Page:The Last Judgement and Second Coming of the Lord Illustrated.djvu/35

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actually fulfilled in the birth of Him who was called Jesus because He was to save His people from their sins. Upon that occasion it is written, "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel; which being interpreted is, God with us."[1] It was also predicted that some one should "Prepare the way of Jehovah, and make straight in the desert a highway for our God."[2] This prediction is, in the New Testament, distinctly applied to John the Baptist; he was to prepare the way of Jehovah;[3] but the person who followed that preparation,—the preaching of repentance—was Jesus Christ; it follows, therefore, as a logical sequence, that Jesus Christ was Jehovah in His humanity: that humanity being the visible impersonation of the Supreme; He being within it as a soul within its body; thus beautifully and forcibly illustrating His own declarations, "The Father dwelleth in me:"[4] "I and my Father are one."[5]

It is commonly supposed that the human nature, in which God became manifest, was assumed by a second person in the Godhead, called "the Eternal Son." But this is nowhere stated in the Bible: it is the invention of men, and is a contradiction in terms. The Old Testament Scriptures never mention the pre-existence of that which in the New Testament is called "the Son of God." What they say on that subject is prophetical; they announce that that which had been in the Divine power from eternity would become an actuality in time. For instance,—the passage above cited says, "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." The son here promised was not then a reality; the terms of the

  1. Matt. i. 21, 23.
  2. Isa. xl. 3.
  3. Matt. iii. 3.
  4. John xiv. 10.
  5. John x. 30.