^ \ ^ i A \ ■ # 'k PRINCETON, N. J. li^iiM^'^^ 7*^3 /X 7/ Division. Shelf. Section Ntiviher p... 33S.2.6V5 .w.. CHRIST, THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD: giblital Stxi&hs EIEST TEN CHAPTERS OE ST. JOHN'S GOSPEL. EUDOLPH BESSEE, D.D. TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN, BY M. G. HUXIABLE. EDINBURGH: T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET. LONDON: HAMILTON, ADAiMS CHRIST THE LIGHT OF THE WOELD. _^^_ C^^ Mnrtr hHumit Jfhs^. ST. JOHN I. 1-18. Lord Jesus, Thou wJio art the true Light, do Thou enlighten us that 'we mag see Thg glory. Amen. When the holy John committed his Gospel to writing, to be- qneath it as a precious legacy to the Church, the three -other Gospels were already in the hands and hearts of Christians, and had been so for a considerable time. On this account he did not write with the intention of setting doAvn in order everything relating to Christ which he had preserved in the inestimable treasures of his recollection of Him ; but as he himself says : " Many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His dis- ciples which are not written in this book ; but these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through his name." Therefore it was not so much a Gospel history, as historieMJiU of Gospel, that he intended to writi* Jesus Christ the Son OF God: Life through faith in the name of this Jesus; — in these two positions, the substance of St. John's Gospel is briefly summed up. Into the mystery of the Word which was made Flesh, and into the mystery of that faith through which all flesh is made participant in life, St. John is all through look- ing with fixed and stedfast gaze; while also, it is his joy to A 'I THE WORD BECAME FLESH. point out the "treasure" of life, wliich lies hidden in the " field" of the Gospel history, to the notice and contemplation of others. The old Fathers have been wont to compare St. John to an eagle, and the comparison is just ; in profound meditation upon the truths of our redemption, he mounts up on the wings of devotion, even to the very loftiest heights of these blessed mysteries. In fact, with that loving gaze fixed upwards upon the Light of Life, his own eye has become light — the sun has made it sun-like. The beauteous lightsomeness of peace is dif- fused upon him. If, on the one hand, " the sun never mirrors his glorious face in the sea, amid the storm;" on the other hand, it is likewise true, that in the blessed repose of such a soul as St. John's, the face of Heaven's sun is mirrored back in clear and faithful reflexion. " St. John's Gospel is a deep and tranquil lake," says an old Divine, " in which are reflected the pleasant shores around, and the pure, clear sky, with sun, moon, and stars above." At a very early period he was surnamed* TAe Divine — the sage learned in God Himself. It is not human wisdom however which has given to him a learned tongue, but an " unction from the Holy One," (1 St. John ii. 20) ; unction, welling up out of the personal union of an adoring, self-devoted soul with her eternal Bridegroom. Luther, referring to such divinity, says : " John speaks in crude and simple language, such as a child might use, and his words sound altogether childish (so the wise of this world con- sider them) ; but underneath there is hidden a majesty which no man, however highly enlightened, can either explore or sur- pass." And Loke describes St. John's manner thus : " What in truth is it that makes the writings of the holy Apostle John so marvellously attractive to us, so that Avhen we hear them or read them, they take so .strong a hold upon our minds 1 Granted, that there is in them a tone of simphcity and love, which belongs rather to Heaven than to this world ; but whence comes this simplicity, this love 1 It is not the simplicity of a child, neither CHAPTER I. 1-18. 3 is it love such as the world has and bestows, but it is the sim- plicity of a seraph, and it is love, such as blossoms around the eternal Throne of the blessed Son of God. The simplicity of fruition it is which reappears in tlie simplicity of expression, and love to that only One upon whose breast the loving disciple leant at supper it is, which has begotten the language of love. It is simple love to that only Jesus who is very man, and at the same time very God and eternal Life, that speaks from the mouth of St. John, and that would fain constrain the spirits of men, yea, of all who come into the world, to come to St. John's be- loved Master, and to the bosom on Avhich he lay." On the breast of Jesus it was that the fire which burnt so vehemently in the virgin spirit of St. John — the Jeremiah of the Il^ew Tes- tament — became purified into that peaceful glow of holy love, of which we sing : Upon Thine altar, light Thj^ fire ; Let me be offered all entire ! Consume of me each selfish part, Thou, all perfect Love that art ! And the words of his mouth are the resounding thunder (Mark iii. 17) which appertains to the flashing lightning of his life's love. To the mind of the disciple, filled with the majesty of the only-begotten Son, everything that Jesus does, is a sig7i, wliich is interpreted by the loorth of the Lord. As he said to St. Peter by the lake of Gennesareth, when the risen Jesus stood on the shore, so he again and again exultingly repeats to the reader of his Gospel : " It is the Lord !" May the Grace of the Lord shed into our hearts that spirit of love in which St. John, the disciple whom the Lord loved, re- ceived his Gospel ; that so in the study of it, Claudius' experi- ence may be ours, when he says : " In the perusal of St. John's writings, I always feel as if I saw him before me at the last supper, lying on his Master's breast ; — as if his angel were hold- ing the light to me, and at certain passages, were ready to iall i THE WORD BECAME FLESH. on my neck and whisper something into my ears. I am far from understanding all that I read, bnt often it seems as if St. John's meaning were floating at a distance before my eyes ; still even then, when I am gazing into a passage altogether dark to me, I have yet a strong presentiment of some great and glorious thought which I shall one day be able to understand." Ver. 1. "/?^ the heginnimj teas the WorcV 3t. Mark also commences his Gospel with the word, begin- ning : " The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God." (Mark i. 1). But St. John speaks of another be- ginning from that which was made by the voice of the preacher in the wilderness. He goes back, even further than St. Matthew, who begins with Abraham, whose promised seed is Jesus Christ, the Son of David ; and further than St. Luke, who carries the sacred pedigree of the Son of Man's salvation back even to Adam, the beginner of the race of sinners. As Moses commences the history of the Creation vidth the words : In the beginning, so St. John commences his Gospel with the same words, though he soars higher even than Moses. In the beginning, before God had yet created the heavens and the earth, the Word already wa&. He did not come into being, but He %oas ; there was no time in which He was not, for He is the eternal Word. Before this Word, who is announced in the Gospel, appeared in time. He ims in the beginning (see 1 John i. 1-3); before He became the Light and Life of men. He was with God ; before He became Flesh, He was Go^l St. John gives to the eternal Son of the eternal Father, the " only -begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father," the appellation of The Word ; and he does so because through Him :tll things were made (ver. 3) ; He is the creative Word of Grod (comp. Gen. i. 3 with Heb. xi. 3 ; Ps. xxxiii. 