that we may all know,
not only with our lips, but with our hearts, our faith, our love,
our lives, who The Lord is.

Jesus Christ, the babe of Bethlehem, is The Lord. But who is He?
The Bible tells us; when we have heard what the Bible tells us we
shall be able better to understand the text. The Lord is He of whom
it is written, 'And God said, Let us make man in our image, after
our likeness.' And who is God's image and God's likeness? The New
Testament tells us--Jesus Christ. In Him man was made. He is the
Son of Man, who is in heaven--the true perfect pattern of man: but
He is also the image and likeness of God, the brightness of His
Father's glory, and the express image of His person. He is The
Lord. He is the Lord who instituted marriage, and said, 'It is not
good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help-meet for
him.' He is the Lord who said to man, 'Be fruitful and multiply:
fill the earth and subdue it.' He is the Lord who said to the first
murderer, 'Thy brother's blood crieth against thee from the ground.'
He is the Lord who talked with Abraham face to face as a man talks
with his friend; who blest him by giving him a son in his old age,
that he might be the father of many nations. He is the Lord who, on
Mount Sinai, gave those Ten Commandments, the foundation of all law
and right order between man and God, between man and man:--'Thou
shalt honour thy father and thy mother. Thou shalt do no murder.
Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt
not bear false witness in courts of law or elsewhere. Thou shalt
not covet thy neighbour's property.'

This is The Lord. Not a God far away from men; who does not feel
for them, nor feel with them; not a God who despises men, or has an
ill-will to men, and must be won over to change his mind, and have
mercy on them, by many supplications and tears, and fear and
trembling, and superstitious ceremonies. But this is The Lord, this
is the babe of Bethlehem, this is He whose way John the Baptist came
to prepare--even He of whom it is written, that He possessed wisdom,
the simple, practical human wisdom, useful for this everyday earthly
life of ours, which Solomon sets forth in his Proverbs, in the
beginning before His works of old; and that when He appointed the
foundations of the earth, that Wisdom was by Him, as one brought up
with Him, and she was daily His delight; rejoicing alway before Him;
rejoicing in the _habitable_