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And the blessed Saviour declares concerning himself, "I am Alpha and Omega - the beginning and the ending - the first and the last." [Rev. i. 8, 17.]   These, and innumerable passages which ascribe to him the glory of pardon and peace, of present comfort and future happiness, are summed up in the emphatical words of the text, CHRIST IS ALL AND IN ALL.

CHRIST is an official name. It respects the exalted offices the REDEEMER sustained, and the vast work, which as GOD and man in one person he accomplished.

He must be man, a perfect man, that the law may be obeyed and satisfied, in the same nature which had sinned. He must be GOD, the true GOD, because no mere creature possesses a right to lay down his life and assign his merits to others - because it requires infinite wisdom, love and power, to procure for and apply salvation to the guilty and depraved - and because, redemption constitutes a new claim to an exclusive property in, and dominion over the redeemed. But the LORD will not give his glory or alienate his claim to another. "I looked," saith he, "and there was none to help - therefore mine own arm brought salvation." [Isai. lxiii. 5.]   "I, even I am the LORD, and besides

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me there is no Saviour." [Isai. xliii. 11.]   "A just God and a Saviour, there is none besides me." [Isai. xlv. 21.]  

So much of the mysterious manner of the divine existence is revealed; so much of GOD the Father, of GOD the Son, and of GOD the Holy Ghost, the one, the only living and true GOD, as suffices, not to gratify unsanctified curiosity, but to inform believers in what manner JEHOVAH can become their REDEEMER.

In consequence of the union between the divine nature of the Son of GOD and the human nature which he assumed, his whole person as GOD manifested in the flesh, is designated by the name of CHRIST. The Apostle therefore, in the words before us, adopts and confirms the principle, that in revealed religion, GOD the REDEEMER is all and in all.

No subject can be more acceptable to those who love the LORD JESUS CHRIST. None more seasonable when adversaries openly blaspheme that sacred name. And none more suitable to the character in which we now appear in his house and the work in which we profess to be engaged. - Father of lights, source of every good and every perfect gift, remove