1. Grace is a revelation of the will of God now. A child knows something of the mind and will of the parent from personal contact with that parent, but not from the rules, or only to a very slender degree from the rules, which are laid down for its guidance. But when we turn from Law to Grace, then we see at once that we are now dealing with a revelation of the mind and the will of Him from whom the grace proceeds. Each act of favour which a parent bestows upon his child, or which a sovereign bestows upon his subject, is a revelation, so far as it goes, of the mind and will of the parent towards that particular child, or of the sovereign towards that particular subject, as the case may be. And even so every act of grace which we receive from God is a revelation, so far as it goes, of the mind and will of God towards us who are affected by the act. And if it be so with each of these acts of favour, obviously grace as a whole must be regarded as nothing less than a complete manifestation of the mind and will of God Himself towards us, that is to say, so far as any manifestation of the Infinite to finite intelligence can be complete.
2. The words " full of grace" not only comprise the supply of all that sinners need on earth, they include heaven itself in reversion. These sunbeams fly over an eternal future. Other rays of light are lost in distance, swallowed up at last in darkness, absorbed in the bosom of eternal night ; but these go forward, bright as at first, into the profound, and reveal along the surface of that shoreless ocean the isles of the blessed stretching onward to an horizon beyond which no eye but One can direct a space*
* W. Briglit, Anti-Pelagian Treatises of St. Augustine, x. ^ H. P. Liddon, University Sermons, i. 44.
58 THE INCARNATION OF THE WORD
penetrating beam. "He seeth under the whole heaven"; and that which He sees is " an inheritance incorruptible, and unde- filed, and that fadeth not away."
ii. Truth.
The living Word, the voice of God walking among men, was " full of truth," as well as of grace. The expressions of the Evangelist, being prompted by a very real inspiration of Him who is Light, resemble sun-rays. They contain more than a single element of meaning, they fly in complex glory through the ages. If St. John had been asked what he meant by his phrase " full of truth," he would doubtless have said, I mean that He was full of reality ^ full of sincerity, full of instruction. There is no sense in which you can employ the word Truth without making it describe Him, who was the "Amen," "the faithful and true witness." Let us think, then, of Jesus Christ under each aspect. Let the three rays, the violet, the crimson, the gold, as they pass through the prism of our analysis, fall in succession upon the sacred head of this Prince of the Kings of the Earth.
1. He was full of Reality. — We know what we mean when we say that we have met with a real man. This is a world of false appearances, of poverty striving to set up and maintain a respectable exterior, of cheap materials set forth so as to look rich and fine ; a world of paint, varnish, stucco, and veneer. So is it in character ; a world much more than half filled with people trying to pass themselves off for something greater and better than the reality, for wiser, richer, more learned, and more beautiful than they actually are. The experience of life deepens the persuasion that the majority will not bear a close examina- tion of the " inward parts." The religious public is in the same condemnation. In Christ's time religious society was one com- plicated pretence. But look at the Christ ! He is real, genuine, solid to the centre. He is at the heart what He is at the surface. We shall never find Him different from that which we see Him now. The zeal of God burns in an inextinguishable flame in the deepest recesses of His spirit. He means all that He says. His acts are exactly parallel with His words. His passions move by the same rule as His thoughts. We never know any man thoroughly until we see him under excitement. Jesus when
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ST. JOHN I. 14 59
excited is animated by the same inspiration as in repose. " The zeal of God's house " is the fiery cloak which enfolds Him.
Tj Professor Huxley was no model man, but his son describes some characteristics that ought to be felt to be model when he sets forth " that passion for veracity which was perhaps his strongest characteristic, an uncompromising passion for truth in thought, which would admit no particle of self-deception, no assertion beyond what could be verified ; for truth in act, perfect straightforwardness and sincerity, with complete disregard of personal consequences for uttering unpalatable fact. Truthfulness in his eyes was the cardinal virtue, without which no stable society can exist. . . . The lie from interested motives was only more hateful to him than the lie from self-delusion or foggy thinking. ... In his mind, no compromise was possible between truth and untruth." ^