himself as
embracing the whole extent of being.

Listen:

"I am he that _is_"--that is to say, the self-existing one; for the
statement is the cognate of that, "I am that I am," which is the
pre-eminent appelative of deity.

"I am he which _was_"--and this extends being into the past; that
past he himself defines. He does not say I am in the beginning, but
I am _the_ beginning--_beginning itself_--the _origin_ of things
and, therefore, himself unbegun, eternal, from _everlasting_. It is
the echo of that far-flung phrase of old: Even "_from everlasting to
everlasting thou art God_."

"I am he which is _to come_"--this includes eternity future--the
unendingness which stretches without a horizon beyond the present.

Here is fulness--and the fulness of the Godhead _bodily_.

In saying these words upon Patmos, then, our Lord Jesus Christ says:

"I am God--I am Almighty God."

Nor is this a mere conclusion from the premise here!

He says it directly, plainly and squarely himself.

He says not only that he _is_, and _was_, and _is to come_--but he
says--

"I AM THE ALMIGHTY."

And Paul, the special apostle of the Church, unites with Thomas (the
believing, but material evidence demanding representative of the
elect remnant in Israel) in proclaiming the deity of God's Christ.

Thomas falls at his feet and cries:

"My Lord and _My God_."

Paul bows his head in adoration before him and writes:

"_Our great God_ and Saviour--_Jesus Christ_."

Upon the august throne of the universe he is seated.

He who lay a babe upon a woman's breast; who, although he was
infinite, became an infant; who being in the form of God, did not
hesitate to put off the divine glory and put on mortal humanity that
(as an infinite person) he might, through the "prepared" body of his
mortality, offer an infinite sacrifice for men; who died under a
malefactor's doom, but with his nailed hands, in the hour of his
agony, saved a thief from hell--opening to him the gates of
Paradise; he who refused the deliverance of angels when they bent
above his cross, that by his cross he might give to men the
deliverance angels could not give; lie who was buried in a borrowed
grave; who rose as an immortal man, ascended as the _Second Adam_--
the _New Head of Humanity_--the _Life Giver_ to a world, and took
his seat on the _Father's_ throne, as witness of redemption achieved
and salvation secured--he sits there now, and having taken to
himself the gl