6-9), and because in Him is Life (ver. 4), He is the Word of Life (1 St. John i. 1, 2). He not only has and conveys the Word of God, but He is Himself that Word which Qod sends (Ps. cvii 20 ; cxlvii. 15 ; CHAPTER I. 1-18. 5 Acts X. 36); His name is : the Word of God (Eev. xix. 13) •, He who says by the mouth of the Prophet : " I am He that doth speak, behold, it is I," (Isa. lii. 6) ; the living God, as revealing Himself — such is tlie Word. (See chap. viii. 25 ; and Heb. i. 1, 2). The knowledge of the fact, that the one God is no solitary God, but that in the perfect Divine Being, who is everlasting Love, there are contained an I, and a Thou, and a We, who dwell in loving communion, shines forth here and there even in the Old Testament, although there " the one-half hidden in the mine still lies." Throughout the whole of the Old Testament, from Genesis to Malachi, the Angel of the Lord is seen acting ; that Angel, who is distinguished from all created angels, by this, that God's Name — that is, the entire fulness of the Divine attributes — is in Him (Ex. xxiii. 21), and therefore that in Him is mirrored the Being of God, as in the Angel of His presence (Isa. Ixiii. 9). In Him God complacently contemplates His own Being, and through Him reveals Himself to whom He will. In the Word, who was in the beginning, God from all eternity, was, before Him- self uttering forth His own Being, laying up therein the fulness of His goodness (Heb. i. 3) ; for " He is a Word which God has with His own self, in His own Divine Being, and which is His own heart's thought. He says, therefore, of Himself, that the Godhead is wholly contained in Him, and whoever has the Word, the same has the whole Godhead. As it were, the whole heart of God is there, just as in man's word we recognise man's heart. But the image does not come quite up to the reality; for maJi' sword carries along Avith it the nature (the contents) of his heart by signification merely ; whereas here, that which is signified is in the Word, in nature and essence." (Luther). Or again, as Brenz discourses concerning Him : " Just as the brook is never sepa- rated from its spring, nor the sunbeam from the sun, so likewise is the Son never separated from the Father." Even Jewish and heathen wisdom had some dim perception of that archetype, which subsisted in the Being of God, of tlie b THE WORD BECAME FLESH. crcaturely word of man, through which man's thought reveals itself ; and the apostolic announcement did not disdain the vessel which had been the vehicle of that wisdom, but first cleaning it out, that nothing impure might remain behind, " then filled it with contents furnished by that history, which, in the New Testament, exhibits to us the reahty of what before had been so dimly descried." (DeUtzsch). " And the Word was with God.'' The Word was with God, not merely in Him : He was God's " Companion," " the Man who is GoiTs Fellow." He is not an Attribute resting in God, or a Power emanating from Him, but a Person, a real independent " I," resounding with the " Thou," uttered by the voice of Divine Love, and tilled with the contents of the Divine Life. (Ch. xvii. 5-24, v. 26). In the Greek word for ouv with (more properly, towards God), there is also expressed the mutual love in which the word is eternally turned towards God. What St. John means to set forth is not so much zvhere as how, in what condition the Word was, namely, in eternal communion of Love with God. There are the two : God and the Word. But the Word, though per- sonally distinct from God, and another Being, is yet not another thing than God ; and therefore, that no man might separate in essence the Word from God, the Son from the Father, " he comes round back again, and knits up the ring and says : " '^ And the Word vms God." Dost thoiT ask : When was the Word ? St. John answers : He was in the beginning. Dost thou ask : In what condition was the Word ? He replies : He was tvith God. Dost thou enquire. What was the Word ? His answer is : He was God, God's equal in power and honour. The apostle therefore calls the Father, whose Word the Son is, simply God (the Word was with God) ; at the same time he also says of the Word, that His essence is God. So then there are not two Gods, but one God ; while, however, St. John teaches us to distinguish between the CHAPTER I. 1-18. 7 Divine Person with wlioni the Word is, and the Divine Person who is HimseK the Word. Now the apostle closes up the first and third propositions of this verse with the second, and continues : — Ver. 2. " The sanir (this Word, wliich was God) was in the beginning 'with God." In the beginning, with God, was the Word, who Himself was God. He was not at some time in the beginning contained in God, in order then first to become a self-subsistent Person, when the world should be made by Him, and when He should became Flesh, that He might dwell among us (ver. 14) ; but as God of God, He was in the beginning with God. Before He dwelt among us He had been from all eternity with God, and before there existed a created being who could be brought to blessedness through Him, the eternal Word of the blessed God was Life and Blessedness (1 Tim. vi. 15). As Origen justly says: "The Father could not be personal if the Son were not." But, in order that the blessed Life, which was with God in the eternal Word, might be shared by creatures to the praise ol' that Love, which would fain impart of her own, God created a world, and created it through that same Word, in whom, from all eternity. He had been the object of His love. Ver. 3. " All things loere made (came into being) by Him, and loithoitt Him was not any thing made that was made." The Word was : all things have come into being through the Word. Everything — yes, every individual thing, from the angel on high to the worm in the dust, is indebted for its exist- ence to the Word. Nothing appears existent, which may be supposed not to have come into being ; and nothing has come into being that we can suppose not to have been called into being by the eternal, uncreated Word. This Son is not in- cluded in the order of creatures, for they have come into being through Him, therefore He must be their Creator ; and that, not as if the Son had only carried out the creative Will of the Father, as His instrument ; rather the Son is Himself the re- vealed Will of the Father, and it is in this Will that the cause 8 THE WORD BECAME FLESH. of the creation lies. This is what the apostle Paul expresses in (Jol. i. 16 : "In Him [for so it is iii the Greek] were all things created that are in heaven and in earth ; " and, in order to show that He, through whom all things were created, was hkewise lieforehand contemplated as that in which every created thing was to have its life, he further adds ; " All things were created by Him and for Him, and He is before all things, and hy Him [Greek, in Him] all things consist." " I have glorified Thee on the earth" the Son says, in his sacer- dotal prayer. Therewith Avas the work of Divine Love victor- iously completed, which had its commencement when the world was created lyy the Word and for the Word, for the end, that is, of becoming participant in the glory which the Word had with God from all eternity. Here let us pause for a moment, in order that we may rightly take hold of the comfort arising out of this article of faith ; for it is one which the holy John — " the crop and jflower of tlie Evangelists" — ^has, in words such as these, laid down with a hand of no ordinary power. He carries our Lord Jesus Christ far above Adam and all created beings, up into a boundless eternity, and bids us recognise in Him the eternal Word, who was in the beginning, " or ever the earth or the world were formed ;" and who was with God as His beloved Son j who Himself was God, of one essence with the Father, through Avhom every creature was called into being. With such power does the apostle set forth the true Godhead of Christ, in order that our foith may have in the Scriptures a foundation which cannot totter. Joyfully may we venture to put our trust in this Christ ; for He is no creature, but very God (Jer. xvii. 5). Our salva- tion is rooted in this Word, — Who was in the beginning Avith God (Eph. i. 4). He who has redeemed us with His precious blood, He is the same who has also created us ; for no less a Being it behoved Him to be, wlio should redeem mankind when lost, than He is, by Avhom and for whom, mankind was originally created. CHAPTER T. 1-18. 