NOTE ON THE INCARNATION. A correct apprehension of the character and place in history of Jesus Christ is essential to a correct apprehension of Christianity. Our conception of the system will depend upon our conception of the Founder. The other Evangelists give simply the story of his life, leaving the readers to draw their own deductions respecting him. John, writing at a later date, and in a more philosophical atmosphere, begins his Gospel with a characterization of the One the story of whose earthly life he is about to narrate. It is evident on even a cursory examination of this preface that John believed and intended to teach, (1) That Christ existed prior to his earthly birth. He was the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world; was before John the Baptist, whom in his earthly history and mission he succeeded; and he was in the beginning with God (vers. 1, 4, 15). (2) That he possessed a superhuman character. He is carefully distinguished from and placed above John the Baptist, the last of the prophets and more than a prophet (Matt. 11:9), and from Moses the lawgiver and politically the founder of the Jewish nation; and he is emphatically declared not only to have been with God in the beginning, but to have partaken of the divine nature (vers. 1, 6-8, 17). (3) This superhuman character is further illustrated by what is declared of his office or work. He is the Creator, the Light and Life of men, the regenerating power through whom men are brought into divine sonship, the daily support of the spiritual life of the children of God, the disclosure of the divine nature to men (vers. 3, 4, 12, 13, 16, 18). (4) This truth is incidentally, but all the more effectively, enforced by John’s peculiar language in describing Christ’s earthly state: he “tabernacled among us and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten from the Father” (ver. 14). (5) Finally, it is illustrated in the various titles conferred upon him throughout this chapter, which are ten in number: the Word; the Light; the Life; the only begotten of the Father; Jesus Christ, _i. e._, the Saviour, the Messiah; the only begotten Son; the Lamb of God; the Son of God; Master; the Son of Man. It is not the province of the commentator to construct a systematic theology. But it is certain that these elements must enter into any conception of Jesus Christ which is founded on and accords with the N. T. There is probably no other single passage of equal length in the N. T. which contains so much respecting the character and office of Jesus Christ as this preface to John’s Gospel; with it, however, should be examined Paul’s Christology (e. g., Phil. 2:5-11), and that of the unknown author of the Epistle to the Hebrews (Heb., chaps. 1, 2). * * * * *