r us,' unless there is some altogether different
connection between the God who commends His love and the Christ who dies
to commend it, than exists between a mere man and God? Brethren! to
deliver my text, and a hundred other passages of Scripture, from the
charge of being extravagant nonsense, and clear, illogical _non
sequiturs_, you must believe that in that man Christ Jesus 'we behold
His glory--the glory of the only begotten of the Father'; and that when
we look--haply not without some touch of tenderness and awed admiration
in our hearts--upon His gentleness, we have to say, 'the patient God';
when we look upon His tears we have to say, 'the pitying God'; when we
look upon His Cross we have to say, 'the redeeming God'; and gazing upon
the Man, to see in Him the manifest divinity. Oh! listen to that voice,
'He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father,' and bow before the story of
the human life as being the revelation of the indwelling God.

And then, still further, my text suggests that this self-revelation of
God in Jesus Christ is the very climax and highest point of all God's
revelations to men. I believe that the loftiest exhibition and
conception of the divine character which is possible to us must be made
to us in the form of a man. I believe that the law of humanity, for
ever, in heaven as on earth, is this, that the Son is the revealer of
God; and that no loftier--yea, at bottom, no other--communication of the
divine nature can be made to man than is made in Jesus Christ.

But be that as it may, let me urge upon you this thought, that in that
wondrous story of the life and death of our Lord Jesus Christ the very
high-water mark of divine self-communication has been touched and
reached. All the energies of the divine nature are embodied there. The
'riches, both of the _wisdom_ and of the _knowledge_ of God,' are in the
Cross and Passion of our Saviour. 'To declare at this time His
_righteousness_' Jesus Christ came to die. The Cross is 'the _power_ of
God unto salvation.' Or, to put it into other words, and avail oneself
of an illustration, we know the old story of the queen who, for the love
of an unworthy human heart, dissolved pearls in the cup and gave them to
him to drink. We may say that God comes to us, and for the love of us,
reprobate and unworthy, has melted all the jewels of His nature into
that cup of blessing which He offers to us, saying: 'Drink ye all of
it.' The whole Godhead, so to speak, is