9 Jesus Christ is very God : this confession is the Church's jewel of consolation. " How could we obtain salvation if it had not been God who has wrought salvation 1 — or how can man cojue into fellowship with God, if God has not come to man? How -was it possible that Christ should overcome the strong one, Avho held man under his dominion, and let the vanquished go free, if He were not Himself stronger than man who had been vanquished ? " (IreniBus). Luther is never weary of urging this doctrine. He says : " This article of our salvation and happi- ness we never can, by human Avisdom, grasp and comprehend ; but believe it we must, as the Scriptures speak of it, and hereto hold fast, that Christ our Lord is very essential God, equal to the Father in His Divine Being and Nature. If Christ remain not very essential God, born of the Father from all eternity, and the Creator of all things, then we are lost. For what help should I get with the Lord Jesus Christ's suffering and death, if He were but a man like you and me 1 In that case he could not have overcome the devil, and death, and sin ; He would have been far too weak for them. Therefore we must have such a Saviour as the Bible tells us of, — one who is very God, and Lord over sin, death, devil, and holl. If, as the Son of God, He sheds His blood for us, to redeem us and cleanse us from sin ; and if we believe it, and hold it out before the devil's face, when he frightens and torments us on account of sins, then is the devil soon beat — he must yield, and leave us in peace. With this beginning of John's Gospel, and with the Nicene Creed, we can with main force strike down the devil and all heretics that ever were or can be. For although heretics at one time were boldly taking in hand, and that too with a splendid shoAV, according to reason, to tutor this Gospel, and to pervert it, yet their folly in the end became manifest ; it got condemned openly by Christendom as a lie of the devil's, and it perished in shame and confusion." (Luther). All things were made by the "Word ; but that same Word who 10 THE WORD BECAME FLESH. is the free cause of their coming into being is also the sole ground of their subslstinr/ in being (chap. v. 17.) Ver. 4. "In Him was Life,.'" The essence of the Word is indeed Life, for He is God (chap. V. 26); and all things that live draw their vital power only from Him, for out of God there is no life. St. John knows only one Life, that wliich is Divine, blessed and in itself eternally perfect ; whatever renounces its union with God, falls under death, and whatever does not return back to God, remains in death. Wliat- ever boasts itself of Life apart from and without God is but death, masked. In St. John's mouth, the noble name. Life (54 times does it occur in the gospel), constantly includes the no- tion of a Divine Life. In our language, we speak indeed, (as also the Scriptures do occasionally), of a life without God, a sin- ful, worldly, earthly, perishable, unblest life; St. John on the contrary, accords the name of Life exclusively to that which is essentially Life, namely, that Life which has its origin in the Divine Fulness of Life, and its continuance in communion with God. When God saw all that He had made, " and behold it was very good," He saw pure Life emanating from His life, and His complacency rested upon every creature. Imperishable Life and unfading bloom poured themselves abroad without intermission from the Fountain of all Life. But ever since the earth and all it contains have no longer been "very good," but through sin, are spoilt and torn away from God, death has got the mastery (Eom. viii. 20), but also since that time and to the present hour, still there lives, what, in the midst of a pining and perishing world has Life, but it has it only in Him whose love is stronger than death, and whose breath of Life renews the face of the earth (Acts xvii. 18; Col. i. 18; Heb. i. 3.) Hitherto, the apostle has been leading us to recognize the eternal Word as the Fountain of Life to "all things;" now he goes still further, and tells us what in particular meri have in CHAPTER I. 1-18. 11 the eternal Word. Now Jolm is giving the cone its apex ; we see he is making a bend to come round upon the region of hu- manity ; at length he turns right upon it and speaks : "And the Life loas the light of men.'''' The Kfe of the eternal Word, the Upholder and Preserver of oil things, was the light of men. Of all the creatures upon the earth, man, created after the image of God, alone acknowledges the Life which fills him ; only man can say, " I Uve, God is my Life;" for he alone is a person, an "I," through which has sounded a Voice from the Divine Life (Gen. ii. 17), "the living soul" (in Hebrew "breath of Life") breathed into his nostrils by God, speaks in his heart and says: "I live. Thou Lord, my God, art my Life." On that ac- count, then, because fellowship with that Life which the eternal Word has and is, shews itself in the spirit of man as a loving acknowledgment of God, the apostle says: "The Life was the Light of men." Earthly light is clear and makes clear ; it shines and it enlightens ; in the Scriptures it is the constant image of God who is spirit, of Him who is holy and makes holy, who is the living One and deals forth Life, who is true and leads to Truth \ " With Thee is the fountain of Life, in Thy Light shall we see Light." In nature, life and light are inseparably joined together; and it is so in the region of spirit ; where there exists divine, holy Life, there exists also, divine holy Light, and where there is Light, there is also Life. Our apostle knows no Light that would deserve to be so called unless it beamed forth from the Life of the eternal Light (chap. viii. 12, ix. 5, xii. 35. 1 John ii. 8-10.) Out of God in Christ there is no Light, but mere darkness, also out of Him there is no Life, only mere death. In Christ is the Light of Life, out of Christ is the night of death. "These words : In Him luas Life, and the Life was the Light of men, are thunderclaps against the light of reason, free will. 12 THE WORD BECAME FLESH. tlie powers of man, etc. As if lie would say : All men who are out of Christ are destitute of Life before God, are dead and damned. For how should they have Life, when they not only wander in darkness, but are themselves darkness?" (Luther.) The Life was the Light of men, i.e., from the beginning, as long as there have been men. Just as the eternal Word was God in the beginning, so He was also from the beginning tlie Life and the Light of men. It is true, when in the track of sin, death and darkness came upon men, it seemed as if Life and Light must be for ever extinguished in the world, Paradise being now lost, even as they are eternally extinguished in the habitation of the devil and his angels. (Jude 6.) But no ! Praised be eternal Love which stoops to misguided sinners wdth her Life to overcome Death, with her Light