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34  THE CONVENTION TEACHER

grace had made them to be partakers of the inheritance provided for the saints in the world of perfect light, knowledge, holiness, and happiness, at a distance from all ignorance, error, sin, temptation, fear, and sorrow. Who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance. Of the saints in light.  Light in the sacred writings, is used to express knowledge, felicity, purity, comfort, and joy of the most substantial kind; here is to be styled the state of glory at the right hand of God. As children of light, they have no occasion to stumble and are on their way to ineffable light.

(13) Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: Darkness is here personified, and is represented as having power, authority, and sway; Jews and Gentiles, who had not embraced the gospel being under this authority and power. Paul intimates here that nothing less than the power of God can redeem a man from this darkness, or prince of darkness, who by means of sin and unbelief, keeps men in ignorance, vice, and misery. And hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son. He has thoroughly changed our state, brought us out of the dark region of vice and impiety, and placed us in the Kingdom under the government of His dear Son, the Son of His love; the person whom in His infinite love, He has given to make an atonement fro the sin of the world.

(14) In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of our sins: Our redemption comes through the sacrifice of Christ as the Scriptures declare. The forgiveness of sins. The taking away of sins; all the power, guilt and infection of sin. All sin of every kind with all its influence and consequences.

III. CHRIST THE DIVINE NATURE (VV. 15-20.) (15) Who is the image of the invisible God, the first born of every creature: This is the form of God of which He divested Himself; the ineffable glory in which He not only did not appear, as to its splendor and accompaniments, but concealed also its essential nature, that inaccessible light which no man, no crated being can possibly see. This was the Divine nature, the fulness of the God-head bodily, which dwelt in Him. The first born of every creature. He is one man at the head of all the creation of God. "Nor can He with any propriety be considered a creature having Himself created all things, and existed before anything was made.

(16)For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: This makes Jesus Christ the creator of the universe; of all things visible and invisible; of all things that had a beginning, whether they exist in time or in eternity.

(17) And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. Or are preserved to being and order; so that without His sustaining power, they must fall into confusion or non-existence.

(18) And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. Paul now tells of the human nature of Christ and shows how highly He is exalted above all other created things; and how He is head of the church - the author and dispenser of light, life, and salvation, to the Christian world, or that from Him, as the Man in whom the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily, all the mercy and salvation of the Gospel system is to be received. He is the beginning; the author and source of spiritual and eternal life to man, the resurrection and the life, both of body and soul; and the first born from the dead, the first to rise to die no more; the first fruits of His people who rose to inherit the mediatorial throne.

(19) For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell. It seemed good to Him that all the fulness of Divine power, authority, knowledge, holiness, justice, truth, mercy, grace, even all the fulness of God should dwell in the person of Christ; and be exercised and communicated through His human nature by virtue of the union of the deity and humanity in His mysterious person that believers from His fulness might receive the rich supply for their needs and urgent wants.

(20) And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. Thus it pleased all fulness, the original, infinite, inexhaustible fulness of being and perfection of the deity to dwell in Christ for the benefit of His church.

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THE CONVENTION TEACHER   35

QUESTIONS ON THE LESSON

1. Why was Jesus called Teacher?
2. Explain the humility of Jesus.
3. Why was Jesus called a Physician?
4. Is Jesus a worthy example?
5. How does Jesus save man?
6. How was man lost?

Lights on the Lesson

By Rev. Bernard Byrd, D. D.
LIGHT NO. 1 - (John) The words of this subject are synonymous to several expressions made by Jesus, viz - "Whom do men say that I am? Will ye also go? "Believest though on the son of man (God)?" "Why callest though me good?" The purpose in such questions is to reveal that men are not moved toward or against men by what others do or say or even what they think, but it is what the individual himself thinks that motivates his opinions and action. Millions may hate one man, but it by no means interferes with the love of another.

LIGHT NO. 2 - (Col.) Paul at all times gave vivid descriptions of God, because he knew that man's action toward God was entirely dependent upon what he thought of God. Men of today are to talk much about God because the more one knows God, the more his actions become godly.

Editorial Reflections

By Rev. S. A. Pleasants, D. D.
Here Jesus tells what He is, The Bread of life. This Bread is eternal. For one who eats bread to not hunger, it means that the bread eaten does not decay nor pass away. Here the eating is believing. To believe on Jesus, is to the spirit of man what eating with the mouth is to the body of man. We receive the natural bread of eating it. We receive Christ, the Bread of Life by believing on Him. To not hunger nor thirst, when we believe on Christ, means that He gives to the one who believes on Him, all that the soul needs.

To see Christ and not believe Him, means to be exposed to the eternal judgement of Good. Christ lets us know here, that all who are given to Him by the Father, will come to Him. All who refuse to come to Him, have not been given to Him by the Father. God does not do useless things. All who come to Christ, He will keep forever. For Him to hold eternally all who come to Him, is the Father's will.

Passing into the great beyond of the spirit of the Christian, and being placed in the ground the body does not prevent Christ from holding His loved ones, and raising them at the last day and making all of them the sons of God like Himself. This being the will of our Father, no power in the universe can keep it from being done. We are as Christians, as sure to be raised again from our sleeping beds out of the ground, as we are sure that we are living now, in our earthly bodies.

When one is truly God's and is conscious of His presence he will pray that all of His children be filled with the knowledge of His will, in all sporitual wisdom and understanding. It is joy to all Christians to know that those who confess to the world, that they are in the family of God; when they walk worthily of the Lord, pleasing Him in every thing. Such is expressed here by the Holy Spirit through Paul.

We the saints of light, have been translated into the Kingdom of the Son of God; hence we are no more children of hate, but are children of love, the same kind that caused God our Father to give to the world of men, the Best He had. We have been forgiven for our Adamic nature of sin, never to be entangled again with it. It is gone forever and we cannot sin as such anymore, because we are in Jesus Christ, where there is no sin.

Christ is the Image of the invisible God, and was the first born of all creation; hence He is the One in whom all created things are, and consist. Things visible and invisible, thrones, dominions, principalities and powers, all were created in Him by the God-Head and hence remain today and ever will. He is the Head of the Church and it lives in Him, and He lives in it. Being before all things, it pleased the Father, that in Him, all the fulness dwell, and through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself. He made peace through the blood of His cross, things upon earth and in Heaven.