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angels? how much more things that pertain to this life!" The poor man who once cried out of the depths, and heard in that he feared the one who knew no sin, when "made in the likeness of sinful flesh," and bore the judgment of our sins in His own body on the tree-He who once bowed His head and gave up the ghost-is now in the ascendant, and has all judgment committed to Him, "that all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father." And execute this

judgment He will, as the Son of man on the throne of His glory as the Messiah-King when He brings His majesty and power into connection with the throne of David; or when the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever. The Lord Himself says, in anticipation of His day of renown, "now is the judg ment of this world, now shall the prince of this world be cast out." And to the very last will He affirm "the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.” How supreme is our Jesus, in these noiseless victories, as He thus gives them out to us, and as He bids us be of good cheer in an overcome world; and not to let our hearts know either trouble or fear, through the conscious peace which He leaves us, till He comes in power "to judge

and to make war"; for all His enemies shall lick the dust!

The first Adam's transgression threw Satan into prominence and strength, and obliged God to retire into the heaven of heavens, or else maintain His righteousness in judgment by destruction. The second Man (come to do the Father's will, in the body prepared for Him) has set up a claim before God to come forward, and (by righteous judgment) take this perfect One, out from the death into which His devoted obedience carried Him, and put Him into position, place, power and glory! "Behold I make all things new," is the only, and fitting reply from the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, as He introduces the man of the new heavens and the new earth, into their length and breadth, and instals Him as the beginning of the new creation of God! We may well ask in the midst of such gains and

triumphs as these, is there a power that can not merely grapple with Satan and overcome Him-but is there authority likewise to put aside the great enemy "the Wicked One" himself? With what gladness to our hearts (afraid because of the past) is the assurance from the risen One," and I saw an angel come down from heaven having the key of the bottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand, and he laid hold on the dragon, that old Serpent, which is the devil and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, etc." How freely can one breathe now, as we see the Son of man exalted into the highest place-the centre of all prophesied, promised, covenanted, and purposed blessing for the glory of God with His redeemed, the families in the heavens and on the earth in their Goshens, by undisputed right, and in undisturbed possession, and Satan-nowhere! or, if memory, bestows a thought on the past, as regards that old serpent, only to be assured by the key, and the chain, and the bottomless pit, and the seal, that the stronger than he, who once took away his armour, wherein he trusted, has now shut him up, and shut him out, "that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years should be fulfilled," and that when loosed for a little 66 season out of his prison," only to earn a heavier punishment, by being driven to his own place. "And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night, for ever and ever." The liar, from the beginning, is gone! the great enemy of God and man is judged and cast out! Man, in the person of our Jesus, has glorified God upon the earth, and finished that work, in life and death, which was given Him to do; and God-thus liberated from His place of righteous judgment against sin by the waters of a flood, and by melting elements through fervent heat-is set free to raise, and exalt, and glorify, and crown the man whom He made strong for Himself, and to re-introduce man from the heavens, into the whole scene of previous defeat and disgrace and destruction below, till every

creature's heart and voice shall give expression to their new-bought joy in ascribing salvation and honour and glory and blessing unto Him that sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb for ever. What a day for our Godand what a day for our Lord! how truly will He take the place of His typical Solomon in times of shadows and figures, when He said, "the Lord hath said that He would dwell in the thick darkness; but I have built an house of habitation for thee, and a place for thy dwelling for ever!"

"Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God," so God rested from all His works on the seventh day.

B.

No. XV.

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN.

PART I.-THE INTRODUCTORY PORTION.
CHAPS. I.-II. 22.

THE main feature of this most precious book that lies before us is the exhibition of the Lord Jesus as the Word made flesh, the glory of the only Begotten who is in the bosom of the Father, and who reveals the Father as one with Him. The book is made up of these glories, which pass successively before our eyes in its successive chapters. Hence there is so much of "testimony" and "witness" in it: God calling our attention, as it were, all through to Him in whom all Heaven's glories meet, and meet for the supply of man's need, discovered in its deepest in the light of this glory; for "whatsoever doth make manifest is light."

Man's need in its deepest is that he is "dead in trespasses and sins." At the end of long ages of trial the full manifestation of this was made in the person of Jesus come in grace among men. Man's trial was not limited to that. It was only the close of a long course of it which God in His patience had given him: the

'ages," of which the apostle Paul speaks in Heb. ix. 26, at the "completion" of which,a Christ "appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself."

The cross thus stands as the dividing line between two periods of entirely different character; the former of which was characterised, as I may say, by its being the time of man's being manifested and God hidden; while the latter shows us, on the contrary, man set aside and God revealed.

It is most important to see this, to which the whole of Scripture gives the most unequivocal testimony. So in 1 Cor. x. 11, it is said, "Upon whom the ends of the world (literally awvwv, ages) are come." As to the character of these ages (of which several other passages make mention) Rom. v. 6 speaks-" When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly." The "due time "" was when man had been thus manifested, "ungodly" and "without strength." These These ages had run on from the fall itself; and their probationary character, as to the most important of them, is strongly marked in Scripture. Take the law. "God is come to prove you," says Moses, before it was given. And the apostle Paul, answering that question, which still perplexes multitudes, "Wherefore serveth the law?" replies, "It was added "—not as our translators have it," because of trangressions," but " for the sake of transgressions;" b that is, to produce them, to bring out the sin of man's heart in open shape, as transgression of the plain command of God. Take it as elsewhere, where there needs no emendation of the text- "The law entered that the offence might abound" (Rom. v. 20), the necessary result of "proving" one, of whom "every imagination of the thoughts of his heart is only evil continually."

-

But this verdict upon man's state had been pronounced long before. It was spoken at the close of his first trial, which the judgment of the flood ended. For the full result God had waited. He had let men have the earth

a Gr. Eπi ovvτeλeia Twv aιwvwv, “at the completion of the ages;" in our version, "at the end of the world." Morally, that is true, however.

» τῶν παραβάσεων χάριν.

to themselves, and given them ample time to show what they would do in it; and at the end of nearly two thousand years "God looked upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth." Then God said, "The end of all flesh is come before me."

"But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord;" and in his person, brought through the judgment, wherein "the world that then was, perished," human government was set up of God, and man was made his brother's keeper. "Whoso shed man's blood, by man his blood was to be shed." Such was the divine principle. But instead of that, the form it takes is that of tyranny in the hands of Nimrod, and that course of ambition and thirst for power begins which has filled men's chronicles ever since. All fails once more, and God calls Abram from his kindred and his father's house to walk with Him, a pilgrim and a stranger upon

earth.

The character of the law, which followed after that, we have already seen. In it God took up man again in his own way, to see what he could do. The people undertook it," all that the Lord hath spoken;" but the covenant is broken before ever the tables of testimony are come to them from the Mount. Under pure law they do not stand a moment. The law finds them under its curse; but God retreats into Himself, and falling back on His divine prerogative of mercy, takes them up anew. "I will have mercy," says He," upon whom I will have mercy." And though the law is given a second time, there is now along with it a proclamation of the "Name of the Lord." Christianity is not that, it is a declaration of the Father's name. This to Moses was not properly a revelation of God Himself, but of His "back parts"-the skirts of His glory. "And He said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me and live;" but "it shall come to pass, while my glory

"Him that dieth of Baasha in the city shall the dogs eat, and him that dieth of his in the fields shall the fowls of the air eat. Now the rest of the acts of Baasha, and what he did, and his might, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?" Men's chronicles, and God's judgment.

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