Life in the Word 199 the Word of God is “living” in the sense that, like other living substance, it has the property of furnishing nutrition, and thereby sustaining life. It is a life-süstaining Word. But here a notable difference attracts our attention. Physical food comes up out of the earth (Psa. 104:14), while spiritual food comes down out of heaven. (John 6:50.) ' Reference has already been made to the fact that, after setting forth the great truth of spiritual conception and gen eration through the incorruptible seed of the Word of God, the Apostle Peter enjoins attention to spiritual nutrition. “Wherefore,” he says, “as new-born babes desire the sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby” (1 Peter 2:1, 2). Evidently his Lord’s threefold injunction, “Feed My sheep,” “Feed My lambs,” had impressed upon him the importance of spiritual nutrition. But proper feeding requires appetite for wholesome food, and so he seeks to excite a desire in young Christians for that whereby they may grow. And he imme diately connects the Word with Christ saying, “If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.” The importance of nourishing and sustaining the new life received upon coming to Christ, and the unhappy consequences which always result from neglect of the appropriate diet, have been so often and so forcibly stated by the servants of Christ that it seems hardly necessary to dwell upon this matter. What our subject specially calls for is to note the correspond ence between God’s way of sustaining man’s physical life by food derived from a living source, and His way of sustaining the believer’s spiritual life by food from a living source, that is to say from the living Word. The passages which present the Word of God as the food for His children are very familiar; and in bringing them to mind again we would impress it upon our readers that these statements are not to be taken as if they were poetical or figurative, but as very literal, practical and immensely im portant: In making man it was not God’s plan that he should
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