to overcome Dark- ness! Ver. 5. '■'And the Light shineth in darkness." The Light was from the beginning the Light of men, and therefore, as the Light of men, it now, since darkness has befal- len men, shines in darkness. In Paradise, all Avas full of Life and full of Light. It cannot proj^erly be said that the Light shone in Paradise, rather Paradise itseK shone like a world of Light. But ever since sin is come into the world, and mankind, estranged from holy Life which is in the Love of God, has walked in darkness instead of in Light, since this has been the case, the Light has shone "in a dark place" (2 Peter i. 19), in the very midst of darkness, and the gloomier the darkness, so much the brighter beams the fair splendour of that Light (Rom. V. 20). But hoio does the light shine in darkness 1 Eead Gen. iii. 1 5 : it is there that the first beam of Light falls on poor darkened earth, in what has been well termed " the first Gospel of sal- vation." The Life which was from the beginning, the Light of men, now shines as a sweet light of mercy to simiers ; the eter- nal Word, first the Creator of a world of holiness of Life and CHAPTER I. 1-18. 13 Light, here begins to reveal Himself as a EecTeemer, to a wirkl become full of sin and darkness, and drowned in death. All that Divine Love has ever set on foot, for the redemption of fallen humanity, from the first promise of the victorious seed of the woman, which should bruise the serpent's head, up to the fulfilment of this promise, all of it together, has been a shining of the Light in darkness. How powerfully did the Light pour its brightness into darkness, when a !Noah and an Abraham and a Moses, and at length the combined covenant people of God, shone as the depositaries of its illumination ! The whole economy of the Old Covenant is illuminated throughout by the light of salvation, proffering itself to sinners ; the promise, the law, the service of God with its types, sire all a beaming forth of the Light, which was thus struggling with the darkness, and essaying to overcome its gloom. Christ is the entire sum of whatever Light is seen to shine in the whole of the Old Testament. Ay, even those nations, which antecedently to the illumina- tions of the published Gospel, have strayed afar " in their own ways" (Acts xiv. 16, 17), — even them, has the Light of men never left wholly unvisited in their darkness. God was never far from them, although they had removed themselves far from God. Some sparks of Light were wont to fly out, even into the dark hearts of heathens ; for the Creation, though there was no word, preached to them of the living God ; and their conscience proclaimed His law (Eom. i. 20, ii. 15), and numberless sacri- fices of the heathen betoken the "thoxxghts" of conscience, which accuse, or else excuse, one another. With noiseless, yet mighty step, the Uving God stalks tlirough the whole history of nations, and even the loud bustle of their own footsteiis does not in every human ear, overpower the sound of this secret, awful march of God. The revelation of God in Hs righteous judgments, has in every time shone with lightning brilliancy into the darkness 14 THE WORD BECAME FLESH. of the world, and does so still ; that warniBg of the 2nd Psalm : " Kiss the Son, lest He be angry," still, above the raging sea of the people, makes itself clearly heard. But how fares it with the Light which would thus fain draw men out of darkness into its own brightness 1 '■^ And the darkness comprehended it not." St. John here styles those who would not let themselves be illuminated by the Light, as Darkness. All those, and there were many, who loved darkness rather than Light, and who were so entirely lost in darkness, that they are to be themselves called darkness, those did not grasp the Light that Avas shining on them, nor hold it fast. St. Paul expresses precisely the same thing, when he says : " men w^ho hold (literally keepdoini) the Truth in unrighteous- ness" (Eom. i. 18), the love of unrighteousness stifles the spark of Truth thrown by the Light into their hearts, so that it cannot blaze up, or freely sliine forth. Therefore no man lost in darkness has any excuse. The darkness in which all of us Avithout distinction, by nature are sunk, — this will not be the cause of our damnation, for the Light shines in darkness, and is both Adlling and able to overcome it ; but the love of darkness making us indisposed to lay hold on the Light, this it is which will condemn us if we die in it. True indeed, not darkness only, but also the love of darkness, is our inheritance as sinners ; but surely it is also true, that the Light, our blessed Lord Jesus Christ, sliines upon us so sweetly and attractively, that if only we do yield ourselves to His illumination, if we do not meet it Avith gloomy resistance, then that love to Him which He works within us, overcomes our natural love of darkness, breaks its power and expels it from our bosoms. And accordingly, the eternal Word ever since it has shone in darkness, has in every age found some who have stretched themselves out towards Him, and who Avould not, when they saw the Light, remain in dark- ness any longer (comp. ver. 12, with ver. 11); but these have CHAPTER I. 1-18. 15 been but few. " The election bath obtained it, and the rest were bhnded" (Rom. xi. 7). It is with a profound emotion of melancholy that St. John contemplates that labour of love which the eternal Word has carried on with our sinful race, and we cannot fail to detect in the words which he here uses, in which he records the general history of the world and of -all its nations, an accent of grief and sorrow. " The liglit shineth in darkness and the darkness comprehended it not." Let us not read these words without fastening upon oui' own hearts, and pondering what we find there ; for not without meaning is it written, "The Light shineth,'^ — not shone, but '^ shiaeth in darkness." how much brighter does it shine upon us than it does among the heathen, or even than it did under the old covenant ! " The darkness is past, and the true Light now shineth," — such is St. John's announcement ; let us then walk as children of the Light and as children of the day. But did not the Light grow weary of shining, having shone for the most part in vain through the space of 4000 years ? No, it did not grow weary, but rather waxed stronger and stronger in giving Light. " Although the bhnd wicked world does not desire the blessed Light, — ay, though it cannot endure it, but persecutes and blasphemes it, yet through the wonderful mercy of the true, eternal Light, it shines still for the sake of the little flock who are to be enlightened by it. Lt does not set on ac- count of the unthankfulness and contempt of the great godless mass" (Luther). True, we hear as early as from Isaiah's mouth, the mournful complaint of the Messiah : " I said, I have la- boured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought and in vain" (Isa. xHx. 4) ; nevertheless, how clearly, just in this very chapter, is the " Light given to the Gentiles" seen to shine as the salvation of God even to the ends of the earth. How clearly the accepted time and the day of salvation stands here 16 THE WORD BECAME FLESH. before the eyes of the Prophet, who saw the most distinctly of all, the glory of the eternal "Word (chap. xii. 41), when, with accents of mercy never before heard, the Lord was to " say to the prisoners : Go forth ! and to them that are in darkness : Shew yourselves ! " This time arrived ; the Light of men, uncompte- hended by the darkness, but yet not weakened in those yearn- ings of its love which led it to seek to rescue men out of their darkness ; — that Light poured