power of the sight, come to resemble. "The incarnation was the eternal become temporal for a little time, that we might look at it."* *Henry Drummond, The Ideal Life. p. 147. CHAPTER VI. CHRIST, THE REVELATION OF GOD. “In the beginning was the Word." John i, 1. "Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." 1 Cor. i, 24. "We faintly hear, we dimly see, In differing phrase we pray; The Light, the Truth, the Way." -Whittier. OTHER half-blind, half-luminous premonitions, of what the writers of the New Testament saw in Christ are found in the personifications of "wisdom" and "word" in certain parts of the Old Testament and in other pre-Christian Jewish writings. Israelitish writers frequently personify the spoken word of God, which, in the first chapter of Genesis, is said to have been so potent in the creation of the world. God's word, said Jeremiah, is like a fire and like a hammer which breaks the rock.1 Another prophet conceived the divine word as capable of being sent on a mission, which it 1Jer. xxiii, 29. 2 3 would not return without accomplishing.' Similarly a psalmist thought the word of God could be sent on a mission of healing. "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made," sang another, while a later writer exclaimed, "O God, who hast made all things by thy word." This latter writer represents the divine word as leaping down from heaven like a man of war into the midst of the Egyptians for their destruction, thus making a very strong personification of the word of God. Among the Greeks the term "word" had also been used for some five hundred years to denote a manifestation of God. It was first used by Heraclitus, and had been used by many philosophers after him. In the Gospel of John these two ways of describing the self-revealing power of God, the one Hebrew in its origin, and the other Greek, meet and unite, and the mind of the evangelist finds in Christ their full realization, and in them types of Him. "God," says another writer, "having spoken 1Isa. lv, 11. Ps. cvii, 20. Ps.xxxiii, 6. mon ix, 1. Wisdom of Solomon xviii, 14. unto the Wisdom of Solo fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in His Son."1 God had been speaking to men from the beginning; gradually they had perceived that the whole universe was an expression of His will, that it was formed by His word, that His word accomplished all things. After the Christ had come they saw that God's Word-the clearest expression of His thoughts and purposes for menhad actually been living in their midst. 66 The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us." Somewhat similar is the way in which the word, "wisdom" became a type of Christ. In Job the preciousness and mysteriousness of wisdom is charmingly set forth; as it also is in the third chapter of Proverbs. The climax is reached, however, in the eighth chapter of the same book where wisdom is made to declare in poetic strain: "When He established the heavens, I was there : When He set a circle upon the face of the deep, 1Heb. 1, 1-2. Job xxviii. "Then I was by Him as a master workman; In the Wisdom of Solomon the same strain is continued. In the seventh and eighth chapters the author's fervid enthusiasm for his grand conception trembles on the verge of making wisdom an actual person. In a magnificent description he ascribes to wisdom all conceivable heavenly qualities and beneficent activities, so that she seems at times to be almost an independent being. Thus the way was prepared for the apostle's declaration : "Christ is the wisdom of God." Wisdom to the Hebrew was not mere knowledge. It included all practical wisdom in the management of affairs and the conduct of life. It mounted to the religious sphere, beginning in the fear of God. More than the Hebrew sage thought he found in wisdom, the manifestation of the divine power and benignity, the Christian 'Prov. viii, 27-31. |