There was great force in this testimony of John the Baptist as it was here cited by John the Apostle. Only a few verses (6-8) above, the Apostle had used John the Baptist as the summation of all Prophecy. At this time the Apostle cited the Baptist only as an individual witness, who had been in close personal touch with Christ. The Apostle has thus called upon John the Baptist to act the parts both of an authoritative personal witness and of the Representative Prophet. Therefore, when John the Baptist testified in this double capacity, he affirmed with final authority that the Incarnated Word was the fulfillment of all that God had promised through the ancient prophets concerning His Son's being born into the world as a Divine-Human Savior.

tion of Christ

John 1:16-18

The results of the Incarnation of the Son of God, according to John's Introduction, are of three kinds. First, there is for the believer a growing participation in the divine (3) Results to Men fullness of the Son of God: for "of His fullfrom the Incarnaness have all we received, and grace for grace." Further, through this event, there has been a transfer of conscious authority for moral righteousness from the Law, which was imposed from without, to the sanctifying Spirit and the compelling love of truth and right now enthroned in Christian hearts. Under the old order of Moses, men moved at the command of the Law. But under Christ, men are elevated to the plane of truth and grace, and are moved by the power of a consecrated and consecrating love for Christ and righteousness. Finally, Christians, who are thus elevated and ennobled, are enabled more and more to perceive the revelation of God which the Son of God, Who is in the bosom of the Father, has so faithfully declared to all the world.

This entire chapter has been an introductory survey of the Divinity of Jesus Christ. No other truth is more important. The whole Gospel of John stands, in a special way, for an emphasis upon the importance of knowing the truth, and especially the truth concerning the Nature of Jesus Christ, Who was the Son of God, and Who became also the Son of Man. Good impulses, and good intentions, do not at all compensate for ignorance and untruth. Eternal life consists in knowing the true God, and His Son Jesus Christ.

Saving faith, as John defined it, begins with confidence in the Divinity of Christ. Faith first exalts Christ, and then holds on. to Him, Who is Divine, and because He is Divine. Reason affirms that only a Divine Savior can save those lost in sin. The facts prove that Christ was Divine, and the divinely appointed

Savior of the world. Every reasonable man (because he must, if he is reasonable) will accept Jesus Christ as a personal Savior. Therefore faith, which properly begins with the honoring of Christ, results in bringing and revealing the greatest honor of Man. God has ordained that it should be even so.

Here then is the secret of final security. No sane man would dare to trust any other mere man as a savior. But God, through the Gospel Writers, has invited all the world to do three things: first, to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God from all eternity; second, to trust Him absolutely as a Divine and personal Savior; and third, to know that none can pluck them out of His hands. That is the Divine and effective Savior Who will be commended to the reader in the following chapters on the Life-Work of Jesus Christ the Son of God.

CHAPTER II

THE MIRACULOUS BIRTH OF JESUS CHRIST

"Behold, a Virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel." Isaiah 7:14. (735 B. C.).

believing,

"But unto you that fear My Name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in His wings." Malachi 4:2. "Jesus Christ: Whom having not seen, ye love; ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory: receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls." 1. Peter 1:7-9.

The Birth of God's eternal Son into the world was a miracle. Like the ancient birth of Isaac, and the contemporary birth of John the Baptist, the Birth of Christ was effected directly by the power of God.

This truth must be accepted. The Divine Fatherhood of Jesus Christ is the mightiest truth of all history. The witnesses thereto were competent witnesses. Their testimony, both in kind and in value, is not unlike that which comes from the modern scientific laboratory. To doubt this truth is to contradict the Word of God. To say that Christ's Birth could not have happened by miraculous power is both unscientific, and degrading both to God and Man. Such a conclusion is an egregious begging of the question. It is an arrogant assumption, supported always by a superficial and erroneous type of argument which has one fixed formula. First, men make their god, with all necessary limitations; and then they declare what he can, or cannot do. Such so-called reasoning, on two valid biblical counts, can lead only to a just condemnation.

But God has invited men to look at a Fact, itself supported by a combination of facts, all of which were brought about by the true God of Heaven, "the Almighty God," for Whom nothing is too hard, but with Whom all things are possible. The miracle of Christ's Birth was wrought by no fiction of the mind of man, but by "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."1

I. The Secret Mystery of Christ's Birth The Birth of Jesus Christ involved a great secret mystery. He did not begin to be when He was born in Bethlehem: for He was from all eternity. But He was there born into the world. Naturally, the secret mystery of the Lord's Birth was best known to Mary, His Virgin Mother. Soon, however, this secret was made known to Joseph, to whom Mary was about

"Jesus Is the Son

of God"

1. John 5:5

1Genesis 17:1; 18:14; Hebrews 11:11-12, 17-19; Luke 1:18-19, 34-37; Numbers 11:

to be married. About the same time, perhaps even earlier, the secret was told, but not by Mary and Joseph, to a few of their own intimate friends. For this limited group of friends alone, for a while at least, this great secret was intended; and by them it was kept, sacredly and with great amazement.

