(Chap. 1:1-4.) (Continued from page 317, vol. of 1912.)

If the Son of God become man united in His own person divine and human life, humanity in Him was a new humanity-in community of life with God. The Son of the Father become man was a Man possessing life in community with the Father. But if He thus raised up humanity into community of life with God, it is also true that He brought divine life down into a condition of human life. The life He had with the Father eternally was thus possessed in the human condition He assumed.

For Him to assume the conditions and limitations of human life, meant living dependently and obediently. This of course was an entirely new experience for Him, and for which it was necessary He should come into the condition of it (Heb. 5:8). He could not experience creature dependence and obedience while in Godhead form and condition. To have that experience He needed to stoop down to the form and condition of man-of dependence and service.

To this He stooped, assuming a condition in which He lived dependently and obediently. He lived "by the Father" (John 6:57), 1:e., the living Father was the reason or ground of His life here below. But, living thus, there was no interruption of the divine and eternal intimacies as the eternal Son with the eternal Father in the unapproachable light.

Living here among men dependently and obediently, yet as possessing and enjoying the intimacies of Godhead community of life, He was the revelation of them for men. If men had had eyes to see it they would have seen in Him not only the One who was personally the life with the Father, but also the activities of the life which habitually and constantly expressed itself in Him, both in word and work. (See John 3:11, 32 ; 5 :19, 20, 36 ; 8:26; 10:15,32; 11:44,45.) There never was a moment, save in the darkness of the cross, when the divine, eternal intimacies were interrupted:the Father finding in His Son, become man, His eternal delight; and the Man Jesus Christ, the Son of God, realizing His eternal rejoicing. His earthly life was a manifestation of the life of the divine Dwellers in light brought down into the condition of a dependent human life.

The true Life thus was shining, was manifested in its own proper activities; but men, blinded by the darkness they were in, had not eyes to see it. There had been rays of the light shining from the beginning of fallen man's history, but only in the Son of God become man and living here in the world did the light shine in its full power. It was shining for every man (John 1:9), but they hated the light thus manifested.

Still, through grace, there were those whose eyes were opened and who did see. From the garden of Eden, down the long history, there were those who saw and received the light so far as it was shining. So, too, when the Son of God was among men as the Light of men, there were those who through grace, saw it, welcomed it, received it-received of its fulness, grace upon grace (John i:16). They saw in the One who was made flesh, a divine Person; for, as they contemplated His glory, they saw it was the glory of the Only Begotten of the Father.

I have said this was through grace; for it was by the power of the Spirit that divine testimony laid hold of those who thus set to their seal that God's testimony concerning His Son become man is true (Jno. 3:33). They thus became children of light and of God, through faith, receiving Him who had come from God. It was by believing on His name they were born of God-born of water and the Spirit. It was by believing on His name they were born from above, that is, from a higher sphere than the natural.

Of course, it was ever by faith that men, from Eden down, became children of God; but, though born of God, they were not granted the privilege of taking their place with God as children. They could not take the place of children until that place was made known; nor could they know the blessedness of the place until it was revealed. Hence, until the Son of God came into the world and revealed the children's place and its blessedness, the children of God died in faith- without full knowledge of their place with God. But the Son of God having come, the place was made known and the intimacies of it communicated. To His children, the Father's name was made known (Jno. 17:6, 8).

It was thus they became competent witnesses of the life eternal that was with the Father and was manifested here. They were qualified to witness by their personal enjoyment of the manifested life,
and testified to what they experienced of it (ver. i). So far as they enjoyed the word of life they have declared it. What they saw, they have testified to (ver. 2). Their testimony is an announcement of the life eternal which was with the Father, but manifested to them here in the Son. Not only have they given vis the testimony of the Son of God Himself-the testimony He bore as being the true Light of men-but they have reported what was their own enjoyed portion as those to whom He manifested the Father's name.

What this wondrous, blessed portion was, we shall consider directly, but I wish to emphasize the fact that John, as one of these qualified witnesses, representing and speaking for them, has authoritatively declared (Jno. 21:24) what the testimony of the Son of God to the world was, and also His communications to the men given Him out of the world. In his Gospel he writes to all men, declaring the things that Jesus did and said to bring conviction " that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God," that by believing they might have life through His name (John 20 :31). In the epistle he writes to those to whom the Son has manifested the Father's name, unfolding the characteristics of the life eternally with the Father, that they may not merely have the life, but have it as inwardly understood (chap. 5:13), as subjectively realizing what its character is, and what its accompanying blessedness.

Of this privilege, bestowed upon the children of God of this present period, we shall speak in the proper place. My object now is to fasten attention on the fact that John, as the divinely-chosen witness, has testified to the children of God, as being himself in the realized enjoyment of it, the character of the life of which by faith they have become participants. What he saw and heard, what he thus inwardly knew, what he enjoyed of the manifested life, he has reported to us. C. Crain

(To be continued.)