its beams among mankind in perfect fulness, " bodily ;" the eternal Word became Flesh, in order that men, who are flesh, might be able to see His glory. Yet before this all-mild, all-precious shining of the Light was revealed amid the darkness to the eyes of men, it was preceded by a herald, an " angel ;" yet one more Prophet, the greatest among them all, was to testify of the Light ; and thus in hearts which were longing for and expecting salvation, make ready the way for its manifestation : Ver. 6. " There teas a man seni from God whose name was John." A man, one out of that little company which had compre- hended the Light shining in darkness, was sent forth by the true Light on an errand to men. The apostle, in this verse, accurately portrays the last witness belonging to the Old Testa- ment, whose finger indeed stretches itseK over into the New Testament : as to his person, he " was [was born] a man ;" as to his office, " sent from God ;" as to his name, he " was called John." He was seyit by God, in fulfilment of the promise : " Behold I Avill send my messenger [angel] before me" (Mai. iii. 1). He was called John, " God-gracious;" " he was not to be called by a chance name like other people, but by a name which was to bring the very reality which it means along with it, — which is what all names do that God makes and gives" (Luther). But what made him a real " God-gracious" was not his person, but the office of witness Avhich was given him by God, and the CHAPTER I. 1-18. 17 substance of his testimony whicli was full of God's mercy and grace. Ver. 7, 8. " The same came for a witneiis to hear witness of the Lifjht, that all men throucjU him might believe. He was not that Light, hut toas sent to hear loiiness of that Light." John Baptist's mission was to bear witness, and indeed to bear witness of the Light, which he himself had recognized, and by experience knew to be the true Light (ver. 31) ; for it is only what has been known by experience that can be borne witness to. John could attest on his oath that this Jesus was the Son of God. It is indeed true that the discourse of all Prophets, relative to the future Christ, is a tvitness of truth known by ex- perience (1 Pet. i. 11), for the Spirit of Christ was m them, and in the Spirit they saw Him (chap. viii. 5Q, xii. 41) ; but here- in is John's witness alone in its kind, that it points with the finger to the present Clirist, as to Him in whom all the pro- mises of the Prophets are Yea and Anicn (ver. 26). The object of John's witness was, '■'■tliat all men through him (not on him) might believe.^' How highly does the Lord Christ, here honour the spoken word ! Even as He Himself lived and moved in the Avritten word of the Old Testament, and drew from it comfort in his heaviest hours ; so in the mouth of St. John He gives to this word a voice, in order that all might hear the " report," and thus gain that faith wliich comes by " hearing ;" (Eom. X. 17). "Let us take particular note of this, that John was sent from God to bear witness of the Light, that all through him mJght believe. For the Anabaptists, and similar hurtful poisonous visionaries, are always giving out, as you often hear, (and higlily necessary it is that you be warned to be on your guard against them,) the Spirit, the Spirit must do it. ' What is the use,' say they, ' of hearing the outward word, of trusting to that, as if it was to be the way and means through which we come to the faith and receive the Spirit, all the while that it is nothing more than written with pen and ink, and the moment it is read, passes away into air and is gone 1 ' Thus mockingly B 18 THE WORD BECAME FLESH. do they blaspheme the blessed Word of which John was called and sent by God Himself to bear witness ; just as if John were a monstrous excrescence, whose testimony we did not want. But here we see that the Evangelist extols John the Baptist, and tells us that his office could not be dispensed with. For he bears witness of Christ, and points to Him who is the Life and Light that enlightens all men ; by which he indicates that the outward word is serviceable for bringing about this very end of our coming to faith and receiving the Holy Ghost. For God has determined that no one shall or can believe or receive the Holy Ghost without the Gospel which is preached, or by word of mouth taught " (Luther). All men, through Jolm's testimony, were to believe. God's gracious purpose towards Israel was universal. All were ear- nestly caUed upon, through John, to come to Christ ; but the greater part rejected the counsel of God (Luke vii. 30) ; only a very small company, amongst them the Evangehst John him- self, allowed themselves through the Baptist's testimony to be brought to Chi'ist. Our apostle is well able to affirm that it was not God's fault that all did not beheve through the preach- ing of John the Baptist. For see [ he himself had believed. The connexion shews that this word all applies primarily to the people of Israel. But, at the same time, it uicludes aU among us. For faith in Christ flourishes only in them, who in their consciences have been convicted and terrified by that law which John's voice proclaims, and who are thus led to take refuge in the Lamb of God to whom John's testimony points. Bearing witness of the Light, John Avas himself a light, a l)urning and a shining light (chap. v. 35) as the Lord calls him ; but he was not the Light ; and it is exactly in this that hia greatness consists, that he himself Ameto that he was not (chap, i. 20, 27). Behevers are shining lights in the dark world (Phil ii. 15), and the community in which Christ dwells is called " the light of the world " (Matt. v. 14), but it is only because " our Light is come" that we become light (Isa. Ix. 1) ; Cluist alone CHAPTER I. 1-18. 19 is the Ligiit (Eph. v. 8) ; and having become light from Him, we bear witness of the Light ; and as we are called Christians from Christ, so are we called lights from, the eternal Light. This is in particular the modest and highly prized vocation of every single servant of Christ (1 Cor. iiL 5). "Their whole office and testimony must tend to this end, that they bear wit- ness to this Light and Life, and extol the same to the souls of all around them, and point their eye to Him alone, declaring that He is the Lord, and they only His servants. His beauty, how white and ruddy (Cant. v. 10) ; His glorious mercy, His wealth in all heavenly treasures, — all this they must place be- fore souls and not glorify themselves, or seek their own praise " (Bogatzky). Woe to the preacher who finds too little for him- self the praise that was given to the greatest of the Prophets : " He was not that Light, but was sent to hear witness of that lAght." " For if they set forth in view themselves instead of Christ, they give light no otherwise than as a bit of snuff or dirt in the flame of the lantern, which may stink, but light it does not give" (Luther). "Just as when we see some object lit up by the sun's beams, we are aware that the sun has risen, though we may not be able actually to see him ourselves ; and just as a man, however weak may be his power of sight, at any rate is able to look at a mountaia or tree shone upon by the sun, though he may not yet be able to look at the glorious luminary itself ; so in like manner did John give light to those who as yet were not able to look at Christ, and through him, while he acknow- ledged that his hght was that cast upon him by the rays of another, the shining and enlightening One Himself was per- ceived and recognized" (Augustine). Yes, the Sun was rising : Ver. 9. " That teas the true Light, which lighteth every man, that Cometh [was coming] into