SECTION II.

THE PROLOGUE. THE PRE-HISTORICAL ETERNAL DOMINION OF CHRIST. THE ETERNAL EXISTENCE, THE GLORIOUS ADVENT, AND THE COMPLETED INCARNATION OF THE LOGOS; OR, THE VICTORIOUS EFFULGENCE OF THE LIGHT THROUGH THE DARKNESS.

(Chap. i. 1-18.)

The entire singularity of the manifestation of Christ rests on His pre-historical eternal dominion. It constitutes the blossom of His eternal incarnation, or of His great advent in the wider sense. This advent, however, rests on His eternal existence.

The Gospel of His eternal existence, in relation to Himself, is announced in the words, In the beginning was the Word! and this is His eternal relation to God: and the Word was with God, and God was the Word.

This relation to God is His first and highest relationship: The same was in the beginning with God.

On this eternal relation of the Word to God rests His relation to the world. First, His relation to the origin of the world: All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made. Then His relation to the world of manifestation: In Him is¹ life! — Especially His relation to mankind; in the first instance, to paradisaic man: And the life was the light of men. Finally, also. His relation to historical fallen man: And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness did not hold it fast (i.e., did not bind it, or hinder its shining through).²

These are the eternal relationships of the Logos. The absolute Word, which was already in the beginning (of all things), can be nothing else than the absolute spiritual intelligence which precedes all things, the ripe capacity of utterance in the premundane spiritual life, the perfect expression and impression of the eternal consciousness, the form of the eternal personality. Thus the eternal Word stands opposed to all heathenish conceptions of the original ground of all things — to Ahriman and to eternal matter, to the blind and to the dark primeval source, to the evolution and to the emanation of the divine. It is the crown of the Christian conception of the universe, the triumph of Christianity over the world with respect to the personality of God and the origin of the world; and, as the watchword of pure religion, it is in most intimate alliance with the watchword of all pure ethics: Man is a personal being.³

This Word is different from God, because it is wholly Word, the perfect expression of His power; and yet also it is one with God, because it is the whole Word, the perfect expression of His being. It is different from Him, as the determined is from the eternally determining^, and one with Him as the expression of His eternal self-determination. Thus it is the image of the self-contemplation of God, the exact reflection of God. Therefore also the innermost being of this Word of God is its relationship to God: it is with God.

And God was the Word. As the one Word, in whom all thoughts, all powers, all words, all beings, which should be made, nay, all the depths of the Godhead, are concentrated, He is the absolute refulgence itself. Because He is before all things, the eternity and supra-mundane character of God are proper to Him. Because He is before all things, and thus is the ground of all things, and still is the Word, the act of God, not a passivity of God (Emanation),⁴ He is the pure, free revelation of Omnipotence itself.

In this is the absoluteness of His supra-mundane character expressed: The same was in the beginning with God. His first relationship is His relation to God, not to the world.

But the Word has also an eternal relationship to the world, which lies in the very fact that He is the Word, the perfected form of revelation. This relationship has realized itself: All things were made by Him. The highest spiritual intelligence lies thus at the foundation of all things; all things rest on a free spiritual operation of God, on the ripeness for utterance of all His thoughts and purposes, which are comprehended in the intelligent refulgence of the one Word; all things stand in the most intimate spiritual connection with each other — they are included in the unity of one Word. The ideality of all things in their substantial relations is thereby expressed. Nothing proceeded forth from the troubled, the unconscious, the dark, from weakness or from chance; no grain of dust goes forth unrelated, confused and causing confusion, from the absolute ideal ground, the connecting cause and end of all things.

The golden fruit on the tree of life is the Word. Therefore the deep root of this tree must also be the Word in its crystal brightness, and the whole tree itself must more and more give forth the silver tones of the Word, which pervades it through and through.

This is the relation of the eternal existence of Christ to the origin of the world. But as this relationship is the ground of its origin, it is also the ground of its continuance. The supra-mundane attribute is then only divine, when it is at the same time intra-mundane (not extra-mundane); and the intra-mundane attribute is then only divine, when it is supra-mundane (not munidane or com-mundane). The intra-mundane character of the Logos has, however, two fundamental forms. Its real (material) form is life, as the basis of nature and of all finite life. In this, the ideal form, is also implied, spirit, the light of men.

