32 THE KEY OF MYSTERIES

every man, coming into the world.' In accordance with this, Isaiah the prophet says of the true, spiritual Israel: 'The 1 LORD shall be thine everlasting light.' As these words of the prophet Isaiah were written centuries before the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, they were well known to the pious Jews of His time, being in their own holy Scriptures. By speaking of Himself, therefore, as the light of the world, Christ evidently showed His divine rank and dignity in an unmistakable way.

(7) He did this again to some degree, though not so clearly when He said to the Jews: 'Ye 2 are from beneath; I am from above: Ye are of this world; I am not of this world.' But, lest there should be any doubt about the meaning of these words, He added: 'I 3 came forth and am come from God.' In accordance with this He said afterwards to His disciples: 'The 4 Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came forth from the Father. I came out from the Father, and am come into the world.' John the Baptist recognized this truth and taught it, saying: 'He 5 that cometh from above is above all: he that is of the earth is of the earth, and of the earth he speaketh: he that cometh from heaven is above all. What he hath

1 Isa. lx. 20. 2 John viii. 23.
3 John viii. 42. 4 John xvi. 27-8.
5 John iii. 31-2.
PROOF OF THE DEITY OF CHRIST 33

seen and heard, of that he beareth witness.' These words, if they stood alone, would not by themselves suffice to prove the Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, though they would prove that He came from heaven and from God, and that He was not a mere man raised to the position of a prophet or an apostle, like Moses or David or Elijah or John the Baptist. But they do not stand alone; they stand among many other passages in which Christ asserts His Deity; and therefore their full meaning is to be understood from consideration of the other parts of His teaching. 'When thus considered, it becomes clear in what sense the Lord Jesus Christ declared that He had come from 1 God.

(8) The Lord Jesus Christ teaches that love to Him proves that the believer in Him has received the new and spiritual birth from above which is necessary 2 before any one can enter into God's kingdom. For, when the Jews asserted that they were God's spiritual offspring 3 'Jesus 4 said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would

1 Cf. Qur'an 'Suratu'n-Nisa' (iv) 169 رُوحٌ منهُ.
(I do not dwell upon the fact that in John viii. 42, and in John xvi. 28, we find in the best manuscripts the word εκ instead of παρα, because, though the former would strictly denote His divine origin, yet it may possibly be used as equivalent to παρα; cf. John xvi. 27 with 28, where these prepositions are interchanged with one another.)
2 John iii. 3, 5. 3 John viii. 41. 4 John viii. 42.