January 7

God Revealed in Christ

No man hath seen God at any time; Christ Jesus the only begotten Son ... hath declared him. — John 1:18

So we never can know God save through His Son; there is no other possible revelation of Him. There is no ladder by which to ascend to God’s blessedness but the ladder of Christ’s incarnation. Christ came in lowly form and appeared to His friends as a man, but when they learned to know Him, they found that He was God Himself. This is one of the most precious truths about the incarnation, and we understand its meaning only when we see in every act and word of Christ a manifestation of the Divine heart and life.

When we find Him at a wedding-feast we see God putting His sanction anew upon the sacred ordinance of marriage, and upon innocent human gladness and festivities.

When we behold Him taking little children in His arms, laying His hands upon their heads and blessing them, we learn how God feels toward children, and that He wants every parent today to bring their infants to Him.

When we see Him moved with compassion in the presence of pain or sin, we have a glimpse of the Divine pity toward the suffering and the sinning.

When we look at Him receiving the outcast and the fallen, treating them with kindness, forgiving them, and transforming their lives into beauty; we see how God feels toward sinners, and what He is ready to do for the worst and guiltiest.

When we behold Him going at last to the cross in voluntary sacrifice, giving His life for the lost, we see how God loves sinners.

Thus the whole of the incarnation is a manifesting of the invisible God in acts and expressions which we can understand. Thus it is literally true, as Jesus said, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” If we would ever see God, and know Him, and enter His family, we must receive Christ. To reject Him is to shut ourselves forever away from the vision of God.