"Mary
Was
Found with Child
of the Holy Ghost"
Matthew 1:18
Luke 1:35

I. The Great Secret Defined. This secret was concerned with the manner in which the Child Jesus should be born. The facts had been foretold; and the group of interested friends looked forward to the event of this Birth, with subdued curiosity, keen expectation, and great wonder. The Mother of the Child, as the facts were foretold, was to be the Virgin Mary. She therefore became at once the person of central interest in the group. The fact that this Virgin had been promised a Son aroused in her friends an intimate curiosity. But the explanation which accompanied that promise filled them all with a feeling of awe, and reverence, and mystery. The Child thus promised was to have no human father. The Virgin Mother should bear a Son; and the Father of that Son was to be the Spirit of God. The conception and birth of the Child was to be a miracle. The fore-knowledge of that mysterious event was the secret which lay deep in the hearts of those to whom the facts had been revealed, the Virgin Mother, her future husband, and the few intimate friends. 2. The Great Secret Explained. The facts thus foretold were full of absorbing interest and increasing wonder. This secret

"A Child Is Born, (Whose)

Name Shall Be

Called WONDER

THE

mystery of Christ's Birth carried with it the understanding of the deeper truth concerning His true Nature. This Child was appointed to be far more than an ordinary child. By birth, He had His Mother's nature, and therefore was Human. Rightly did He, in His later work, regard Himself as the Son of Man. But on the Father's side, this Child was literally the Son of God. The Lord Jesus Christ had a Divine Nature as well as a Human Nature. That is what the secret fact of His Birth meant.

MIGHTY GOD"

FUL

Isaiah 9:6

(738 B. C.)

That meaning, without doubt, was well recognized by those who then knew the secret. They never regarded Jesus as an ordinary Child. Just the opposite was true. With wondering

23; Job 42:2; Jeremiah 32:17; Zechariah 8:6; Matthew 3:9; 19:26; Mark 10:27; Luke 18:27; Isaiah 55:8-9; Ephesians 1:3. There are many evidences that God had given the world special lessons respecting His power, possibly in direct preparation for ready confidence in the miraculous Birth of His Son.

interest, they considered the mystery of His parentage, and he consequent dual nature of the Child. With great amazeme. t, they followed the unfolding of this Divine-Human Child into the maturity of manhood. Never did they lose sight of His Human Nature. He was always Mary's Son. But many a time did they marvel at the unfolding evidences of His Divine Nature. Especially did His Mother ponder these things in her heart.

"For He Shall
Grow Up As a
Tender Plant, and
As a Root Out of a
Dry Ground"

That

3. The Central Position of This Secret in the Early LifeStory of Jesus Christ. For thirty years the Lord's Mother and her interested friends watched Him grow, until the time when He began His public ministry. During those thirty years of His early Life-Story, the recorded facts have to do primarily with one central fact. central fact was the mystery of Christ's Birth, and the Divine Nature in Him that followed from His Being the Son of God. That secret mystery, with its meaning of Divinity, was the central fact in His early life. The Gospels have told the simple story of the birth of a God among men, and of the wonders that would inevitably attach to the life of a Divine Child Who grew up among men as did Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God.

Isaiah 53:2

Jesus Christ was a Divine Child. This one fact is the focus of all the particular facts of His early life-story. Out of this central fact all of the wonder and amazement arose. Around this central fact all the records of His first thirty years may best be analyzed, and organized, and unified. This central prominence of the secret mystery of Christ's Birth, and of His Divine Nature that followed from that Birth, will appear, with increasing emphasis, in the following analysis and study of His Life-Story up until He was thirty years of age, and ready to begin His public ministry.

II. The Preparation of the Witnesses to the Birth of Christ This group of divinely chosen friends were the first witnesses. to the Birth of Christ. They were especially well qualified for the testimony which they were to give con"God Also Bearing cerning that miraculous event. The Birth of Christ, even as a miraculous event, had been heralded in ancient Prophecy. Definite details of His Birth, a short time before it happened, were described to that small group of friends who were immediately concerned. Most of the facts were foretold, in a definite way, to Mary, the

Them Witness"

Hebrews 2:4