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John 8:51-59
Suggested further reading: Isaiah 53:1-12
Abraham had been dead and buried at least 1,850 years and yet
he is said to have seen our Lord's day! How wonderful that
sounds! Yet it was quite true. Not only did Abraham `see' our Lord and
talk to him when he `appeared unto him in the plains of Mamre'
the night before Sodom was destroyed (Gen. 18:1), but by faith
he looked forward to the day of our Lord's incarnation yet to
come and, as he looked, he `was glad'. That he saw many things
through a glass darkly we need not doubt. That he could have
explained fully the whole manner and circumstances of our Lord's
sacrifice on Calvary we are not obliged to suppose. But we need not
shrink from believing that he saw in the far distance a Redeemer
whose advent would finally make all the earth rejoice. And as he saw
it, he `was glad'.
The plain truth is that we are too apt to forget that there
never was but one way of salvation, one Saviour and one hope for
sinners and that Abraham and all the Old Testament saints looked to
the same Christ that we look to ourselves.
How distinctly our Lord declares his own pre-existence!
We read that he said to the Jews, `Before Abraham was, I am.'
Without a controversy, these remarkable words are a great deep. They
contain things which we have no eyes to see through, or mind to
fathom. But if language means anything, they teach us that our Lord
Jesus Christ existed long before he came into the world. Before man
was created, he was. In short, they teach us that the Lord Jesus was
no mere man like Moses or David. He was one whose goings
forth were from everlasting, the same yesterday, today and for ever,
very and eternal God.
He to whom the gospel bids us come with our sins and
believe for pardon and peace is no mere man. He is nothing less than
very God and therefore `able to save to the uttermost' all who come
to him.
For meditation: There is one divine Saviour for all God's people.
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