CONSIDER HIM by Geo. W. Rine

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Oct 22, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 43.

“CONSIDER HIM.”

By Geo. W. Rine

The Incentive.

A symbol of “the perennially welling fountain” from “the mountains of God.”

Of all themes profitable for human consideration, that of Jesus the Christ is obviously the one par excellence. For it pleased the Father that in His Son should all fulness dwell—all fulness of power, of knowledge, of wisdom; all fulness of righteousness, of truth; aye, “all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” Col. 1:19; 2:9.

We are living in an age when men are running to and fro to find knowledge and attain wisdom. The land is dotted with institutions of learning and groaning under its burden of books. From the press flows an unbroken stream of literature. Everybody reads; some think, and formulate systems of knowledge; a few discover and appropriate the pearl of great price, true wisdom—the wisdom of God, the wisdom that issues in life everlasting.

It is pleasing to know that men are everywhere hungering for knowledge and thirsting for wisdom; but how sad that, in their quest of knowledge and culture, so many are surrounding empty tables and attempting to draw from empty cisterns. O, that every soul knew that there is a perennially welling fountain of the waters of wisdom—of the wisdom of light, and life, and love! This fountain that issues fresh from the mountains of God yields the only waters that satisfy—that satisfy eternally. “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I [Christ] shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” John 4:14.

Yes, that fathomless fountain of knowledge, of wisdom, of truth, is Jesus; and this same Jesus is the “unspeakable gift” that God has given to every man. “Is it possible,” methinks I hear some timid, doubting soul inquire, “that God has given to me, even me, His beloved Son, ‘in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge’?” Col. 2:3.

Yes, verily; for it pleased the Father that in us, likewise, should dwell all the fulness of God. See Eph. 3:19. To this Fountain, then, all may come; “whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” Rev. 22:17. Can we not all exclaim, “O Lord, how manifold are Thy mercies!”

Not only are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, of righteousness and power, hidden in Christ, but He is “the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” 1 Cor. 1:24. He not only embodies all truth and all life, but “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” John 14:6. The blessedness, however, of all this is the fact that Christ was made unto us the power and the wisdom, the truth and the life, of God. O, each one of us may say, “Jesus is mine!”—Jesus the incarnation of all excellence—Jesus the effulgence of the Father’s glory, the express image of His person—Jesus in reference to whom God commanded, saying, “Let all the angels of God worship Him” (Heb. 1:6);—aye, this Jesus is mine! May God grant that each one of us may truly add, “And I am His.”

To consider Him, then, is no task, no bare, hard duty, but an unspeakably precious privilege. Think of it. In studying Jesus we are studying the eternal Word of God (Rev. 19:13), God’s imperishable, illimitable Book—the Book in which the Author of authors has stored all there is of knowledge and wisdom, of beauty and excellence. Yes; Jesus is God’s Book—His priceless volume, the epistles of Himself. “No man hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.” John 1:18. Jesus declared (i. e., manifested, revealed, portrayed) His Father by what He was and did as well as by what He said. Jesus being the exact likeness, the faithful reproduction, the precise duplicate, so to speak, of the Father, could declare, unchallenged, to Philip, “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” John 14:9.

Being the Word of God, Christ is the thought of God expressed to man, the mind of God set forth or exhibited to man. A word is the medium through which a thought expresses itself. If I understand a word, I understand its contained thought, if I understand a thought, I understand the word through which the thought asserts itself. “The thought is the word invisible, the word is the thought visible.” As the word would have no meaning without the thought, so the thought would have no expression without the word. Even so the invisible, inaudible thought of God was made visible and audible through the Word—the Christ. “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” 2 Cor. 4:6. Hence if we would see God, if we would know Him and enjoy Him, we must look “unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith.” Seeing Christ, we see God; knowing Christ, we know the Father.

God is wisdom, God is light, God is love, God is life. This wisdom, this light, this love, this life, are all found in Jesus; they are all written in letters of living light in God’s Book, and that Book is Christ. And this Book the Father invites you and me to read and study

enjoy, with the promise that in so doing we shall know God, whom to know is life eternal; with the promise that as we consider Him, the Word, He will cause us “to lie down in green pastures,” and lead us “beside the still waters.”

Shall we not pray that as we study and grow into the Word, the promise may be verified to each one of us, that He (the Holy Spirit) will guide us into all truth, taking the things that are God’s, and, through Christ, revealing them unto us? See John 16:13, 14.

GEO. W. RINE.