An idea cannot be without an image or a word to represent it; and therefore God was never without His Word, nor was His Word without Him. “The Word was with God, and the Word was God;’ for a word is the idea expressed; and thus the “Word that was made flesh” became “the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person”—so our Lord could say; “he that hath seen the Son, has seen the Father, also.”
We can define members of divinity by the roles, jobs, functions they have and do perform in the salvation of man. The phrase “Son of God” describes a temporal relation, like the phrase “the Word of God” denotes an eternal, un-originated relation. There WAS a Word of God from eternity, but the Son of God BEGAN to be in the days of Caesar Augustus. “Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten thee” was given only after the Son of God was by His resurrection from the dead declared to be the Son of God with a power and evidence extraordinary and divine. The Word incarnate or dwelling in human flesh, is the person called our Lord and Redeemer, Jesus Christ; and while in the system of grace the Father is the ONE God, in all the supremacy of His glory, Jesus is the ONE LORD in all the divine fullness of sovereignty, supreme, and universal authority. The Lord of Japheth, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is the God and the Lord of Christians; for “the Child” that has been born to us, and “the Son” that has been given, according to another Prophet, came from eternity: “His goings forth have been from of old from everlasting.” Such is the evangelical history of the author and finisher of the Christian system as to His previous nature and relation in the deity or godhead. But there is more!!
“He became.” One distinctive way of comprehending of whom this speaks is to determine which member of divinity who bears the nature called God, began to be something different than His original and continuing existence or person!! He became a true and proper “Son of Man,” yet no man could ever claim to be His Father, NOR was He the production of man!! “A body hast thou prepared Me.” But the “Me” was before “the body”!! The “Me” had dwelt and would again continue forever to dwell “in the bosom of the Father.” He had never begun nor would ever end in being, yet He took upon Himself human flesh so the blood He would shed could be the sin offering for His Bride, the Church of Christ,”God, the Father, so loved the world, the Church of Christ, that He, the Father, gave, freely sacrificed, for the Church, His eternal Word”.
It is said of Him: “I came forth from God,” I AM “the Incarnate Word.” From the presence of the Father, the Son withdrew, came to dwell on the Earth for thirty three years. Great beyond expression and “without controversy, great is the mystery—the secret of godliness.” For to come “forth from” and still “be in” while at the same time “to dwell among men” is something only the “eternal Word,” did!! This is another clear and proper distinction. “God was manifest in the flesh.” Another way to distinguish Father from Son is “He that has seen Me has seen the Father, also.” The Son of Man was and is the Son of God—Emanuel, God with us.” Adored be His name!! The one God in the person of the Father has commanded all men to worship and honor the one Lord, “the eternal Word,” —for He alone is to be reverend: for now in glorifying the Son, we glorify the Father that sent Him and that dwells in Him. “Know ye not that I Am in the Father, and the Father in Me?” our Lord declared!! Such is the distinctive difference and qualification of God, the Father and God, the Son, eternally know by the expression, which in fact He is, the “the Word”, while in covenant with the Father, called Jesus Christ!! At His feet “all men must bow, to the glory of God, the Father.”
