THE HOLY ONE OF GOD.

JOHN VI. 69. (R. V.)

WHEN we consider that the value and efficacy of all the Lord did, depend upon what He was, we must feel the importance of a firm grasp of the whole truth as to His person. And there never was a time when the necessity of this was greater, simply because the efforts on the part of the enemy to undermine the truth were never more subtle or varied. Yet varied as they are, their object is one; for whether the Godhead of the Lord be denied, or His manhood be assailed, the glory of His adorable person is affected. But in the Scriptures eternal wisdom has given us all we need to meet the devil's subtlety.

The first two chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews have been spoken of as two pillars on which all the grand truths of the subsequent portion of that Epistle securely rest. The first chapter sets forth the true and proper Godhead of the Lord Jesus, and the second no less clearly displays His perfect humanity.

In the first chapter of John's Gospel, after setting forth the glory of the Word, the eternity of His being, the distinctness of His personality, and His true and proper Godhead, the apostle writes, "And the Word became flesh," thus marking both the reality of His manhood, and the personal grace in which He took the first step in that wondrous path of obedience by which He glorified the Father.

The Lord was and is both God and man. It is not true as some of old taught that He simply appeared in

human form as He had done in former days when in grace He spoke to men. Nor is it correct to regard Him as a human person in whom, at a certain period of His earthly course, Godhead took up its abode, as in a casket or temple. All such notions spring from the effort to explain what is inexplicable. "He who ever subsisted in the form of God "took upon Himself the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men." (Phil. ii. 6, 7.) Yet He did not cease to be what He ever had been. Of the glorious form of God He could and did empty Himself, but He could no more cease to be GOD than the Father could cease to be God. "God sent forth His Son" from the bosom of His love and the uncreated glory of His presence, and He, "whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting" (Micah v. 2.), was "born of a woman." Here is the marvellous mystery! He to whom, in fellowship with the Father, creation owed its being, and who had been the object of adoration to all the heavenly hosts from the moment of their existence, HIMSELF became flesh, and was born of the virgin.

Thus did He for ever cease to be simply in the form of God; yet it is impossible for us ever to regard Him simply as man. For though He is most truly man, and that for ever, every attribute of Godhead is of necessity His. From the moment of His birth His name was "Emmanuel, which being interpreted is "God with us." (Matt. i. 23.) The babe upon Mary's breast is "the mighty God," and the man who is smitten upon Calvary and laid low in death is "Jehovah's Fellow." (Zech. xiii. 7.) We are no more at liberty to say that Christ died as man, than we are to say that He rose again as God, for in the indivisibility of His person He said, "I lay down my life that I may take it again." (John x. 17.) He was as truly God when He "increased in wisdom," or "being wearied

with His journey sat thus on the well," as He was very man when He went up into heaven and took His seat on the throne of God. Godhead in all its fulness, and manhood in all its perfectness are united in the one person of the Christ of God, and it is this blessed person whom the Gospels ever keep before us, and who is spoken of throughout the whole New Testament.

Many things are said of Him which could be predicated only of one who is man, and many other things are set forth which could only be declared of one who is God; but it is of the Person who is both that all these things are true. We may not understand this, but those who are taught of God can believe it, and can rejoice in the assurance that eternity will not be too long to ponder the mystery of the glory of Him whose name is "Wonderful." And we should lay to heart now, what we shall instinctively feel then, that when we consider Him we are on holy ground, and that the contemplation of the worshipper with unshod feet (Ex. iii. 5) is more becoming than the speculation of the reasoner. For it is just here that so many have overstepped the bounds of Scripture by allowing the argument that because certain things are stated of the Lord, therefore certain other things must be true. For example, Scripture affirms that the Holy Child "increased in wisdom," but when one says "He must have misunderstood at one time what He more fully understood afterwards," he argues on merely natural grounds, and presumes to add to the inspired statement. Misunderstanding is an evidence of imperfection, and surely the statement that He who was the Wisdom of God "increased in wisdom," may well fill us with wonder without our daring to supplement it by imagining that He ever misunderstood anything. Such reasoning should be for ever silenced by that word which, speaking of Him at the

age of twelve, declares that the doctors were "astonished at His understanding," and intimates His knowledge of the mystery of His birth (Luke ii. 47, 49.), but gives no hint of His needing correction.

The same must be said of the inference that because the Word so truly became man that He could hunger and thirst, could weep and be weary, and could lay down His life, therefore He was subject to bodily disease,* and consequently to death, like the natural offspring of Adam. Such teaching is often based upon Hebrews ii. 14, as though the expression "the same" signified the same flesh and blood as the children's. But the passage simply states the great fact that "as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise partook of the same (things)." And mark the object of this. Death was the very citadel of Satan; to be perfectly defeated he must be conquered there, and He who would enter into that stronghold must be capable of dying. The Lord therefore took flesh and blood "in order that through death He might render powerless him that had the power of death." Who could do this but One who, though capable of death, was not liable to death?

"By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all sinned." (Rom. v. 12.) Everyone therefore springing from Adam by natural generation may truly be described as being chargeable with inherited guilt, and as only possessing a forfeited life. All such must either enter the dark fortress of death as captives in chains, or be delivered from its fear and its sting by a power outside themselves.

But

* These words of warning are not given without cause, as some will understand.

+ Twν аUTŵv does not qualify, but is equal to the repetition of the words, "flesh and blood."

with no inherited guilt, and therefore under no condemnation, and with no seeds of mortality in His blessed person, did the Holy One of God come into the world. For though, of course, He was the son of Adam as truly as He was the son of Abraham, or of David, and though He was truly man, the seed of the woman, yet it was by the direct operation of the Holy Ghost, and the overshadowing power of the Highest that He was conceived in the womb of the virgin, and therefore as born of her He was emphatically a "holy thing." Here was indeed "a new thing," one who was very man, but with no stain of sin, under no subjection to death, and therefore able when the time came to offer Himself without spot to God, and "to GIVE His life a ransom for many." He thus died the only death it was possible for Him to die, the death of atonement as the substitute of His people.

It is very important to maintain the principle that all interpretation of type and prophetic experience must be guided by plain statements of New Testament Scripture, and therefore any assertions that the Lord actually suffered bodily disease may well be met by the affirmation that there is not a single verse in the Gospels that gives any foundation for such an idea; and, it may be added, all those Scriptures that speak of the perfectness of His sacrifice most emphatically repudiate it. He was without blemish and without spot" (1 Peter i. 18), and "He offered Himself without spot to God." A leprous spot in His sacred body would have rendered Him as unfit for God's altar as would a spot of sin in His soul. In this respect also it is incumbent upon us to remember that Scripture speaks of the whole person. He Himself, in the entirety of His being, was without spot. And where a distinction is made between soul and body, it is the body that is emphatically said not to have seen corruption. (Psalm