Page:Doctrine of the Lord in the Primitive Christian Church.pdf/11

4   DOCTRINE OF THE LORD everlasting life. I am the Living Bread, which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever.”

Who can say such things of himself, if he be any other, or any less, than God? Who else but God is the light of the world? Who can give rest to the weary and heavy laden? Who else can give everlasting life to men? None but God can fulfil such promises as these.

The book of the Apocalypse is a wonderful book. So sublime is it in its imagery and descriptions, and yet so little understood, that some have doubted whether it is a book of the Holy Word. It opens with the words, “The Revelation of Jesus Christ”; and, in the first chapter, is one of the most wonder- ful descriptions of the Lord Jesus Christ to be found in the whole Word. This glorious Being, who reveals Himself to the beloved disciple, declares that He is the first and the last, and has the keys of hell and of death. Can any one be before the first, or beyond the last? But, in the Old Testa- ment, Jehovah uses the same terms to describe His majesty and supreme divinity. In Isaiah: “Hearken unto Me, O Jacob and Israel, My called, I am the first, I also am the last.” Now, who can this be who calls himself the first and the last, in the Apocalypse, but the same One who takes the same title in Isaiah? He says He holds the keys of hell and of death. Who can open hell, and to whom shall men go to escape eternal death, but