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Christ Before Coming to Earth
From the days of eternity the Lord Jesus Christ was One with the
Father; He was the image of God, the expression of His glory. To
show this glory, to reveal the light of God’s love, Jesus came to our
sin-darkened earth. Isaiah prophesied of Him, “They shall call His
name Immanuel, ... God with us.”
Matthew 1:23
; cf.
Isaiah 7:14
.
Jesus was “the Word of God”—God’s thought made audible.
God gave this revelation not just for His earthborn children. Our
little world is the lesson book of the universe. Both the redeemed
and the unfallen beings will find their true knowledge and their joy
in the cross of Christ. They will see that the glory shining in the face
of Jesus is the glory of self-sacrificing love. They will see that for
earth and heaven, the law of life is the law of selfrenouncing love.
The love that “does not seek its own” has its source in the heart of
God and is shown in Jesus, the meek and lowly One.
In the beginning, Christ laid the foundations of the earth. His
hand hung the worlds in space and fashioned the flowers of the field.
He filled the earth with beauty and the air with song. See
Psalm
65:6
;
95:5
. He wrote the message of the Father’s love on everything.
Now sin has marred God’s perfect work, yet that handwriting
remains. Except for the selfish human heart, nothing lives just for
itself. Every tree and shrub and leaf pours forth oxygen, without
which neither people nor animals could live; and people and animals,
in turn, support the life of tree and shrub and leaf. The ocean receives
streams from every land, but it takes only to give back. The mists
rising from it fall in showers to water the earth, so that plants may
grow and bud. The angels of glory find their joy in giving. They
bring light from above, moving upon the human spirit to bring the
lost into fellowship with Christ.
But turning from all lesser examples, we see God in Jesus. We
find that it is the glory of God to
give
. “I do not seek My own glory,”
said Christ, but the glory of Him who sent Me.
John 8:50
;
7:18
.
Christ received from God, but He took to give. Through the Son, the
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