The Purposes of the Incarnation. 41 that Man of Nazareth in His birth, His life, His cross, as but a manifestation. The whole fact cannot be seen, but the whole fact is brought to the point of visibility by the way of Incarna tion. If indeed this One be very God manifested, then remem ber this, the whole measure of humanity is in Him, and infin itely more than the whole measure of humanity. Beyond the utmost bound of creation, God is. All creation, heaven and earth, suns and stars and systems, angels and archangels, prin cipalities and powers, the hierarchies of whom we hear, but cannot perfectly explain their nature or their order, all these are in Him; but He is infinitely beyond them all. I begin to wonder. In amazement I begin to believe in the possibility of lifting the burden of my sin. The cross, like everything else, was manifestation. In the cross of Jesus there was the working out into visibility of eternal things. Love and light were wrought out into visibility by the cross. Love and light in the presence of the conditions of sin became sorrow— and became joy 1 In the cross I see the sorrow of God, and in the cross I see the joy of God, for “it pleased the Lord to bruise him.” In the cross I see the love of God working out through passion and power for the redemption of man. In the cross I see the light of God refusing to make any terms with iniquity and sin and evil. The cross is the historic reve lation of the abiding facts within the heart of God. The measure of the cross is God. If all the measure of humanity is in God and He is more, and the measure of the cross is God, then the measure of the cross wraps humanity about, so that no one individual is outside its meaning and its power. He Who was manifested is God. He can gather into His eter nal life all the race as to its sorrow and as to its sin, and bear it. Yet remember this, It was not by the eternal facts that sins were taken away, but by the manifestation of those facts. This text does not affirm, and there is no text that begins to
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