s it not? What do these older pages
say? Adam talked and walked and worked with God, and then was led to
the gate of the garden. God appeared to Abraham, and gave him a
never-to-be-forgotten lesson in star study. Moses spent nearly six weeks
with Him, twice over, in the flaming mount, and carried the impress of
His presence upon his face clear to Nebo's cloudy top.

The seventy elders "saw the God of Israel, and did eat and drink," the
simple record runs. And young Isaiah that morning in the temple, and
Ezekiel in the colony of exiles on the Chebar, and Daniel by the Tigris
at the close of his three weeks' fast,--these all come quickly to mind.
John's startling statement seems to contradict these flatly.

But push on. John has a way of clearing things up as you follow him
through. Listen to him further: The only-begotten God who is in the
bosom of the Father--_He_ has always been the _spokesman_ of God. Look
into that sentence of John's a little. It seems quite clear, clear to
the point of satisfying the most critical research, that John wrote down
the words, "the only-begotten _God_." The contrast in his mind is not
between "God," and the "only begotten Son." It is a contrast whose
verbal terms fit with much nicer exactness than that. It is a contrast
between "God" and the "only-begotten God."

There is only one such person whichever way unity. They tell the whole
story hanging at the end of John's pen. This little bit commonly called
the prologue is a gem of simplicity and compactness.

It is John's Gospel in miniature, even as John's Gospel is the whole
Bible story in miniature. You can see the whole of the sun reflected in
a single drop of water. You can see the whole of both Father and Son in
the action of love in these simple opening lines of John's Gospel.

Have you ever been walking down a country road till, weary and thirsty,
you stopped at an old farmhouse and refreshed yourself at the
old-fashioned well, with its bucket and long sweep? And as you rested a
bit by the well you wondered how deep it was. It didn't look deep at
all. The water was near, and it was so clear and sweet and refreshing,
and so easy to get at for a drink.

_Is_ it deep? So you fish a rather long bit of string out of your
pocket, and tie it to a bit of stone you find lying close by. And you
let the stone down, and down, and down, till you are surprised to find
that the well is deeper than your string is long.

Well, John's opening