Literature.
Barrow (E. P.), The Way not a Sect, 23. Briggs (C. A.), The Incarnation of the Lord, 190. Brooke ('S. A.), Christ in Modern Life, 63, 75. Campbell (K J.), A Faith for To-day, 197. Church (R. W.), The Message of Peace, 159. Dale (R. W.), Christian Doctrine, 45. Dods (M.), Footsteps in the Path of Life, 19. Douglas (A. H.), Sermons, 249. Goodwin (H.), Hulsean Lectures for 1S56, 1. Gregory (J. E..), Scripture Truths made Simple, 41. Holland (H. S.), Creed and Character, 3.
„ „ Fibres of Faith, 92.
Hughes (H. P.), Essential Christianity, 44. Kelman (J.), Ephemera Eternitatis, 306,
Mackennal (A.), The Eternal Son of God and the Human Sonship, 9. Macleod (D.), Christ and Society, 141. Matheson (G.), Moments on the Mount, 221. Maurice (F. D.), Christmas Day, 1. Murphy (J. B. C), The Service of the Master, 36. Ramage (W.), Sermons, 1.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxxi. (1885), No. 1862. Taylor (W. M.), The Limitations of Life, 15. Thomas (J.), 21ie Mysteries of Grace, 16. Warfield (B. B.), in Princeton Sermons, 94. Westxjott (B. F.), The Historic Faith, 43, 58.
„ „ Village Sermons, 33.
White (E.), The Mystery of Growth, 79. Christian World Pulpit, xx. 198 (Haynes) ; lii. 371 (Storey); liii. 24
(Gore) ; Iv. 236 (Lynch). Churchman's Pulpit : Christmas Day : ii. 208 (Scott), 223 (Swauson). Homiletic Review, Ivi. 457 (Mair).
The Incarnation of the Word.
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth. — John i. 14.
1. " The V/ord." Thrice elsewhere (John i. 1 ; 1 John i. 1 ; Kev. xix. 13) is this term used to designate the same Person. It is used in the first verse of this Gospel without apology, and without definition, as if the readers were acquainted with it, as indeed they were, for it had a large circulation among both Greek and Jewish thinkers. It is one of the most pregnant words used in the New Testament. In verse 18 we are told why the term is so used — " No man hath seen God at any time ; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." As thus used the term is one of great significance. By our words we make our wills known to others. By our words we issue our prohibitions or commands, and give effect to our intentions. Our words, then, give expression to our will. And, similarly, the Word of God is God's will expressing itself. It is the God of Heaven coming into relation with created things and revealing Himself.
2. Who is this Word ? He is one who existed in the begin- ning, and is in perfect union with God, being the expression of God's thought and purpose and energy. He is Himself the Creator of all things, of bird and flower, of mountain and sea, of sun and star. He is the Creator of man ; and all the Hght of truth and goodness that has ever arisen in man's heart came only from Him. Who, then, is this mysterious Person, this Eternal Word of God ? We must turn to this fourteenth verse. " And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace
28 THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD
and truth." The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us ! This august and mysterious Word of God, Himself became a man. Then we know who He is. He must be Jesus, that Jesus of Nazareth who was born in Bethlehem.
3. Far away down the years, at the close of the first century, an old man sits brooding over the things that he had seen and heard in the cities of Judah and in the fields of Galilee. Forty, fifty, sixty years, and more perhaps, now lie between him and the scenes which he records. Sixty years — and such years ! — years of revolution — years of judgment — years in which the old order perished in doom, and the New World rose into victory under the breath of the Spirit of God. He had himself, long ago, it may be, laid up in the Book of the Eevelation the visions in which the tremendous drama of those momentous years moved towards its final and critical act. Yet, now, his look is not forward into the silences that delay the trumpet-blasts of Divine action. His eyes turn ever back, overleaping the crowded interval ; back to those wonderful days when he walked behind the feet of the Master — the days when he saw, and heard, and handled. Still his whole being hangs upon those sealed memories. Still he ponders, and weighs, and wonders, and broods. For we are listening, in these first verses of St. John, to an old man's brood- ings. No one can mistake their tone, or be insensible to their atmosphere, as the verses fall on the ear with their solemn weight of measured monotony, serious as a winter's eve, in which the stars silently offer themselves to our eyes, one by one, in seemly order and in noiseless ease. So the great words detach them- selves from his lips, single, slow, deliberate, unhasting. Round and round the story his spirit has searched and laboured, and waited, until word could set itself to word, and phrase to phrase. No time could be too long in which to collect into one brief passage the sum and substance of all that revelation which was made known to him in the Name of Jesus Christ.^