the tvorlcV' When John the Baptist made his voice to be heard, the true Light, of whom he witnessed, had already appeared in a personal form, in the Son of the blessed Virgin. But the apostle's eye at present is resting on the time when the Saviour was living in 20 THE WORD BECAME FLESH. the retirement of Nazaretli, until He came to John to be baptised by him ; therefore he says, " He was coming." He was just an the point of coming, He was rising even as the morning sun gradually rises upon the earth. The words, coming into the world," belong not to " every manj'^ but to " the true Light." Never in the New Testament is it said of the birth of Jnen, that they " come into the world," and even the Jewish expres- sion : " all who come into the world," is a periphrasis only of the term nmn, which term could not also stand along with it. But it is on the other hand most strictly true of our Lord Jesus that He has come into the world, since he is not of the world, but descended to this dark earth, from heaven, the abode ol" light and glory. At the same time, however, this " He was coming" of St. John, with a loud voice reminds us of the pro- mise in Malachi [iii. 1.] : " Behold He shall come," as a promise which was now being fulfilled. He who in Malachi was to come, was even now coming. Christ, the eternal Word, is the true Light. His eternal nature is perfect Light; full of serene majesty is He ; whoever else has light, as for example, John the Baptist, has only received it as a- gift of Grace, imparted to him out of His infinite fulness. For this reason also is He the true Light, viz : because He lights ever]) man, not one people or one race merely, but every man. " Teach all nations ;" such is the command of the true Light. For the illumination of every man is this Light appointed to shine ; he who does not withdraw himself from Him, receives light, and every" one who ever does receive light, gets it from this Light, or else from none at all. Even " lovers of darkness," know something of this, that the Light of redeeming Love is beaming upon them ; but that it retires and withdraws before their hatred, — this is their condemnation and judgment. " But it is not the faidt of the Light, I mean, of our Lord Jesus Christ, tliat all are not enlightened, or even that it is only the smaller l)rtrt of maulrind that is so. For He is called and tridy is, the Liglit uf the world, and of all men, aijd shines also ever and ever; CHAPTER I. 1-18. 21 He is also appointed by God to be so : see Isaiah xlix. 6. The fulfilmeBt of this promise in Isaiah was soon to be in fuU swing in the Apostles' time (Acts xiii. 47.) For the Gospel has re- sounded as far as the sky extends, it has given forth its Ught and splendour throughout the whole world. But the fact that all did not receive, nor do now receive the blessed Light, (they feel the brightness and light of our doctrine, it is true, but they will not see it,) does not forfeit to the Light its name, neither does it lose it its honour." (Luther.) Beautifully writes John Brenz : " The earthly sunlight only illumines eyes that see, but Christ the true Light enlightens the eyes of the tlind ; He is at once the Eye and Light of the world." And what is tJie residt of the enlightenment which the true Light gives to tliose wlzo receive Him 1 The Apostle tells ns in ver. 13 : " He gave them power to become the sons of God." As, after saying [in ver. 4.] "In Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men," the Apostle adds with painful emo- tion the words : " And the Light shineth in darkness, and tlie darkness comprehended it not ;" — so in like manner, im- mediately after the joyful intelligence of the coming of the *' Light of men" into the world, for the illumination of all man- kind, tliere follows the mournful complaint : Ver. 8. "ZTe teas in the tcorld, and the wmld was made by Him, and the world kneio Him not." He was in the world : St John's gaze is still fixed on the true Light, who is the eternal Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, therefore he says directly, He. Yes, He was now in the world, and indeed in a different way from that in which from the be- ginning He had shone amid the world's darkness : He was come into the world. " In His Divine Nature He was in the world from the beginning ; He came mto the world in the flesh, because the blind did not see Him in His Godhead." (Augustine.) What before was called " all things," St. John here no less than four times names " the world." With that word, " tcorld," (it occurs sLx:ty-eight times in the coiu'se of the Gospel,) there 22 THE WORD BECAME FLESH. is always associated in his mind a thought of pain. Dark- ness has marred the lightsome work of the Creator, and has made it into " the world." Mankind, who have wandered out of the Light of Life, and lost themselves in the darkness of death, these are become icorlcl. " Corrupted mankind are called the world, because they love the world more than their Creator. Through love, we make something our dwelling-place ; and there- fore what we have made by our love to be our dwelhng-place, fr(3m that we have deserved to be called" (Augustine). Comp. ' especially 1 John ii. 15 — 17. Yet St. John distinguishes between world and world. The whole world is a ^.s^ world; yet in Christ, God has had pity upon it, and would fain by His love draw it out of destruction (chap. iii. 16); but the world which despises such love, and, in antagonism against Christ, continues world, under its Prince and Captain, the Devil, is a rejected world, for which the High Priest does not pray (chap. xvii. 9). The world should with songs of adoration have celebrated the arrival in the flesh of the eternal Word ; but it is only angels, (whose nature he did not take on Him,) that we hear in the silent plains of Bethlehem singing His praise. "He loas in the. world,'' and it had Him near enough to know Him ; yea, it had in Him its own Creator before its very eyes : " and the world was made by Him.'" Ought not the creature to have known its Creator 1 — " atid the tvorld knen- Him not ;" so dark- ened had it become, so estranged from its original image, that it no longer knew the Author and Preserver of its being! There is something indescribably melancholy in these words : " He was in the world — and the world was made by Him — and the world knew Him not !" And yet the Apostle has something still more grievous to add, — a thing which recalls to our mind the Saviour's tears over Jerusalem : Ver. 11. "He came unto His awn, and His own received Him. not." " Hear, O Heavens, and give ear, earth, for the Lord hath CHAPTER I. 1-18. 23 spoken : I have nourislied and brouglit up children, and they have rebelled against Me. The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib ; but Is^i-ael doth not know, My people doth riot consider.''' From out of tlie world, the work of His hand, the Lord had long ago singled a people, as the object of his tender love and care, to share the confidence of His Heart, and to be the deposi- tary of His revelations. That nation the Lord of the whole earth chose before all nations to be His own pecidiar treasure, in order that, as a nation of Priests, it might, under the kingly protection of its God, cherish, guard, and be the means of forwarding the salvation designed for all people ; to them, also, among their other saving blessings (Eom. ix. 5.), pertained the Glory, that is, the glorious dAvelling-place (Shekinah) of the eternal Word (the angel of the Covenant) in the midst of the people, revealing Himself in the pillar of cloud and of fire in the tabernacle and in the temple. "^The Lord his God is with him and the shout of a King is among them" (Numbers xxiii. 