ernment and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice, from henceforth even forever" (Is. ix. 6, 7; cf. Mic. v. 2 seq.). The great unknown Prophet of the Exile tells of the suffering and victorious Servant of God, and in language that might almost pass for prediction after the event, so exact is it even in details, the sufferings and death of Christ with the glory which should follow (Is. xl.-lxvi., especially liii.). Daniel in vision beholds the mysterious Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, sees bestowed upon him "an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away" (Dan. vii. 13 seq.; cf. ix. 24-27).

And so when the Christians of apostolic times, many of them fresh from Judaism, and all of them believing that the Old Testament contained a divine revelation, confessed their faith in the words JESUS IS THE CHRIST, they meant that in him all the predictions of the earlier revelation respecting "him that was to come were fulfilled. They saw in him the perfect Mediator between God and men, of whom the ancient prophets, priests, and kings were imperfect types; he was, like the angel of the Lord, the theophany, the manifestation of the divine presence; in his humanity abode the Shekinah, the indwelling of God, as in a new and holier temple; he was Jehovah come to earth for judgment and redemption; he was the Messianic King, the Ruler of Israel and mankind, the Sovereign in the long-promised and now established kingdom of God. All this and more they ascribed to him who sat upon the throne, and summed it all up in that one word Christ.

II. But let us go back and consider the teachings of the Bible respecting the pre-existent Christ. Who was this Being who fulfilled all prophecy by becoming Jesus Christ?

We shall not expect to find the answer clearly given

while the Saviour was still on earth. When the disciples, after his ascension, came to understand his kingly glory, the Holy Spirit taught them the nature of his preexistent glory. Before that time the psychological conditious for the understanding of the mystery were not present. It was one of those subjects respecting which Jesus told his disciples just before his death: "I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when he, the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all the truth" (John xvi. 12, 13). Jesus himself said little of his pre-existent state. Yet he did make a few significant utterances upon the subject, which have been preserved by that disciple whose eagle eye afterward saw deepest into the mystery. He speaks of his being sent into the world (John v. 36, viii. 42, x. 36, xviii. 37). He declares that he came down from heaven (John vi. 38). In controversy with the Jews, who denied his knowledge of Abraham, on the ground that he was not yet fifty years old, he gave utterance to the astounding assertion, "Before Abraham was I am!" (John viii. 56-58). In his prayer of high-priestly intercession at the close of the Last Supper he referred in solemn language to the glory which he had had with the Father before the world was (John xvii. 5). All this is little, but it is enough, taken in connection with his assertions of his divinity, to show his claim to have existed in participation of God's eternity.

The two apostles from whom we derive our chief knowledge of the pre-existent Christ are Paul and John. It is interesting to notice that they were the two who had the fullest and truest conception of his exalted glory after his ascension-Paul, the apostle, to whom at his conversion was vouchsafed the vision of the risen Christ in the dazzling light of his divine majesty-John, the disciple, who leaned on the Saviour's breast at the Last Supper, and in the marvellous vision on the isle of Patmos, was taken up

into the heavenly glory and saw the King in his beauty. According to Paul, the Christ before his incarnation was the Son of God, the eternal Son of the eternal Father, the sharer of His essential Deity (Rom. viii. 3, 32; Gal. iv. 4; Col. i. 13 seq.; Phil. ii. 6 seq.). In that magnificent passage in the first chapter of Colossians, in which the relations of the Christ to the whole universe-God, world, angels, and men— -are set forth, he is described as "the image of the invisible God, the first born of all creation " image as being the revelation of God, first-born in the sense of superiority to the whole creation; "for in him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things have been created through him, and unto him; and he is before all things, and in him all things consist," that is, hold together or have their continued existence (Col. i. 15–17). Could his Deity be described in language more impressive! It seems marvellous that anyone who accepts the Bible as true can read those flowing words and then declare the eternal Being, Creator and Preserver of all things, who became incarnate in Jesus the Christ, to be less than God. But there is still another passage, equally magnificent, with a lyric power which shows how nearly allied are poetry and religion, in which Paul traces the career of the Christ from the primitive heavenly glory through the earthly humiliation back to the heavenly glory again (Phil. ii. 6-11). How does he here describe the pre-existent Christ? As "being in the form of God," that is, as having his essential and eternal existence in the divine, or as being possessed of a divine nature; while equality with God is represented as his right, his personal possession, which he temporarily and freely relinquishes for the purpose of carrying out his mission of redemptive love. In this connection I may mention the language of the epistle to the Hebrews, probably not written by Paul

yet closely related to his teachings. Christ is described before his incarnation as the eternal Son, the Creator of all things, the Being who upholds all things by the word of his power, the effulgence of the divine glory, the very image of God's substance, who reveals God as the light reveals the sun, or the impression the seal that made it (Heb. i. 2, 3).

And then we come to John's teachings. His Gospel begins with the eternal pre-existent state. He who be came incarnate is declared to be the eternal Logos or Word, the principle of the divine self-revelation. In the beginning he was with God, and HE WAS GOD (John i. 1). There is no reason to believe that John in this solemn declaration which is the caption of his Gospel means less than he says. The whole Gospel is only a carrying out of this main theme. If John had not used these words the truth would have been implied in his declaration that the exalted Being of whom he tells was the Creator of all things, the Source of all light and life, spiritual, intellectual, physical, in the universe. He was the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father (John i. 1–18). Such was the Being who "became flesh and dwelt among

us."

The New Testament gives us reason to believe that long before the incarnation, indeed from the beginnings of human history, the Logos was the active agent of revelation and redemption in the world. He was "the true light, even the light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world" (John i. 9; for the rendering of the verse see Meyer's" John," and Dwight in Godet's "John," Am. ed., in loc.). The deepest insight into New Testament truth tends to confirm the teaching of the Fathers respecting the "Logos Spermatikos," the divine Word in the soul of every man, who leads even the heathen to the truth. It was the "Spirit of Christ" that spoke through the prophets of the Old Dispensation (1 Pet. i. 11; cf. iii.

18-20, according to a widely accepted interpretation). (Paul says that the "spiritual rock" which followed the Israelites in the wilderness was Christ (1 Cor. x. 4, 5).) We cannot doubt, if we accept the New Testament doctrine in its general principles, that the divine Logos was present in every revelation of God during the Old Dispensation. For this reason the New Testament writers, and even Jesus himself, apply without hesitation to the Messiah Old Testament language of which the original reference is to Jehovah (Matt. xi. 10; Heb. i. 8-12 compared with Psalm xlv. 6, 7, and cii. 25-27; Rom. x. 13 with Joel ii. 32; 1 Cor. ii. 16 with Isaiah xl. 13; 1 Cor. x. 22 with Deut. xxxii. 21).

Summing up these Scriptural data, we may say that he who became incarnate in Jesus the Christ was truly God, distinguished from the Father as the Son, the Word, the Image, the Effulgence, of God, second in the Godhead yet not less than God. Whoever will call this truth in question must seek his arguments outside of the Bible. The pre-existent Christ was God.

III. We are now to examine the Scriptural doctrine of the Christ on earth. Our chief difficulty will arise from the richness of the material. Yet I shall hope to make the main points clear.

The first fact which meets us is the incarnation. "The Word became flesh" (John i. 14). He "who being in the form of God, counted not equality with God a prize to be violently retained, emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men" (Phil. ii. 6-8). Though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, that we through his poverty might become rich (2 Cor. viii. 9). The object of the incarnation was redemption. "God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish but have eternal life" (John iii. 16, 17).