of the letter; from words and names of men; free in thought and action and desire; free from mutability and corruption; free as the Lord was free; he can become a servant to all, as a later "Verily, Verily," teaches," 56 by his service to free others as he has himself been made free. We Here then is the conclusion of this matter. are brought to liberty by truth, and to know the truth by continuing in the word, which we first receive by faith on testimony. Knowledge of the truth is the fruit of faith; not faith the fruit of knowing. For at first we are, and must be, babes; and babes, whether in the flesh or in the spirit, must believe before they know; for it is not possible for them at first in their own experience to understand a thousand things, which yet will open to them as they grow up through youth to manhood. So, first believing, they will know the truth. And then the truth will make them free. Let none forget this order: first faith, then truth; first truth, and then in due time freedom. In every age there have been souls, who have thought to be first free, and do as they please, and then in self-will to choose and find the truth. I do not say that truth is never to be so found at last, for men may learn it through judgments. But the way of the New Man is by faith to come to truth, and then by truth to reach to liberty indeed. Self-will can never rest. To live in self-love is to live in bonds: to be free indeed we must live in love, and God is love. The Son is the image of the invisible God. In giving Himself to us He gives us God, and makes us partakers of the divine nature, which is not self-love, but love. The 56 See the Seventh "Verily, Verily." K perfect law of liberty is love. He that looketh into this law and continueth therein is blessed; for so beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord he is changed into the same image. Well then might Augustine say, "Love, and do as you will." Love, and love only, is the perfect freedom. 9957 Such is the liberty which the Son bestows, the liberty of the sons of God, yea the very liberty of God, for the Son who makes us free, and who is our life, is very God. Every such freeman is a partaker of the divine nature,58 because a partaker of Christ.59 This is a great deep. Yet a glimpse into it is given in the next "Verily, Verily," which opens, not the liberty only, but even the divinity, of the New Man, who is the Son of God. 57"Dilige, et quod vis fac." In Epistol. Johannis, cap. iv. Tractat. vii. 8 58 2 S. Peter i. 4. 66 SIXTH VERILY, VERILY." THE DIVINE NATURE OF THE NEW MAN. (S. JOHN viii. 42-58.) I HAVE already noticed of these reiterated Amens, that, like the Four Gospels, the truths they open of the New Man are all so intimately connected with and overlap each other, that it is impossible to speak of them without some repetition, for all are but varied aspects of the nature or workings of the same one heavenly life. Every truth therefore respecting this life involves some other, and each one really involves all. The first, for instance, that the New Man's home is heaven, necessarily involves the next, of the new birth, and that only by a birth into heaven can man re-enter heaven. This involves the next, that, as a son in the Father's nature, he does nothing from self, but only what the Father doeth. This again supplies the reason for the following witness, as to the New Man's heavenly bread; for as the tree lives upon its root, so can this new life only be sustained by that from which it has come forth. This again lies at the foundation of the teaching, as to his freedom, for that freedom is through participation with the Son, who is not a bondman, but the true heir. These are all in substance one truth, and all involve, if they do not assert, that the New Man possesses a divine nature. Here in the Sixth "Verily,Verily," this Divine Nature of the New Man is distinctly taught. He has "proceeded forth and come from God."1 Yea He can say, "Verily, Verily, before Abraham was, I am.”2 Hence He can be the means of communicating to others the seed of the same eternal life: "Verily, Verily, I say unto you, if a man keep my saying he shall never see death." Nothing higher can be said. All that follows touching the New Man speaks, not so much of His nature as of His work, and of the way in which, through toil and sacrifice and death, He is perfected and made the means of others' perfecting. Here our Lord testifies of this Divine Nature, which He has given to us in giving us Himself. , 99 66 1. First He says, "I proceeded forth and came from God": "Verily, Verily, before Abraham was, I am "4 while almost in the same breath He calls Himself" a man," and the "Son of Man; a man that hath told you the truth," and "the Son of Man who shall be lifted up."6 The preceding Amens, in what they had said of "angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man," who "shall execute judgment also because He is the Son of Man," who "came down from heaven to give to men the flesh and blood of the Son of Man," who even on earth is "the Son of Man which is in heaven," and who says plainly, though it stumbles some, "What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where He was before," had all implied, that He of whom these things were true, though Son of Man, was indeed essentially divine. In the words before us this 1 Chap. viii. 12. ? Chap. viii. 58. Chap. viii. 51. 6 Verse 28. claim is only made in plainer words. The Son of Man is both "of God" and also "very God." He is " of God," for He "proceeded forth and came from God." He is very God," because "Verily, Verily, before Abraham existed, I am."7 St Paul only sums up this teaching 66 when he says, "The Second Man is the Lord from heaven.”8 St John states it more fully in the wellknown words, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; and the Word was made flesh."9 Christ shows it us in fact. In Him we see man according to God's purpose. And in Him man is the Son of God, and the Son of Man very God of very God. Let us, like Moses at the bush, which burned and yet was not consumed, draw near to see this great sight, of God in man, and man in God, and the Word made flesh, that our vile body might be fashioned like unto His glorious body. The mystery then here opened is that the Son of Man is God. Such a subject must be difficult to apprehend, and even more to speak of, not only because God's being and nature transcend our thoughts, but also because few ever attempt even to look into the heights and depths here opened to us. We say indeed that God is spirit, and the Son of Man is God. But we little think what spirit is, or what it is to be eternal. All our thoughts are naturally limited by ideas of time and space. And yet, if the Son of Man is indeed God, He must have been, or rather is, eternal. And eternity, properly speaking, is not time. Time, space, and matter, which seem so real, are but appearances of 7 The marked difference of the words used in the original, which is important, πρὶν ̓Αβραὰμ γενέσθαι, ἐγώ εἰμι, is lost in our Authorized Version. 9 S John i. 1–14. |