oh. i. 1, 3, 14.

29 Wisdom of Solomon, ix. 1, 2.

30 Ibid. xviii. 15.

developed in the writings of Philo Judaus and so distinctly
endorsed in numerous passages of the New Testament. First, there
is the absolute God. Next, there is the Logos, the first begotten
Son and representative image of God, the instrumental cause of the
creation, the head of all created beings. This Logos, born into
our world as a man, is Christ. Around him are clustered all the
features and actions that compose the doctrine of the last things.
The vast work of redemption and judgment laid upon him has in part
been already executed, and in part remains yet to be done.

We are first to inquire, then, into the significance of what the
writer of the Apocalypse supposes has already been effected by
Christ in his official relations between God and men, so far as
regards the general subject of a life beyond the grave. A few
brief and vague but comprehensive expressions include all that he
has written which furnishes us a guide to his thoughts on this
particular. He describes Jesus, when advanced to his native
supereminent dignity in heaven, as the "Logos, clothed in a
vesture dipped in blood," and also as "the Lamb that was slain,"
to whom the celestial throng sing a new song, saying, "Thou hast
redeemed us unto God by thy blood." Christ, he says, "loved us,
and washed us from our sins in his own blood." He represents the
risen Savior as declaring, "I am he that liveth, and was dead,
and, behold, I am alive for evermore, and have the keys of the
under world and of death." "Jesus Christ," again he writes, "is
the faithful witness, the first begotten from the dead." What,
now, is the real meaning of these pregnant phrases? What is the
complete doctrine to which fragmentary references are here made?
We are confident that it is this. Mankind, in consequence of sin,
were alienated from God, and banished, after death, to Hades, the
subterranean empire of shadows. Christ, leaving his exalted state
in heaven, was born into the world as a messenger, or "faithful
witness," of surprising grace to them from God, and died that he
might fulfil his mission as the agent of their redemption, by
descending into the great prison realm of the dead, and, exerting
his irresistible power, return thence to light and life, and
ascend into heaven as the forerunner and pledge of the deliverance
and ascension of others. Moses Stuart, commenting on the clause
"first bego