THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 1090, 6 January 1912, Page 3

THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST.

Last Sunday evening the Vicar of All Saints’ preached on the Divinity of Christ, and took as his text St John i., i., “In the beginning was the Word ; and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’’ He pointed out that this text was the key to Christ’s Divinity, and to understand it the seeker after truth must search deeply into the scriptures. In some of the old books of the Bible the Divine Sophia or Logos was brought before them as a personality and not merely as an attribute of Jehovah. Such passages as Proverbs vin., 22-31., were very striking “Jehovah (says wisdom) possessed me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old.. I was set up from ever lasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth ; when He prepared the Heavens I was there. When He appointed the foundations of the earth then I was by Him, as one brought up with Him.” In the Sapiential Books, the Word is identical with the Wisdom, the Logos and the Sophia. In the Book of Wisdom, the Logos or Word is spoken of, “Thine allpowerful word leaped from Heaven out of the royal throne. A stern warrior, into the midst of the doomed laud,” There were many other passages all pointing to a personality. The text was made clearer by these facts. The Word or Logos, which is Jesus Christ, was one existing in the beginning, and therefore prior to all beginning. “The Word was with God,” here St. John tells us of His personal existence in active communion with God. “The Word was-God,” St. John defines the nature of Christ, He is God in essence. The Divinity of Christ was questioned in the Amn Heresy, but the Council of Nicea settled for all time the nature ,ot Christ, when it condemned Arius and drew up the Nicene Creed. The vicar said all doubts were answered in the creeds of tlie Church—modern heresies were simply the old ones coming up under different names. Church people who were familiar with the Nicene Creed and had said it from infancy must be convinced in their own minds of the true nature of their Redeemer, and to .them nothing should be able to shake their faith that He is indeed God of God Light of Light Very God of being God, Begotten not made Being of one substance with the Father By whom all things are made.