The God-Man 277 the suspension of such tremendous issues on the decree of our love for the person of a mere creature, is an idea utterly- revolting to our moral sense. He must be the God-man. 13. Jesus set Himself forth as the appropriate end of our lives and of all divine providences. He requires us to live for Him, and for His glory. As we have seen, life is to be sacri ficed, if fidelity to Him shall so require. The sickness of Lazarus, He taught, was ordered, “that the Son of God might be glorified thereby” (John 11:4). He expounded the scope of the Holy Spirit’s mission in one pregnant sentence: “He shall glorify Me” (John 16:14; John 15:26). This Messianic reading of all things proved wonderfully suggestive. I t is amplified in the apostolical Epistles. Thus, Christ is “Lord both of the dead and the living” (Rom. 14:9). The great object of apostolic desire was, that Christ might be magnified in their bodies, whether by life or by death. (Phil. 1 :20.) The early Church’s one idea of the present state was: “For to me to live is Christ” (Phil. 1 :21). And they looked forward to the final Epiphany, because Christ would then “come to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them that believe,” and because His name will then be “glori fied in you” (2 Thessj 1 :10-12) . Under Him, as the Universal Head, all things are finally to be gathered, and towards this consummation all things are now working. (See Eph. 1:10.) Now, such a presentation of Christ by Christ, and by His apostles inspired by Himself and His Spirit, we cannot har monize with Socinian views. For surely He, for whose glory we are to live, and the whole universe exists, must be the Lord of all, God over all, blessed for evermore. What right has our Lord to be the supreme End of life, if He be not its Source, its Preserver, in short, its God ? 14. Very suggestive, too, are those passages in which Jesus promised His continued presence to His disciples after His ascension. Beautiful are the words: “Where two or three
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker