Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1891-07-03
THE WORD MADE FLESH.
LESSON |, THIRD QUARTER, INTER-
NATIONAL SERIES, JULY 5.

permission of II. 5. Hoffman, publisher, Phil
adelphia.1
We now enter upon the simplest, and yet
the highest and deepest of all the gospels.
/. "In the beginning was the Word"
We are here introduced to the Son of
God as "The Word" the telling out of the
Fathers heart by whom we are to know
the Father. By peoples words, if they are
honest we know their hearts, so by the
Son rs the Word of God we shall know our
Heavenly Fathers heart toward us.
and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God"
Can we for a moment wonder at His
oneness with the Father before He ever
came as a man?
.. "The same was in the beginning with
Cod"
The words Sin the beginning" in this
verse and the last take us to Gen. i, /; but
who can tell when "the beginning" was?
3 "All things were made by Him; and
without Him was not anything made that
was made"
See how full the statement in Col. i, 16,
II, which closes with these words, "All
things were created by Him and for Him;
and He is before all things, and by Him
all things consist"
4. SIN Him was Life, and the Life was
the Light OF men,"
Apart from Him no one, however good
morally or even religiously, has what the
Scriptures call Life.
.. And the Light shineth in darkness.
and the darkness comprehended it not"
Weak eyes cannot bear natural light,
neither can sinners bear the light of God,
unless they are willing to be healed, and
then Christ, the Light of God, will first be
their healer and then their life der. xxxiii,
G, John y, 10). And they will soon learn
to sing "Behold, God is my salvation" Tor
health lisa. xii. p.
q. There was a man sent from God,
whose name was John"
We now turn for a few moments from
the Light to the herald of the Light. Jesus
testified of him that "Among them that
are born of women there hath not risen
greater than John the Baptist" Matt.
ri, ~.
:. THE same came for a witness to bear
witness of the Light, that all men through
Him might believe"
The Spirit said through Malachi "Be
hold, will send my messenger, and he
shall prepare the way before me" (Mal. iii,
y. This is now the business of every be-
lever, to bear witness to the Light by let
ting the Light fill them and shine through
! them.
s. "He was not that Light, but was sent
TO bear witness of that Light"
He bore witness by the Spirit in him, by
whom he was filled from his birth duke j.
/ l5). and we can only be witnesses by the same
/ Spirit acts i, s..
0. THAT was the true Light which light
eth every man that cometh into the world"
See His own oft repeated, II am the Light
of the world" John viii, IL; tx, 5; xii, 40,
and give good heed to the fact that there is
no need to walk in darkness.
10. HE was in the world, and the world
was made by Him, and the world knew
Him not"
Having created all things for His pleas
ure and glory, He created man in His own
image rs the head of all things and to have
dominion over all things Gen. i, p, 2S);
! but man having by sin defaced the image
and lost the dominion, the Creator came in
human form as a man to restore the image
and the dominion. Yet He was treated as
a stranger in the world which He had
made. Seek, by in some faint measure put
ting yourself in His place, to realize some
what the state of things here described.
II. He came unto His own, and His
own received Him not"
a stranger to His brethren and an alien
Even jobs experience when brethren were
far from hisn, acquaintances estranged,
kinsfolN failed, familiar friends forgot, a
stranger in his own house, wife. children,
servants, all against him dob xix, 1910
even this was not equal to the ex-
perience Of God manifest in the flesh.
y. But as many as received Him, to
them gave He power Tor the right or priv
ilege) to become the sons of God, even 10
them that believe in His name"
While the nation rejected Him few be
lieved on Him, and this was their privilege
Each nearer has it in his or her power to
keep Him out or let Him in, and thus con
tinue in darkness and death, or pass from
death to life.
49, (Which were born, not of blood, nor
of the will of the flesh, nor of the will OF
man, but of God"
The Jews thought that because they
were of the blood of Abraham, descended
from him, that therefore they We're safe
viii, 33). They were full of the works OF
the flesh, their own doings, and that was
their righteousness in which they trusted
II. And the Word was made flesh and
dwelt among US (and we beheld His glory,
the glory Of the only begotten of the
Father, full of grace and truth"
As the glory of God was concealed from
the people in the Holy of Holes, within
the veil, in the tabernacle and in the tenn
pie, so in the body of the Lord Jesus, as
within veil (Heb. X, POI the glory was
concealed from natural eyes while lie was
here in humiliation. But on the Mount OF
TRANSPORTATION it shone forth.
10 John bare witness of Him, and cried
saying, This was He of whom | spake, He
that cometh after me is preferred before
me, for He was before me-"
Not rs a man born of woman was Jesus
Son of Mary, before John, son of Eliza
beth, but as Johns creator and the creator
of all men.
16 And of His fullness have all we re-
ceived, and grace for grace"
1T pleased the Father that in Him
should all fullness dwell. in Him dwell
eth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily
Col. i, 49, ii, 81, And we are filled full in
Him. Receiving Him Verse ~ we must
have all that He has and is.
II. For the law was given by Moses, but
Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ"
The law showed what man ought to be,
but never could give life nor make man
what he ought to be, because of his sinful