As, however, the Logos, in His intra-mundane character, is the light of men. He must according to His nature enter into conflict with the darkness, which with sin has spread itself among men, without our being able to name a real (material) origin for it.⁵ The light must cast abroad its radiance. It does not shine only into the midst of the darkness (as revelation of God), but it shines in the midst of the darkness itself (in a thousand forms and colours), as a reflection of the revelation of God, in the consciences, the spirits, the philosophemes, the mythologies, and customs of the nations. And finally, as it is according to its nature more powerful than the darkness, it could not be kept back, it could not be suppressed or chained by the darkness; it must approve itself to be divine, by penetrating through the darkness.

Thus, in the eternal relation of Christ to the world, His historical relation to it — His entrance into humanity, His advent, His coming — is already implied and announced.

This advent was indeed long concealed. Nothing was known of Him in the heathen world. Only His witnesses amongst the people of revelation knew of Him — divine seers, prophets in the wider sense, as the representative of whom stands John the Baptist, the last and greatest of the prophets.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John (Grace of God). The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the light, that all men through him might believe. He (himself) was not the light, but — this was his mission — that he might bear witness of the light.

He should bear witness of His coming, with respect to which it stood thus: —

The light itself, the essential light — identical with the eternal existence, and therefore the principle of all glory and glorious transformation, the prototype, whose image appears in the outward effulgence of the world — which shines into every man, was a light coming into the world — it was from the beginning occupied with coming into the world.⁶

The foundation of His advent was His eternal presence in the world: He, the Logos, in His character as the light,⁷ was in the world (in the creation, as in the world of mankind). But notwithstanding His eternal presence in the world, He must nevertheless come into the world, for: the world (in its substance) was made by Him, and the world (in its non-development as mere world of nature, as well as in its false self-determination, as a fallen spiritual world) knew Him not.

Therefore was His coming long delayed: it had to break through great opposition.

He came into His possession — by commencing His revelations among mankind, — but His own — the organs of His being and of His revelation — received Him not.⁸

In general, they did not receive Him, so far as men remained passive in their religion; yet there were individuals who allowed themselves, through His influence, to be excited to activity, to reciprocal action with Himself. These received Him.

But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become sons of God, to such, namely, as believe on His name.

Through faith in His name, that is, by an active resignation of themselves to the shining forth of His character (for the revelation of the Logos is His name), they received the power, the vital principle, of a new creation into their souls; their regeneration began, and with it the new birth of humanity, the consecration and transformation of its substance, the generation of sons unto God. Thus there appeared, among those that received Him, the children of God — the Monotheists of primeval time — over against the children of men, who gave no place in their hearts to the Spirit of God; the patriarchs of Israel over against the nations of the heathen; the elect in Israel over against the inert mass of the people, who thought they could be born as children unto God by flesh and blood, by their descent from Abraham.

Those children of God were not born of flesh and blood — by natural generation — nor of the will of the flesh — by a higher, more exalted generation, through the power of an ennobled nature — nor even of the will of man — by the most sacred form of generation, effected in the strength of a theocratic faith, — but by the birth which is of God (by regeneration. See above, vol. iii. pp. 461, 462).

However much, in virtue of their faith, the consecration of the life, the new creation, had in substance commenced, as the effect and expression of the vital power of the name of Christ, and the acts of generation became ever more sanctified in the line of the elect, there remained nevertheless still a breach and antagonism between human nature and the divine light, till the light triumphed at length over all opposition in the centre of humanity.

Yet the successive steps by which the natural birth was consecrated, prepared the way for this victory. To the birth from flesh and blood, in the rudest form of the life of nature, there followed the births proceeding from the will, the higher instinct of an ennobled nature; and to these, again, the births which proceeded from the will of the man by theocratically sanctified and moral generation; and although they all needed to be supplemented by the new birth which is from God, yet nevertheless, in this process of development, the birth and the new birth had ever approached more nearly together, and thus a preparation was made for the ushering in of that moment when both should coalesce in one, in the deepest scource of life, and thus the absolutely new birth could appear from heaven.

