible G.o.d; and who is, and who alone can be, the _visibility of G.o.d_.

When we turn to the New Testament once more, we are given a vision of him, in Patmos, where he appears to that beloved John who had leaned so heavily on his heart in the days of the earthly pilgrimage. It is a vision of wonder, of glory, and divine splendor.

He is seen as a man--as one who had _become_ dead, who was now alive, who had conquered both death and the grave. His face shone with the light of the noonday sun, his eye glances were as a flame of fire, and when he spoke, his voice was as the sound of many waters; and this is what he said for himself:

”I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, _the Almighty_.”

This is the climax.

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