was a perfect man, because the fullness of God the Father dwelt in him bodily. His life manifested every human virtue in perfection, unmarred by the selfishness of the flesh; and in this same holiness of life was his almighty power. We are complete in him. Had Jesus been God sent down from heaven, dwelling in the flesh of men, but with powers of life which no man can reach; then while he is the most sublime character ever on earth, he is not our elder brother, our pattern for life, nor our forerunner into glory. If he was God and men are not Gods, then his greatness according to our theology, is the measure of the wonderful sacrifice, it required to appease the Almighty's wrath, when angry with men. But being a real man, and men also being divine with him, then his wonderfully superior life is the light of the world, the bread upon which the souls of men may feed, and grow with him into the fullness of the life of the Father. As plants under the sun grow and bedeck themselves in colors from its light, so men develop in grace by assimilation through the knowledge of the great sun of righteousness. Inventors and discoverers are great because they go before their fellows, finding new countries and new methods for commanding the creature into our service. Ordinary mechanics are making machines which it took master minds to invent; and commerce is traveling in paths which heroes first passed over. Jesus first wrought out our salvation, he first entered into perfect humanity, the life which God has in reservation for us. However great the characters of men may become, Jesus remains always the captain of our salvation, the first to enter into the glory for men. 33 Beloved we are now the sons of God, and it doth not yet *1 John 3:2. appear what we shall be, but we know when it doth appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, the Son of man, or perhaps as we would have written it, a real Christ, a full Son of God, a perfect Son of man. While Jesus Christ was the living, present manifestation of the Father's redemption, yet every virtue he announced as being in store for the Son of God, the Son of man, included with him and referred to the race of men when in the fullness of faith. God's gifts to men are not by arbitrary election, but his own life quickening them; and this is effected by a knowledge of him revealed to sincere souls. 34No man hath seen the Father, save he who is of God, he hath seen the Father. Spiritual vision is by the holiness of our intuitions. That man's nobility of character is feigned and is selfish at heart whose impulses are not in a sincere walk before God,—35he is condemned at once because he hath not believed being in the nature, of a son begotten only of God. 36 Verily, verily, I say unto you, the Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do, for whatsoever he doeth these also doeth the Son likewise. A holy man is a visible expression of the Father. The moral forces of the world are Jehovah's impulses in men. God works in men both to will and to do of his good pleasure, and when his life is supreme in men, they will be in perfect holiness, and with absolute dominion over the creature, through their wills. 37When the Son of man shall come into his glory, and all his holy angels with him, then will he sit on the throne of his glory. 34 John 6:46. 38 For as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself, and shall give him all manner of authority and power to execute judgment, because he is Son of man. The purpose for which God created the human race is that men shall develop into the fullness of the stature of a man as was Christ Jesus, and through their holiness supplant natural life, with the divine life emanating from their glorified bodies, as the risen body of Jesus, breaking the bands of death, woke the saints sleeping in the grave about the holy city. God has committed unto the earthen vessels of men, the reconciliation of the creature unto his life, his love, his power with perfect liberty from sin and death. 39The whole creation is groaning and travailing in pain together with us, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our bodies that it with us may be delivered from the bondage of the corruption of sin and death, into the glorious liberty of sons of God. 40 For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son. 41 Marvel not at this, for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and shall come forth;-they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation. Some great day a generation shall live on the earth, who shall be filled with the power of the holiness of life, so that they like Jesus, when, on the mount, shall be transformed into glorified bodies. 42For the Lord shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel and the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words. CHAPTER XVIII LIFE EVERLASTING HE death of a man is a dishonor to God. The everliving Jehovah never dies, and man created in his image ought not to die. As long as men are dying they have not regained what was lost in Eden, they have not grown into the fullness of the stature of sons of God, living by divine will alone. 1If ye live after the flesh ye shall die; but if ye through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. The purpose of God in creating men was that the holiness of his life breathed into them might command the creature into the power of everlasting life. God is not willing that any should die, but that all should turn to him and live. When he could swear by none greater, he swore by himself saying, As I live, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that all should turn unto me and live. Turn ye, turn ye, O house of Israel, for why will ye die? David deprecating the condition of the natural man wrote; The wise men die like the fools and the brutish. They who rejoice in the multitude of their riches, as if their dwelling places would continue to all generations, perish like the beasts, like sheep they were are laid in the grave. None of them can by any means redeem his brother by giving God a ransom for him. The redemption of even their own souls is too precious, they shall cease, they shall go to corruption, 'Rom. 8:13. |