^ How did life originate upon this planet ? The grass, trees, flowers, birds, animals, whence came they ? What was the origin of the first mysterious seeds which held within themselves these various forms of life and beauty ? Lord Kelvin believes that meteoric stones are seed-bearing agents, and that it is not im- probable that these aerolites first brought to us the seeds of vitality and loveliness from distant worlds. It may be so. The law of the cosmos may be that living worlds vitalize dead worlds. So the Son of God descended from the celestial universe that He might bring into this realm of death and despair all those glorious truths, influences, and hopes which are making the desolate sphere to blossom as the rose and to shake like Lebanon.^
(3) " Christ Jesus came into the world." In the Johannean phraseology which we have here — though certainly not in the Johannean phraseology only — the term " the world " does not ex- press a purely local idea, but is suffused with a deep ethical signifi- cance. When we read accordingly of Christ Jesus coming into the " world," we are not reading of a mere change of place on the part of our Lord — of a mere descent on His part from heaven to earth, as we may say. We are reading of the light coming into
^ W. L. "Watkinson, The Ashes of Ko^es, 18,
S$ A FAITHFUL SAYING
the darkness ; " the world " is the sphere of darkness and shame and sin. It is, in a word, the great ethical contrast that is intended to be brought prominently before us, and in this lies the whole point of the incarnation as conceived by St. John, and as embodied in this passage. Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, came into " the world," into the realm of evil and the kingdom of sin. In the present passage this idea is enhanced by the sharp collocation with it of the term "sinners." For, in the original, the word "sinners" stands next to the word "world," with the effect of throwing the strongest possible emphasis on the ethical connota- .tion. This is the faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, !that the Apostle commends to us — that " Christ Jesus came into
ithe world to save sinners." For what else, indeed, could He have come into " the world," the sphere of evil, except to save 'sinners?
^ What could such an one as Christ have to do in coming to such a place as the world ? The incongruity of the thing requires accounting for. It is much as if we saw a fellow-Christian in some compromising position. We might meet with him here, there ■ md elsewhere, and no remark be aroused. But by some chance swing of the shutter as we pass by we see him standing in the midst of a drinking-saloon ; we see him emerge from the door of a well-known gambling hell, or of some dreadful abode of shame. At once the need of an explanation rises within our puzzled minds, and the whole stress of the situation turns on the explanation. What was his purpose there ? we anxiously inquire. So it is with Christ Jesus coming into the world ; and so we feel in proportion as we realize the ethical contrariety suggested by the term. Thus it comes about that the primary emphasis of the passage is felt to rest on the account it gives of the situation it brings before us — on its explanation of how it happens that Christ Jesus could and did come into the world.'^
2. What, then, was the purpose of Christ's coming, and how did He fulfil it ?
(1) Christ Jesus camo into the world to save sinners. We despair of finding an English phraseology which will reproduce with exactitude the nice distribution of the stress. Suffice it to say that the strong emphasis falls on the fact tha^ it was specifically to save sinners that Christ Jesus came, and that the way for this ^ B. B. Warfield, The Poioer of God unto Salvation, 35.
I TIMOTHY I. 15 89
strength of emphasis is prepared by the use of phraseology which imphes that there was no other conceivable end that He could have had in view in coming into such a place as the world except to deal with sinners, of whom the world consists. He might indeed have come to judge the world; and in contrast with that the emphasis falls on the word " to save." But He could not con- ceivably, being what He was, the Holy One and the Just, have come to such a place as the world is — the seat of shame and evil — save to deal with sinners. The essence of the whole declaration, therefore, is found in the joyful cry that it was specifically to save sinners that Christ Jesus came into this world of evil.
If we do not read the mind and purpose of Christ with this key in our hand, we shall read it wrongly, superficially, and upside down ; we shall never get into its deeper places, but be walking only in the outside chambers. He came to reveal sin, to condemn it, to emphasize God's eternal hatred of it, to make it hideous and loathsome in His all-revealing light ; He came to bring deliverance from it, and forgiveness by offering a propitiation, and Himself bearing the curse of it. He came to fight against sin and subdue it, and ransom those who had been held fast in its deadly bondage. JFor this end was He born, for this He died, and for this con- summation He employs His risen and exalted power for ever. It is the Alpha and Omega of the gospel message, and, whatever else Jesus was and did, we must begin and end there if we would understand the rest.