350 CHRIST'S MISSION AND OURS
Christ lived in the love of the Father because He always did the Father's will ; His perfect obedience was the soil out of which the flower of love grew ; His oneness of will and desire with the Father formed the harmonious environment in which alone love can subsist. " I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love." And now our Lord takes that exalted experi- ence of His — the life which He lived toward the Father — and turns it earthward, as the pattern of our relation to Him. Obedi- ence is the royal law that binds the Father, the Son, and the disciple in one fellowship of love.
(5) " As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world" (John xvii. 18). Christ thus links the mission of His disciples to that which He received from the Father, and makes their work the outcome and continuation of His own. The purpose which brought Christ into the world runs through the whole service and ministry of the Church, and the work in which Christian men and women are employed to-day is a continuation of the purpose of the Incarnation. The commis- sion which the Father placed first in the hands of Jesus Christ, Christ has handed on to His disciples, thus raising them to the position of co-workers with Himself, to share in the honour and privilege of carrying out the redeeming purpose of God.
(6) For a final instance of this special form of expression let us turn to Eev. iii. 21. Though we go outside the Gospel for this passage, we do not quit the circle of St. John's writings ; nor is there any change in the person of the speaker. And the fact that these words were spoken from heaven, after our Lord's exaltation to the right hand of God, makes it all the more significant that they should assume the same parallel form as those we have already examined, which were spoken while He was on earth. " To him that overcometli will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne." Here we see that this twofold relationship runs right through to the end, and is completed in the final triumph and glory of Christ's people in heaven.^
^ The beginning of tlie Gospel is to be found in the thought and love of God. We may cast our lines back as far as we can through the ages of eternity, and we shall never be able to find
1 J. T. Hamly,
ST. JOHN XX. 21 351
the point at which God's concern for the welfare of the universe that was to be first began, and yet the Lamb of God is said to have been slain from before the foundation of the world. The sacrifice of Christ was not an afterthought on the part of the Divine Being ; it was, so to speak, part of Himself, an element of His very Godhead and of His very existence. So that, if we are really to go back to what may be termed the beginning of begin- nings, we shall have to search the depths of the Divine existence, and follow all the wonderful and infinite course of the Divine thinking and purpose and love. There, of course, we are lost. Our hearts can only point, as it were, towards that great solemn mystery. Explanation we have none. Special indication is entirely beyond our power. We are lost in wonder, and our wonder is lost in speechlessness.
The second beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is found in the Incarnation of God's Son. We begin the next time at Bethlehem. We were lost when it was a mere question of unuttered and in speech unutterable love. We only begin to think and to feel and to understand in part God's meaning, when He utters His love not in speech, but in the person, the flesh and blood of God's dear Son. We can begin there — little children can begin at that point; our love can commence its study at the cradle of our Lord Jesus Christ. Creatures like ourselves need alphabets, beginnings, sharp lines, visibilities. We are not all pure mind ; we cannot dwell upon the abstract, the unconditioned, the absolute, the infinite, in matters of this kind. We need some one to look at, to speak to, to go up to quite closely, and to hear speak the language of the love of God. This is what may be termed the second beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Where, then, are we to look for the third beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God ? We look for it in the Church. As He was, so are we to be in the world. We are to be "living epistles, known and read of all men." When men ask, " Where is Christ ? " we are to show them Christianity. And when they ask, " What is Christianity?" we are to show them the Church — meanwhile, indeed, an incomplete representation of the truth, yet Jesus Christ Himself claims it, and devolves upon the Church the responsibility not only of bearing His name by exemplifying His life, but of interpreting His doctrine and living upon His love.^