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“The Light of Life”
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of Christ and realize the great love of God for the world, so great
that He gave His only-begotten Son to raise it from its degradation.
By making an entire surrender, Abraham was shown that in
giving His only Son to save sinners from eternal ruin, God was
making a greater and more wonderful sacrifice than ever man could
make.
In God’s provision of a sacrifice instead of Isaac, it was declared
that no man could make expiation for himself; the pagan system of
sacrifice was wholly unacceptable to God. No father was to offer
up his son or daughter for a sin offering. The Son of God alone can
bear the guilt of the world.
Christ’s words concerning Abraham conveyed to His hearers no
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deep significance. The Pharisees saw in them only fresh ground for
caviling. They retorted with a sneer, as if they would prove Jesus to
be a madman, “Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast Thou seen
Abraham?”
With solemn dignity Jesus answered, “Verily, verily I say unto
you, Before Abraham was, I am.”
Silence fell on the vast assembly. The name of God, given to
Moses to express the idea of the eternal presence, had been claimed
by this Galilean Rabbi. He had announced Himself to be the self-
existent One, He “whose goings forth have been from of old, from
everlasting.”
Micah 5:2
.
Again the priests and rabbis cried out against Jesus as a blasphe-
mer. Because He was, and avowed Himself to be, the Son of God,
they were bent on destroying Him. Many of the people, siding with
the priests and rabbis, took up stones to cast at Him. “But Jesus hid
Himself, and went out of the temple.”
The Man Born Blind
“As Jesus passed by, He saw a man which was blind from his
birth. And His disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin,
this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? Jesus answered,
Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of
God should be made manifest in him... . When He had thus spoken,
He spat on the ground, and made clay of the spittle, and He anointed
the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and said unto him, Go, wash