21). That they Avere a people of Christ, whilst the other nations were without Christ (Eph. xi. 12), this it was that formed the glory of this people. This glory, which had been Israel's delight from of old, and its longing since the days of its captivity (Malachi iii. 1), had now shone upon them, full of grace, and dwelt bodily in the holy temple furnished in the Humanity of the eternal Word. Thv^ did He come unto His own ! He was in the world, a man amongst men ; He came unto His own as the promised Seed of Abraham, as the longed for Hero of the stem of Judah, as the Star out of Jacob and as the Sceptre from Israel, as the long- desired Son of David, as the Prophet raised up unto the people from among His brethi'cn like unto Moses, Jew among the Jews ; but as the dark, benighted world no longer knew Him who was their Creator, so in like manner, the peculiar people, faithless to the covenant, no longer knew Him whose own it was; "and His o'um received Him not." "Open to me, my sister, my love, my dear, my nndefiled," says the heavenly Solomon to the daughter 24 THE WORD BECAME FLESH. of Zion ; tut the sluggard received Him. not, and He went His Avay (chap, viii. 2 ] ). Yes, tlie Scriptures must be fulfilled, the lieathen are beforehand with the peculiar people in receiving salvation; for, as a nation, it has rejected its King: "From the uttermost part of the earth have we heard songs, even glory to the Eighteous. But I said : My leanness, my leanness ! Woe unto me ! For the treacheroui< dealers have dealt treacherously, yea, the treacherous dealers have dealt very treacherously." The apostle calls even those His awn who yet did not receive Him, in the same "way as the Saviour Himself speaks of those who were " cast out," still as children of the Kingdom, and chil- dren of Wisdom (Matt. viii. 12), of whom however she was [justified] declared free (]\fatt. xi. 19). What a torment for the damned there must be in this name, " His own !" Oh, that "whenever He bestows any favour upon us as His own, as His members, we may with fear and trembhng reflect that it "will be to us either a cause of eternal rejoicing, or of eternal lamenta- tion! "The coals of fire" of His despised love, — these are they that will add its most fearful intensity to the fire that never shall be quenched. "77/6' oirn received Him notr In vain had the Advent hymns of the Old Testament (as P^salm ci.) sounded the melody : "How shall I receive Thee?" In vain had the last of the Prophets cried: "Prepare ye the way of the Lord !" His own, whom He had received into His loving guardianship, received not Him; no joyful applause, no submissive homage, "welcomed the King of Israel. "In the Apostle's view, it means more that His o"wn did not receive Him, than that the world did not know him. ' The world knew Him not ;' this shews the lamentable blind- ness of fallen nature, "which by its own strength and reason is unable to know Christ. 'His own,' — who possessed the word of revelation — did not receive Him ; this is a proof of that most extreme wickedness combined with blindness, "with which they Avithstood the Holy Spirit, who, through the Word given unto them, Avould now fain have enlightened them." (Chemnitz.) CHAPTER I. 1-18. 25 Luther plainly sees the storm of God's Avrath gathering over his beloved Germany, which the Lord had so graciously visited with His Voice and "received as His own," because, as he feels, it had not known the visitation which had been so mercifully accorded to it. Alas, how fearful is the fulfilment which his prophetic forebodings are now meeting with ! Say unto the King and to the Queen : " Humble yourselves, sit down, for principaUties shall come down, even the crown of your glory " (Jer. xiii. 10). Hitherto, John has been speaking of the "peculiar people" as a whole, and accordingly in the words, " His own received Him not," he has uttered his lamentation over the rejection of the hereditary King of Israel. But now his eye brightens, for it falls on the remnant of the inheritance, ay, and on the branches of the wild olive-tree, too, that are grafted into the good olive tree, — on the "daughters of Jerusalem," who are planted in the lily gardens of the heavenly Solomon. Ver. 12, 13. "But as many as received Him., to them gave He poiver to become the sons of God, even to them that helieve on His name, which were horn, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.'^ Wherefore, John, didst thou say nothing concerning the punishment of those who did not receive Him 1 Alas, what greater punishment could they have than that of being deprived, through the guilt of their unbelief, of the power which was of- fered to them of becoming the sons of God ! Here Ave see the reason ivhy so few of His own received Him. That "power" and honour which Christ gives to His faithful ones, deluded Israel did not desire to possess ; for it was rather expecting in its Messiah a Gideon and a Sampson, who should deliver his people out of the hands of the Midianites and Phili- stines of that time, the Romans. That sonship with God is ob- tained by virtue of the "jjoiver'" and right which God confers, Israel knew well enough ; but that the faithful reception of the only begotten Son of God, and that alone, should be the Avay 36 THE WORD BECAME FLESH. of gaining true sonship, was an unbearable announcement to those sinners, reposing as they were in proud security on their descent from Abraham. This ever has been and will always con- tinue to be the grand point on which all depends, that only he wlio receives Clirist in faith, and with adoring reverence gives lionour to His name and to His revealed Glory as the only be- gotten Son of the Father, only he, and none besides, receives power to become a child of God. To Christ, sonship with God belongs by nature, He is the Son of God ; to man, on the Con- trary, ruined by sin, and sunk in the depths of the flesh, the sonship does not belong by nature (by nature he is a child of wratli) ; he can only be a child of God by hecnming so ; and the " power" which enables us to become so is faith, which lays hold on tlie name of Jesus Christ, so that Avhat is Jesus Christ's be- comes ours also, " that He might be the First-born among many brethren." The God-mnn has obtained for us the poAver to be- come GncVs-iiien. Because Jesus Christ is become my Brother, I joyfully cry to the Father of my Brother, "Abba, Father !" To no other right do I appeal, no other power do I know, than the right and the power of faith, which gives me to exult and say: "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons of God." When Philip Melanchthon was dying, he said aloud and distinctly to his surrounding friends: "I have those words of John con- cerning the Son of God, my Lord Jesus Christ, before me con- tinually, The world received Him not, but as many as received, Him, to them gave He 'poioer to become the sons of Go'1, even to them that believe on His namer The evangelist is evidently anxious that sonship -with God should be acknowledged to be what it is, a pure gift of free grace, imparted out of the fulness of the only-begotten Son ; therefore it is that he adds so emphatically, that those Avho are by faith endued with the power of sonship, are born, not of blood, the source of our natural Hfe, nor of the vnll of the flesh, which is the ciiuse of the natural birth, even though it should be the CHAPTER I. 1-18. 