He claimed to be Almighty G.o.d while on earth.
He claims it from heaven.
He says I am G.o.d--he says that because he declares himself as embracing the whole extent of being.
Listen:
"I am he that _is_"--that is to say, the self-existing one; for the statement is the cognate of that, "I am that I am," which is the pre-eminent appelative of deity.
"I am he which _was_"--and this extends being into the past; that past he himself defines. He does not say I am in the beginning, but I am _the_ beginning--_beginning itself_--the _origin_ of things and, therefore, himself unbegun, eternal, from _everlasting_. It is the echo of that far-flung phrase of old: Even "_from everlasting to everlasting thou art G.o.d_."
"I am he which is _to come_"--this includes eternity future--the unendingness which stretches without a horizon beyond the present.
Here is fulness--and the fulness of the G.o.dhead _bodily_.
In saying these words upon Patmos, then, our Lord Jesus Christ says:
"I am G.o.d--I am Almighty G.o.d."
Nor is this a mere conclusion from the premise here!
He says it directly, plainly and squarely himself.
He says not only that he _is_, and _was_, and _is to come_--but he says--
"I AM THE ALMIGHTY."
And Paul, the special apostle of the Church, unites with Thomas (the believing, but material evidence demanding representative of the elect remnant in Israel) in proclaiming the deity of G.o.d"s Christ.
Thomas falls at his feet and cries:
"My Lord and _My G.o.d_."
Paul bows his head in adoration before him and writes:
"_Our great G.o.d_ and Saviour--_Jesus Christ_."
Upon the august throne of the universe he is seated.
He who lay a babe upon a woman"s breast; who, although he was infinite, became an infant; who being in the form of G.o.d, did not hesitate to put off the divine glory and put on mortal humanity that (as an infinite person) he might, through the "prepared" body of his mortality, offer an infinite sacrifice for men; who died under a malefactor"s doom, but with his nailed hands, in the hour of his agony, saved a thief from h.e.l.l--opening to him the gates of Paradise; he who refused the deliverance of angels when they bent above his cross, that by his cross he might give to men the deliverance angels could not give; lie who was buried in a borrowed grave; who rose as an immortal man, ascended as the _Second Adam_-- the _New Head of Humanity_--the _Life Giver_ to a world, and took his seat on the _Father"s_ throne, as witness of redemption achieved and salvation secured--he sits there now, and having taken to himself the glory which he had with the Father before all worlds were, having clothed his _immortal_ humanity with that "_form of G.o.d_" which ever was his, now sits the centre of a world"s adoration and heaven"s amaze, as the G.o.d MAN--the highest form of G.o.d and the ultimate form of man; the proclamation that man in Christ is the archetype of G.o.d and G.o.d in Christ the archetype of man.
As we thus gaze upon him in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the G.o.dhead bodily; as we meditate upon him, seek to reason about him, are touched by his love, held by his power, and filled with his life, we say with the inspired apostle: "Without controversy, great is the mystery of G.o.dliness: _G.o.d was manifest in the flesh_."
"_Our great G.o.d_," repeats Paul, and he adds, to balance the wonder of it, "and _our Saviour Jesus Christ_;" he who, in some glad day nearer than we think, is coming back to this old, sin-stained, grave-digged world--to be owned and saluted by all nations, peoples, kindred and tongues as--
"THE G.o.d OF THE WHOLE EARTH."
With all this glory and this wonder he is, as the angels said, (who spoke of his ascension, session and Second Coming), "THIS SAME JESUS," full of tender mercy, and loving compa.s.sion; by virtue of his perfect sacrifice able to save unto the uttermost all who come unto G.o.d the Father by him; saying from heaven as he once said on earth: "Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out"; but saying at the same time, and with unfailing faithfulness: "No man cometh into the Father _but by me_"; saying it faithfully because, of a truth, only in the _Son_ can the _Father_ be found.
Let me exhort all who may read these lines, if you have not already done so, to fall down at his pierced feet, and with deep contrition for all your transgressions and for your very _nature_ of sin which helped to nail him to the accursed tree, say with voice of unfailing love and unfaltering faith:
"My _Saviour_ and my _G.o.d_."
If you have already owned him as your Saviour, then, as Thomas of old, with the voice of deep devotion say:
"My _Lord_ and my _G.o.d_."
To those of you (if there be such) who still deny his deity and persist in calling him good, he, himself, is asking you from heaven as he asked it aforetime upon earth:
"_Why_ callest thou me _good?_"
In asking you that he is putting upon you the responsibility of the terrible conclusion of your own premise:
IF NOT G.o.d--NOT GOOD!
Are you willing to face him in eternity with that inexorable alternative:
"IF NOT G.o.d--NOT GOOD?"
Christianity
WHAT IS CHRISTIANITY?
WHAT is Christianity?
The question seems a belated one.
It never was more pertinent than now. Its pertinency rests upon two facts.
First: the modern drift in Christianity and its absolute failure.
Second: the phenomenal triumph of primitive Christianity.
The modern drift is antagonistic to doctrine and repudiates the miraculous.
It sets aside the virgin birth, has no toleration for atonement by sacrificial death, and positively refuses to accept the bodily resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
It holds that G.o.d is the Father of all men. Each man is inherently a son of G.o.d. He has in him all the elements of the divine lineage.
Exercise and culture are alone needed to reveal these elements and demonstrate this lineage. Salvation is not the redemption of a child of the Devil, but recovery of a child of G.o.d from the hands of the Devil. Salvation is the restoration of the individual to the consciousness of this relationship; but salvation is effectively individual only as it is primarily social. The time has pa.s.sed (so we are told) when the individual may be discussed and his social condition ignored. To seek out an individual here and there and endeavor to redeem or recover him while the environment remains unchanged, is a waste of force: as foolish as it would be to spend millions on remedies for people sick with malaria in a pestilential and malarial district, and ignore the condition of the district.
True wisdom would demand first of all that the district be purged, the environment made healthy, the cause of malaria destroyed.
Human beings are neither sinning nor suffering because a possible first man away back somewhere ate forbidden fruit at the insistent appeal of his too persistent wife. Men are sinning and suffering because social conditions are all wrong. These wrong conditions fill the mult.i.tude with discouragement and depression. They are unable to breathe an inspiring life force. They cannot obtain sufficient impulse to live above low levels. The laws, the customs, the inequalities of life, hedge them like brutes in a corral. This corralling and hedging of humanity _en ma.s.se_, while the few pull away from the crowd and create an environment satisfactory to themselves at the expense of the crowd, is the _raison d"etre_ for all evil conditions. Let us have right legislation. Let us make right laws. The moment the social condition enables a man to discover the divine things in him, he will live right by preference.
We are no longer to spend eloquence, prayer and time on revivals, and now and then, here and there, get an individual to live fairly right in spite of hindering conditions. The sermon of the preacher should appeal to the law-maker rather than to the law-breaker; it should arouse men, not to the danger of a h.e.l.l far off, but to a h.e.l.l near at hand, the h.e.l.l of unjust laws, of sanitary neglect, of oppression of man by man.
Social redemption! that is the watchword.