And the Word became flesh.

This is the true incarnation of the eternal Word. It came not merely into humanity, it not merely assumed human nature: itself became man, a human individuality; nay, it became flesh, a human individuality in the strength and weakness of earthly human life. In this assumption of pure humanity appeared that wondrous blossom which bore witness to the holy root at the source of all things, to the eternal Word.

And — the incarnate Word — dwelt among us.

This is the historically completed incarnation of Christ. Not in the sanctuary of the temple, in the Most Holy Place, did the Logos at last make Himself known to men, but He made the chosen human body, and the habitations of men, and the hearts of men into tabernacles; and thus by the publicity and the power of His manifestation^He has put all men in the condition of becoming divine seers, prophets, and priests; and those whose hearts are open to this teaching, have in reality become so.

And we beheld His glory — the effulgence of God, the Shechinah —the glory of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

An historical acquaintance with Christ becomes necessarily a spiritual beholding of eternal things (in vision). This contemplation is a contemplation of the absolute glory — of the essential dignity of Jesus, of His perfect freedom and power in the Spirit, of His oneness in dominion with God. This glory makes itself more distinctly known in the character of the only-begotten of the Father, which embraces all the characters and attributes of all the births which are of God. His being is an infinite fulness of the divine life; and the beautiful double ray, in which this fulness discovers itself, is grace — the revelation of love which cancels guilt, and truth — the revelation of light, which abolishes the darkness.

These experiences of the glory of Christ are purely the effects of the power of God, and therefore they must necessarily be turned into testimonies. And by these testimonies, the entrance of the eternal Word into the history of the world is made universal and perpetual. Thus it is that the completion of the pre-historical dominion of Christ points forward to his post-historical sway.

These testimonies present themselves in a twofold form — in the form of the prophetic and apostolic testimonies, the testimonies of heralds and of apostles. The forerunner of Christ, John the Baptist, bears witness of Him (continuously), and proclaims aloud the announcement: 'This is He (pointing to Christ) of whom I spake: He that cometh after me is preferred before me; for He was before me.' As He was above me from eternity, He was before me in time, according to His Old Testament advent. Thus the Baptist first declared the character of Christ, and then pointed to His special manifestation.

But the disciples of Jesus also bear witness of Him: And out of His fulness have we all taken (drawn), and grace for grace — the highest discoveries of the majesty of love, as it appears in effacing sin.

In the harmony of these testimonies lies the unity of the Old and New Covenants. The whole course of revelation is only one advent of Christ. Nevertheless the climax of this revelation, the manifestation of grace, forms also a contrast to its previous form under the law. To this John points in the words: For the law was given by Moses, grace and truth became (as embodiment) by Jesus Christ. What the law demands, is given by grace; what the law teaches, is performed by the truth. Thus, as Moses described the true life in the letter of the law, Christ brings it in the reality of the Spirit, as an incarnate, perfected life. He is therefore the real (substantial) revelation of God, in opposition to the typical.

And in so far is He also the one revelation, before which the preceding revelations melt away like shadows. This is announced by the Evangelist in his concluding words, in which he sums up the whole account of the incarnation of Christ: —

No man hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. All the divine visions of seers and prophets were only visions of the glory of Christ in dim representation; but He only has seen God: He sits eternally in His bosom, rests eternally on His heart, and, as His familiar and trusted One, He has announced eternal things — He has completed the work of revelation.

Thus the revelation of Christ presents itself first as eternal, prepared and introduced by the Old Covenant; and so far the Old Covenant may be regarded as the parturition of the New. On this very account, however, it presents itself only in its accomplishment as the real (substantial) revelation; and in so far the Old Covenant stands in a distinct contrast to the New, as the type to the actual fulfilment. Since, however, in the glory of its completion it abolishes the temporary arrangements which preceded, it appeal's as the one revelation; and in so far the glory of the Old Covenant vanishes in the brightness of the New.

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