27 7r!ll of a distinguished man (comp. tlie use of the word man in Psa. iv. 2, and xlix. 12 — liigh in the English version stands for sons of men in the Hebrew), of a hero, or some paragon of a philosopher, — because " that which is born of the flesh is flesh' and no more ; and, therefore, nature left to itself and infected by sin, is altogether destitute of the hero-quality which might give a man power to become a child of God. It is true that the will of man in heathenism has endeavoured and does so still, to pro- duce children of God, but the apotheosis of human nature has never been able to attain the blessing of the Divine nature ; this children horn of God alone can share (2 Pet. i. 4). We are utterly unable to mount up to God, except God first comes down to us. " It was impossible," says Athanasius, " that our nature, subjected as it was to corruption, could rise to immorta- lity, if the immortal nature did not communicate to us of its Being, and thereby renew us and raise us out of the region of rottenness to the possession of its own glory." "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us ;" it is from thence alone that we receive power in the flesh to share the life of the Son of God as God's true children, as younger brethren of the first-born, and conformed to His divine image (Col. i. 15; Eom. viii. 29). As Luther says : " This Jesus Christ our Lord alone brings this birth, He alone gives to them who belie\'e on Him the right and power to become the children of God ; it is the Son alone Avho gives the right of sonship ;" or as Chrysostom explains the con- nection between the 13th and 14th verses : " The dearly beloved Son of God became the Son of Man, in order that He might make out of the children of men the children of God." The thought which St. John expresses in this 13th verse is repeated by St. Paul in Gal. vi. 15, in these words : "In Christ Jesits, neither circumcision availeth anji^hing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature." (Comp. also Gal. iii. 28; v. 6; 2 Cor. v. 16, &c. ; 1 Cor. i, 18-31. In Adam we were brought out of nothing into being, but in Christ we are created anew into union with God from godlessness, from being children of wrath into children 28 THE WORD BECAME FLESH, of love, namely, that love which Jesus Christ has 'regained for us, and which in the Gospel lays hold on ("apprehends," Phil. iii. 12) us, that we in faith might in turn lay hold of it. This is the way of grace. " Here thou must put away from tlaine eyes all that the world counts high, and great, and splendid, ay, thou must forget every creature. For all that comes of us belongs to hell, it is sentenced and condemned to death. ]^otliing avails here except being born of God, through faith in the Son of God, who has become flesh." (Luther). But now the holy Apostle bursts out into a glorious confession of this Name in which he believes ; he wishes, from most blessed experience, to make known the secret of this Name. He says : Ver. 14. ^^ And the Word v:as made fleshy and dwelt among tis ; — and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, — full of grace and truth.'' It is thus we receive Him, it is thus we believe in His name, St. John means to say. The evangelist also commences this verse Avith " And /' not as if he were here speaking for the first time of the coming of the eternal Word, but because now, his heart leads him to make known the adorable manner of his coming, and also, because it is here that he first expressly in- cludes himself in the number of God's children, of those that believe on the Word which was made flesh. " Yes, I proclaim with joy this my Gospel (1 John i. 1, &c.), the Word became FLESH ! " — The Word, which was in the beginning, from all eternity the Life and the true Light — this Word became flesh. He did not cease to be what he was before, but he became what he before was not : fesh. The apostle does not say : The Word became man — though that also would have been true — but : the Word became flesti. " God is manifest in the fesh " (1 Tim. i. 1 6). Human nature, as it is in consequence of sin, in its weakness and mortality, is called in holy Scripture /'fw/j ; " He remember- eth that they are but/e^'7^." (Comp. Deut. r. 26; Isa. x. 4, 5, 6 ; Joel iii. 1 ; St. Matt. xxvi. 41). In this fcsh did Jesus Christ CHAPTER I. 1-18, 29 come ; " because the children of men have flesh and blood. He Himself likewise took part in the same;" " hi the likeness of sin- ful flesh " did He appear, " a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," and " in the days of His flesh offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears." " All that deep humility, which no tongue can fully tell, the Evangelist in the little vfordflesh desires to point out to our attention." (Luther.) " He might, to be sure, easily have created a new human nature to take upon Himself, — a nature which should have been more rich and glorious than it had been in Adam before the Fall ; biit He chose rather taking our nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin ; — this nature which, on account of the frailty, weakness, and misery with which it is laden by reason of sin, is called flesh." (Chemnitz). Having become flesh, though "C^bhout sin, Christ, whilst He bears our sins, bears also the consequences, the punishment of our sins, in His flesh (1 Pet. ii. 24 ; iii. 1 8), in order that for our flesh itself He might obtain redemption and glorification, after that in His own person, all poverty of the flesh and all the woes of death should have been swallowed up in His indissoluble and happy Hfe. He is rich, and for our sakes became ^Joor, " that we through Hib pnverty might be rich." There properly belongs to His humanity, by virtue of its having been taken into the ever-rich Life of the Word, an infinite wealth of glory, which, from the moment of His incarnation, would, without ceasing, have beamed forth from it, — if the power of His love had not quenched that brightness, and made His flesh to be much more the veil to conceal His glory than the mirror to reflect its splendour. For He became flesh, not in appearance only, but in real earnest, — flesh of our flesh ; His infinite, almighty Being He hemmed in within narrow limits, that, as a "finite and cu-cumscribed man," Pie might become capable of human obedience and human suffering. This is the humiliation of the Word become flesh : that Jesus Chri.st emptied Himself of that form of Majesty which would properly liave been the attribute of His human nature itself, by virtue of 30 THE WORD BECAME FLESH. its full participation with His Godhead, and took upon Him the ybrw of a servant — became Jlesli — '■'•just like another man, and was found in fashion as a man.''* Not as a robbery would He seize upon his exaltation in Divine Glory, but rather receive it as the reward of His obedience. We cannot comprehend how the Son of God, in the midst of His abasement, continued to be God^ fur it was however He Himself who emptied Himself and took the form of a servant ;— we cannot, I say, understand this ; but we know that what His love wills, that it can do ; and nowhere has the incomprehensible nature of God revealed itself in greater love than m this renunciation of His divine riches. Yes, God, who was rich from all eternity, became flesh, that is, became poor, and yet was still God, having all the while a wealth of love of which He could not empty Himself, — a love which then was saying : It is my Will io become thus poor ! " Thou mightest, Emmanuel, have come into our vale of tears in the splendours of the form of God, if such had been Thy will. As the sun goes forth shining out of his chamber, so mightest Thou have come out of Thy blessed Mother's womb in the light and in the guise of the Man who is Jehovah Himself. Then would the mountains have rejoiced and the hills have skipped for joy, — ^the trees before Thee would have blossomed and clapped their hands,— the sea woul