THE SON OF GOD

PORTION OF SCRIPTURE--St. John i. 1-18, 29-34.


"THIS IS THE SON OF GOD." These are the closing words of John the
Baptist's striking testimony, What a grand message! How it thrills us
through and through! On and on the glorious words ring out, "_The Son of
God is come_." Many years after, when the Apostle John was a very old man,
he wrote in one of his letters, "We know that the Son of God is come."
[Footnote: I John v. 20.]

Now look back to the first words of our chapter. "In the beginning was the
Word." Who is the Word? It is "the Son of God." When was the beginning?
Long, long ago in Eternity that is past "the Son of God was the brightness
of His Father's glory and the express image," [Footnote: Heb. i. 3.] or
exact representation, "of His Person." In His last prayer with His
disciples our Lord speaks of "the glory which He had with the Father
before the world was." [Footnote: St. John xvii. 5.]

The first verse of this Gospel takes us back long before this world was
created. Then we come to the creation in verse 3: "All things were made by
Him." This is exactly what is said in the first verse of the Bible of
another beginning, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the
earth." Long before this world was created we read of God's dear Son as
"the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature." All
things were created by Him and for Him, and He is before all things, the
Eternal Son of God. [Footnote: Col. i. 15-17.]