What a mission was laid upon the Son of God in taking humanity and coming here in the world so far gone in estrangement from God-so far that when He came into the world "the world knew Him not, and his own received Him not!" But it was God seeking His lost ones-God in the! person of His Son come in love "to reconcile the world unto Himself; not imputing their trespasses unto them," but come to put them away by the sacrifice of Himself!

The Gospel and Epistle of John are full of this. In them we learn that "the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world"(l Jno. 4:14); that "God so loved the world that He gave his only-begotten Son" for it. That He was sent "not to condemn the world" but to save. And, that man's heart might be won back to God as the source of that love manifested in Jesus, our Saviour repeatedly affirmed that "the father sent the son"on this errand of love and mercy. This was the constant testimony of our Lord. (See John 3:17; 4:34; 5:23,24; 6:38,40, 44; 7:16,18, 28, 29, etc., etc.) Thus God's love to man, even when estranged from Him, is expressed throughout the New Testament.

Then, to those who receive God's beloved Son, a title, or right, is given them to call themselves, or take their place as, ''children of God" (Jno. 1:12); and the Father's love to them is expressed, not only as compassion in sending His own Son for their deliverance, but as delight in them:"The Father Himself loveth you," says our Lord to His disciples, "because ye have loved Me, and have believed that I came out from God" (Jno. 16:27).

This place and title of "children of God" so much used by John, expresses our relationship to God through new birth, in which the divine life is communicated in the power of the Spirit to those who through faith receive Christ as the Son of God. And this relationship to God as His "children" is in Paul's epistles exalted to sonship by the Spirit's coming to dwell in and uniting the believer to our glorified Head at God's right hand:"Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father" (Gal, 4:6)-the Hebrew and the Greek word for "Father" pointing to a united family in this relationship to God. Thus Paul adds to "children" the fact of an open or public acknowledgment as "sons," conferred upon believers in connection with the exaltation of Christ, establishing the fulness of our acceptance in Him before God.

This glorious grace, in the place given us before God, is reflected in our Lord's high-priestly prayer, in the 17th chapter of John, where we are permitted to hear Him presenting us to the Father, that in His absence from us we might be kept and sanctified:"And now I am no more in the world," He says, "but these are in the world, and I come to Thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, as We are … Sanctify them through thy truth:thy Word is truth." Then He identifies us with Himself before the Father, and we hear these wondrous words from the Bridegroom of our hearts,

"THOU HAST LOVED THEM AS THOU HAST LOVED ME."

O fellow-Christian! do we truly believe this? Is it taking possession of our hearts? We sing, and sometimes say to ourselves and to Him,

"Wonder of wonder, Jesus loved me!" but here our Bridegroom presents us before the Father in the same nearness of love as Himself, "Thou hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me!" May it sanctify us to Himself to be as "a chaste virgin" espoused to a loving, precious, glorious Husband.

"Father, Thy sovereign love has sought
Captives to sin, gone far from Thee;
The work that Thine own Son hath wrought
Has brought us back in peace and free.

And now, as sons before Thy face,
With joyful steps the path we tread
Which leads us on to that blest place
Prepared for us by Christ our Head."
'I HAVE SEEN THE SEA"