The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 1 — Section 204

would be great condescension on his pa.rt to look even with any delight on such II worhl as <1urs, but infinitely more to live in it, and live under the poorest e.nd n1ost harassing conditi~ns: not in a palace, rolling in wealth e.nd luxury, but born in o. stable; wandering from place to place, weary e.nd homeless; poorer than the foxes of the field, What II condescension I 3. The greatest love. No other principle will account for the wonderful fact but love. For in the world there were no attractions for him. In a moral sense its sceneries were frightful, its air pestilential, and its inhabitants not merely unfriendly but hostile-hostile to each other, and bitterly hostile to him their Saviour. In t.liis sense_ the world was to him repelling. But that which was repelling to his holiness, rnnply co_ns1dered, was attractive to his love and mercy. Sin is repelling to holiness; but the distress and danger of sinners in consequence a.re micrhty attractions to Divine pity. Such is the wrecked ship to the lifeboat crew; such a~e the wounded soldiers on the battle-field to the philanthropic heart, and such was this ruined world to infinite lorn. So that he was in it. 4. 1'he greatest importance. That he was in the world. So important, that it was foretold by prophets, foreshadowed by priests, kept before the world by Divine ritualism, expected by the world from time to time; and nothing would satisfy the wants and cravings of human nature but the appearance of God among men. So that the fact of his having been in the world is most important to truth-to the Divine fidelity as well as to human want and happiness. The a.b~ence of all besides would be of infioitely less consequence than his. If he had not been in the world, the foundation-stone of the Divine temple would be wanting. 'l'he central fact of the kin!!dom of God on ea.rtb would be absent, and the world itself could not stand. 5. The great.e.st benefit and honour to the worl,d. (1) The greatest benefit. The benefit which the world has derived is salvation. This could not be effected without his iucarnate life: nothing else would answer the purpose. Hence, what a benefit to the world that he was in it! (2) The greatest honour. This was the l(rea.test honour 1ver conferred on the world. And is there any other world which has been so honoured? What is onrs compared with many of God's worlds? It is but as Beth- lehem-Ephrata-" the least among the thousands of Judah." And does the least attract him ? Does he specially help the most helpless, the weakest, the most miser- able, and leave the strong to some extent to themselves? Many a spot is sacred a.s the birthplace or residence of a great man--of great poet or statesman; his presence has honoured the place and made it sacred. If so, is not this world holy and sacred to us; for be was in it? This world will ever be remembered and distinguished as the world in which God was in human flesh. In the great conflagration, will it be burnt? or will it be the last? Or, if some of it shall perish, shall not Bethlehem, Gethsemane, and Cal vary be preserved, a.s parts of the new earth, in commemoration of the great fact that he was in the world? 6. This fad is well attested. Was he really in the world? In answer to this question there is a most emphatic " Yes" corning from heaven and earth. The life of Christ on earth is an incontrovertible fact, and nothing can explain it but that he really was what he himself claimed to be, and what his fiiends and even his foes represented him to be : the Son of God-God manifested in the flesh. "He was in the world." For proof of this we a.re not entirely dependent on the distant past, for on "the sands of time" we find footprints which no one but an incarnate God could make. He has left behiud him glorious and undeniable proofs of his having been here, in the gracious system of redemption and its ever-growing and mighty effects in the moral restoration of the world. II. THE CREATION OF THE WORLD BY HIM. "And the world was made by him." This implies: 1. His Divinity. If he ma.de the world, he was God, for creative power is the sole prerogative of Divinity. "The world was ma.de," etc. This is saying much; but, after all, it is saying but little of him of whom it was previously said that "a.II thinos were created by him," etc. It is not much to say that he created a drop after sayi;;g that be had created the ocean. Here is a descent from the whole to a very small part. But still, in connection with the previous fact that he was in the world, it is quite natural to be reminded that the world was made by him. 2. That he had a perject right to come as he did into the world. For '' the world was made by him." Thus he was in hlll own world absolutely. Although be had let it to the children of men a.s Lis tenants, yet he reserved the right to visit when and how he pleased. And when he came he was not an intruder, not an infringer of any right, nor a. transgreasor 011, I, 1-51.] 'l'IIE GOSPEL ACCORDING '£0 ST. JOHN. 65