First, then, God has a purpose concerning Christ, that he has concerning no other, for he purposes to make in him his supreme self-manifestation. This sets him apart from all others. His transcendent sense of God and sense of mission only correspond to the absolute uniqueness of this eternal purpose of God concerning him. We are utterly unable to see that they could be borne by any being that we know as man. He is the manifested God--"the visible presentation of the invisible God." This cannot be said, in the same sense, of any other. Now, our only adequate statement of the inner reality--the essential meaning--of any being, can be given only in terms of the purpose which God calls that being to fulfil. To see, then, that God's purpose concerning Christ is absolutely unique, and that God's purpose is, to make in Christ the completest possible personal manifestation of himself, is to see that Christ's essential relation to the Father is absolutely his own, unshared by any other. And, it may be added, there is no reason why this purpose of God concerning Christ should not be regarded as an eternal purpose, eternally realized. But Christ is as clearly unique in his simply perfect response to this purpose of God. Our facts seem to point directly to the conclusion, that in him there was no moral hindrance to the fullness of the revelation God would make through him. His life is perfectly transparent, allowing the full glory of the character of God to shine through it. The harmony of his will with God's will is complete. If it be said that this last uniqueness is, after all, only difference in degree from other men, it must be answered, first, that degree here is so vast as to be practically kind. This is the perfect of Christ set over against the varyingly imperfect of all other men. Moreover, to ask here for difference in kind in any other sense, is probably to make an unintelligent and impossible demand; for, in the nature of the case, the relations involved are spiritual and personal, and there cannot be, in strictness, in the fulfilment of such relations any real differences in kind.