All things! Yes; all history, all science, all aggregation of truth in
whatever domain, and whatever kind it may be. "Think you," He seems to
say--"think you that My working is confined to a few paltry miracles
wrought in Galilee? The universe itself is My miracle. Think you My
words are restricted to a few short precepts uttered to the Jews?" We
make foolish distinctions. We imagine we erect a barrier within which
we would confine the Christ of our own imagination; but the Christ of
Christ's own teaching overleaps all such barriers of ours. We are
careful to distinguish between knowledge and revealed religion. We
separate Christ from the former and we relegate Him to the latter; but
the Christ of Christ's own teaching is the Eternal Word, through whom
the Father speaks. We draw the rigid lines of demarcation between
science and theology, between religion and language, but the Christ of
the people is the hand of the Father not less in science and language
than in religion and theology. We have our distinctions between the
secular and the spiritual, as if the two were antagonistic. We must
not use a saying of Christ, as if it taught that our duty to Cæsar was
something quite apart from our duty to God; as if, forsooth, it were
possible for us to have any moral obligation to any man, or body of
men, to any child, which was not also an obligation to God in Christ.
But the Christ of the Gospel claims sovereignty over all alike--over
that which we call secular not less than that which we call spiritual.
"All things--_all things_--that the Father hath are Mine;
therefore, I say, He shall take of Mine, and show it unto you."
We speak sometimes of the revelations. Yes; revelations, indeed, not
merely of inanimate processes, not merely of blind laws, but
revelations of the eternal world, of the Eternal Son through whom the
Father works. Therefore, as Christians, we are bound to look upon
these as Christ. Therefore, if we are true to our heavenly schooling,
the Spirit will take up these and show them unto us. "He shall take of
Mine, and shall shew it unto you."
Are we diligent students of the lessons of history? Do we delight
to trace the progress of the human race from the first dawn of
civilisation to its noonday blaze? To disclose the obscure past of the
great nations of the earth? to mark the development of the arts of
government? to follow the ever-widening range of intellect? to discern
the stream of human life broadening slowly down with the force of
ages?
Then let us see the kingdom of Christ not less in the progress of
history than in the laws of science. He was in the world, and the
world knew Him not. He was the true Light that lighteth every man--the
Light ever brighter and clearer till it attained its full glory at
length in the Incarnation. Therefore the school of history is also the
school of the Holy Spirit, for it is the setting forth of Christ. "He
that hath eyes to see, let him see." "He shall take of Mine."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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