The Gift of Joy
“His name shall be called Immanuel, . . . God
with us.”
By coming to dwell with us, Jesus was to reveal
God both to men and to angels. He was the Word
of God,--God’s thought made audible. In His prayer
for His disciples He says, “I have declared unto
them Thy name,”--”merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,”-”that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Me
may be in them, and I in them.” But not alone for
His earthborn children was this revelation given.
Our little world is the lesson book of the universe.
God’s wonderful purpose of grace, the mystery of
redeeming love, is the theme into which “angels
desire to look,” and it will be their study throughout
endless ages. Both the redeemed and the unfallen
beings will find in the cross of Christ their science
and their song. It will be seen that the glory shining
in the face of Jesus is the glory of self-sacrificing
love. In the light from Calvary it will be seen that
the law of self-renouncing love is the law of life for
earth and heaven; that the love which “seeketh not
her own” has its source in the heart of God; and
that in the meek and lowly One is manifested the