The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1896-07-07

To-
preston Il am 1.-THE verb ito be- i!
the foundation Of all language. The
first thought of an intelligent being
consciously having separate existence
In Genesis So: IL he is said TO describe
| himself as Il am God Almighty" He
thus declares himself to be possessed OF
all power-to be omnipotent. In Nal
achi SO, For | am the Lord Cthe He
| brew is Jehovah the existing one)
l change not" These answers are re-
markable when you remember that
they were put into writing long before
we knew what were some OF the abso-
lutte essentials of any being or materi-
al claiming to be eternal" Again
ask the question and the Apostle John
! (who if not God-inspired was nothing
more than a common fisherman) says
| God is spirit Do we know anything
! of spirit? Certainly; noted scient-
! ist has said that we know more of spir-
it than we do of matter. l ask an old
man to tell me how far back he can re-
member He replies Ninety years. -
I say to him, THE materials of your
| body have changed many times since
| that day, but what of yourself; are
| you essentially the same person." and
| the answer is, Yes. We are all
aware of a something written, differ
ent from our flesh, something which
we cannot see, touch, taste, weigh or
subject to physical experiments, but
still an undoubted reality. This most
men have agreed to call spirit" rs
what we call spirit akin or similar to
what God describes Himself to be-"
If so, we have point of contact. Lis
| ten to the Bibles answer, And God
81
age, after our likeness" God is spir-
it''-man made in His image" Don't
misunderstood me. I do not mean to
imply that God is a great, big, over
grown man. The language of the BIZ
BILE is the language of men, with all
the limitations involved. You cannot
prison infinite thought in finite Ian
guage, although we can readily under
stand how, the way being open, God
could convey to us, according to the
limits of our capacity, a knowledge of
Himself. 1 return again to the Bible
and ask the Apostle Paul if he can
tell us anything of God. Listen to the
reply, for it is fundamental of Christ
ianity:
God was manifest in the flesh, justi-
fed in the spirit, seen of angels,
preached unto the Gentiles, believed
on in the world, received up into glo-
ry." You will remember that at the
beginning [ said that Christ is Christ
ianity,' and here we have the greatest
of the apostles telling us that the
man Christ Jesus was God manifest in
the flesh, etc. Genuine Christianity
glories in this statement of its position
with reference to Jesus Christ, and
of 70 Cta
Professor Huxley willingly admits that
Christ Jesus is the ''nobleat ideal of
humanity which mankind has yet wor-
SHIPPED" That he is the ideal of hui
mainly is perfectly correct; but if he
means that genuine Christians worship
1.-The man Christ Jesus" as an ideal of
humanity he is mistaken. Christians
worship Christ Jesus as God, infinite
and eternal, at the same time that they
take his life as man as their ideal,
and the teachings of himself and i'm
mediate followers as expressing their
principles. l am we'll aware that God
manifest in the flesh" means incarna-
ton of deity. If you have been able to
agree with the Bible teachings and the
experience of mankind you will find no
difficulty in that. God is a spirit"
Man was made lin his image, in his
likeness" Man is spirit incarnated-
spirit clothed upon with flesh. This
fact of mans incarnation takes place
thousands of times every day, as hu-
man lives touch the shores of time
The question of probability comes in
here, and you may be asked, why
should God be manifest in the flesh
incarnated?" No trivial reason, GER
tainly, should be given to such a ques-
ton. / ask the Bible for it's answers.
In John X, 10, Jesus Christ tells us,
81 am come that they might have life,
and that they might have it more
abundantly." Again, Jesus said unto
her, I am the resurrection and the life;
he that believeth in me, though he
were dead, yet shall he live; and who
soever liyeth and believeth in me shall
never die" Again: For this pur-
pose the Son of God was manifested
that he might destroy the works of the
devil
l call your attention to the fact that
the Bible never shrinks from describ
ing man as he is. 1t says man is suf-
fering, perishing, dying; but instead of
joining in the despairing, hopeless wall
of anguish of the materialist, it says to
mankind, 81 can tell you the cause, and
God has provided a remedy" What
does Christianity say is the cause?
''Sin." 1t says that for man sin has
been the cause of all his woe, and ends
in death, physical, spiritual. This is
fact of our personal experience
something with which we come in con-
tact every day. Let me illustrate the
process. We will take some young fell
low from genuinely Christian home
He goes out into the world with
splendid, healthful body and a soul un-
tainted; he gradually, as a rule through
acquaintance, is led into temptation,
sins and continues in it until in
space of time so short that it seems i'm
possible to his friends, the young mans
bodily strength is gone, he is near to
physical death, while the pure mind
and lofty spirit has humanity speaking.