Page:God Manifest.djvu/200

190, but a man like themselves, and but middle-aged, calmly declares to them that he knew their venerable ancestor, the patriarch Abraham, and that it was a cause of joy to Abraham that he had seen Him. How remarkable a declaration! is it matter of wonder that the Jews were astonished? Yet was it most true. Not that Abraham had seen that very face that appeared to them, that flesh and blood that stood before them—for that assumed humanity was "not yet fifty years old:" and the Jews, judging only by the sight of their eyes,—judging only by the appearance,—could not understand or believe the declaration. But the real essence of the Being who spoke, that which constituted His essential self, and which therefore He could properly call "I,"—Abraham had seen and had rejoiced to see, namely, the Divine part of Him, God, though clothed, indeed, with the form of an angel. No less than 1900 years before, it was, that that interview with Abraham took place. We find it described in the seventeenth chapter of Genesis: "And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect.—And Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him." From that striking declaration, then, of Jesus, we learn that He was the "Almighty God" Himself, who appeared in one form to Abraham, and now, 1900 years after, appeared in another form to Abraham's descendants, but who was still essentially one and the same. And mark the striking expression afterwards used. When the Jews expressed their astonishment and incredulity at the declaration that He had seen Abraham, He went still farther, declaring that he not