DURING these days of scientific and intellectual advancement, man is trying to give a natural solution to all problems that present themselves to mankind and as a result the miraculous in the Bible is assailed on all sides and yet these same men must admit of the miraculous in the common things with which we come in contact every day. How can that seed that is planted in the ground hold within itself all the qualities of the plant which it is to bring forth such that the new plant is like the old plant that brought forth the seed? Science, no matter how far advanced it may be, has never given any satisfactory solution to that problem. All bodies in the universe are known to exert a peculiar force or attraction upon each other and yet what this attraction is, no one has ever been able to tell us. As a result of these wonderful things and powers that we see manifested every day it is to be expected that there should be some things in the workings of an almighty God that are hard to understand. One of the best proofs of the inspiration of the Bible is the fact that there are things in it that we can not understand and so as we study into it we must expect to meet difficulties; however, the more that we study into these difficulties, the less is the trouble that they present to us. One thing must always be borne in mind and that is that because we cannot understand things they may be true nevertheless for there are plenty of things with which we come in contact every day that we must believe and yet we are a long ways from understanding them.

One of the greatest difficulties in the Bible is the contention that Christ is divine and why should it not be a difficulty for we can certainly not explain it by scientific or natural reasons and then the devil is going to do his best to disprove this fact, for in so doing he would undermine the whole system of Christian belief, as Christianity is absolutely dependent upon the divinity of Jesus Christ. It is not the purpose of this paper to try and prove the divinity of Christ as that fact will be taken for granted, but it is the purpose of this paper to make that wonderful truth easier to be understood.

In the first place, let us look at Christ as "The Eternal Son." In John 8:58 we read, "Before Abraham was, I am," thus signifying that His existence before Abraham was not a comparative existence but an absolute eternal existence. We so many times hear the argument brought forth as to where God came from, and yet this argument has no weight, for if God is eternal in the future He is also eternal in the past. If we were to try and see how many times zero would go into ten we would find that add as many zeros together as possible and you would not even be able to make a beginning at reaching ten. It would take an infinite number of zeros to make anything. The opposite is also true that to divide infinity by any number, however great, the answer would still be infinity; divide it by ten years and the result would be infinity; divide it by one thousand years and the result would be infinity; so we see that a comparison of eternity is wholly out of the question and as the human mind can grasp truths only by comparison with that which is already known or by acquisition by means of the senses, it can be seen that there is no use of our trying to understand eternity, yet the fact remains that God had no beginning for He was in the beginning as we read in the first verse of Genesis, and as Christ, is a member of the Godhead. He also was in the beginning. A great many people in thinking of Christ think of His existence as beginning with His first advent into the world, but this is a mistake, and we must think of Him as always being "I am."

Now, then, what was the nature of His birth? By what we have seen already. His birth into a body of flesh and blood was not the beginning of His existence and that is another place where we stumble in trying to understand His miraculous birth. In I Cor. 15:45 we read, "The first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit," and so we see that both were progenitors of a race, but the first Adam was made the progenitor of a race according to the flesh while the last Adam, which is Christ, was made the progenitor of a race according to the spirit. We then can not expect that the birth of Christ would be similar to a birth according to nature, for He did not come to beget human life but to beget spiritual life. The term, "Sonship," as applied to Christ does not in any way imply inferiority, but as we shall see later, it does imply the fact that He was the first born. As we read John 3:16, we too often think of God as signifying the Father alone, but it means the whole Godhead. God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) so loved the world that He (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) gave, etc., the sacrifice was just as great for the Father as it was for the Son and it was just as great for the Son as it was for the Father. Sonship rather than implying that which we usually understand by the term, implies the fact that he made Himself the "First born among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29), the progenitor of a race according to the spirit. God as manifested in that portion of the Trinity who became the first born, existed before He came to earth as a member of the Godhead, but He came down to earth simply that He might show man the way back to his first estate, back to Heaven itself. A party one time got lost in the mountains and while wandering around and looking for the trail, they heard a whistle above them, and looking up saw a young man standing on a peak overlooking them; they told him what the trouble was, and in a short time he was standing beside them and offered to lead them back to the trail which he did in a comparatively short time. Now his allowing himself to become lost with them did not prove that he had never been in those mountains before, nor did it prove that he had to go back down to the foot of the mountain and climb up on the same trail that they had used in order to get to them, but even though he was far above them yet he knew that mountain so well, having spent his life there, that he did not hesitate a moment in leading them to safety. Now he did not ask them how it happened that they were lost, nor did he ask what their reason for being there was; it was enough for him to know that they were lost and their only chance of escape was to put complete trust in him and follow him to safety. Jesus Christ, looking down from the glories of the heavenly home, saw this world lost in trespasses and sins and without asking the reasons for our lost condition. He came down to lead us out to safety, but our escape demands absolute trust in Him. True, we cannot understand it, but is there any reason why we should ever doubt the divinity of Christ when we stop to think that He was in existence before He came to earth and that He must be born different than the natural man for He was to be the progenitor of a new race and was to lead us back to our first estate.

This leads us up to a consideration of the work of the Son. In the first place we see Him as the creator of all things (John 1:3). That is the reason that He was the one to come to earth to redeem the earth; since He had created it He knew just the position that mankind was in and so was in a position to lead the way back to righteousness. As creator then, He was the one to perfect the creation. He is the upholder of all things (Col. 1:17), and keeps all things moving in the path that He has mapped out for them because He is the Creator. He has the right to forgive sins and to raise the dead and notice that He did these things without asking for the authority; others in Bible history who did such things had to lay hold of God first, but Christ did these things in His own strength.

Finally, let us consider some of the attributes of the Son. In Matt. 28:18, He says:'^All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." He Himself then had power over disease and death and nature. We find Him turning the water into wine and there is nothing unbelievable about that, for He was the Creator; we find Him walking on the sea and stilling the tempest and there is nothing unbelievable about that, for certainly the Creator must have power over the creation; we find Him doing many things that would not be possible for mortal man to do, but it is not unbelievable in regard to him because He was God. In John 16:30 His disciples gave him this testimony, "Now we are sure that thou knowest all things," and so we are led to a consideration of His omniscience. The average eye, when it is directed to a printed page can grasp several letters at once, some eyes can even grasp several words at once, but a case of abnormal vision has lately been reported in one of our magazines, in which the eye can grasp all the words on a page at once; one with normal vision can not imagine how that would seem, but if we were to multiply this abnormal vision by infinity we would obtain the vision of God. In other words Jesus Christ knew all things because He was able to grasp all things at once; His knowledge came not by acquisition, but by immediate perception, He did not have to learn them.

In brief, then, the Sonship of Christ reveals the fact that that person of the Godhead who was the creator of all things, manifested Himself as the first born of the spirit, not of the flesh, that He might perfect His creation. He is the eternal Son, having been in the beginning; He was born into the flesh, not according to natural laws but according to unnatural laws, for He was not to give natural life but spiritual life; His is, therefore, the name above all other names.

Do we need, then, to doubt His divinity; do we need to wonder at His miracles; do we need to refuse to believe that He will come again? No, indeed; for with Him, the eternal Son, the creator of all things, all things are possible.