DAILY LESSONS ON THE LIFE OF OUR LORD ON EARTH, IN THE WORDS OF THE EVANGELISTS. I. OF THE WORD OR SON OF GOD. St. John i. 1-5. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. This expression "The Word" was one well known to those into whose hands this Gospel first came. It was in frequent use among the Jews, who understood by that title the Messiah; and the Gentiles also were not unfamiliar with it. As by our words we discover our minds to others, so He that revealed God's will to us is fitly called "the Word of God." As this was one of the expressions made use of, or rather abused, by certain false teachers in those early times," the Evangelist in the correct use of it indirectly reproves 1 St. John xv. 15; xvii. 14, 26; Heb. i. 1, 2. 2 The Gnostics, so called from a Greek word signifying knowledge; being men who claimed to have a monopoly of the same. We find con stant allusion to them in St. John's epistles. Such expressions as "the word," "the light," "the life," in these opening verses and elsewhere, have reference to the false philosophy which perverted these expressions. B |