"Thou has made him most blessed for ever, Thou has made him exceeding glad with Thy countenace."
[[1]] In Memoriam, Arthur George William Neale, B.A. (St. John's College), who passed through the veil 1st July 1880. Aged 22 years.
II
BELIEVING AND BECOMING
"To as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name."—JOHN i. 12.
John soon gets away from abstract theology and takes the soul up into the mount of contemplation, from which it may discern the length and breadth of the land of promise and privilege. He knew that our faith was not only "Emmanuel, God with us"; but that if we had the skill and could read the word backwards, we might say,—"and we also with God." He begins his Gospel, "the Word was with God "; he goes on, "the Word was with man"; and then he completes the triangle by saying, "and man also with God"; for "to as many as received Him, He gave power to become the children of God." And again, later on, in the seventeenth chapter, we have the thoughts, "I in them," and "Thou in Me," and "they also in Us," until one is left in a delightful perplexity as to the nearness of God to His creatures, and obliged to say that—
God is never so far off
As even to be near;
He dwells within, the spirit is
The home He holds most dear.
His faith was not merely that the Word became flesh that He might bring God to us, but the Word living and suffering that He might bring us to God; His religion not merely the humiliation of the Creator, but, in a very real sense, the exaltation of the creature and practical union with the Lord of the spirits of all flesh; not only that He for our sakes became poor, but also, that we through His poverty might be made rich. It is into this riches of our inheritance that we want to look this evening.