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p266 [From the French.] Mons. Eynard, The value of revelation, of the word, increases for me daily, in a manner that I know not how to express. What a precious thing to have God revealed in Christ! How the Person of Christ stands out alone against the background of the scene of this world, to attract our gaze, and associate us in heart with God. In this respect, the commencement of the Gospel of John has been of much blessing to me of late. Christ is unfolded there in so complete a manner! He gathers around Himself; He must be God, otherwise He would be turning us away from Him. He says, "Follow me." He is the Man who makes the way, the only way across the desert; for, for man there is none, since he is separated from God. On the Man Christ, heaven is open; He is, as Man, the object of heaven and of the service of the angels of God.

John (a beautiful example of the absence of all selfishness and of all self-regard) receives a testimony from above, but he speaks of that which is earthly. Now that is but a testimony; but He who came from above bears witness of what He has seen, and in Himself He reveals heaven. He gives - He is - the eternal life, in order that we may enjoy it. What a thing to say, that heaven, its nature, its joys, what it is, should be revealed to us by the word and by the presence of Him who dwells there, who is its centre and glory! Now, without doubt, man has entered into heaven, but it is none the less precious that God should have come down to earth. Man admitted into heaven, is the subject of Paul; God, and the life manifested upon earth, that of John. The one is heavenly, as to man, the other divine. This is why John has such attraction for the heart. There is nothing like Him.

. . . There are two classes of religious movement at this time. The first takes the word, sees man, the child of Adam, dead through sin, and will have nothing but Christ, His death, His resurrection, a heavenly state. The second class holds with the world, maintains worldly connections as an accepted system and does not consider the world as a system to be passed through by motives outside of that system. People wish to have part in the movement: there is zeal, but they wish to remain self, not to become Christ.

[1858.]

[51151F]

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