From the days of eternity the Lord Jesus Christ was One with the Father; He was the image of God, the expression of His glory. To show this glory, to reveal the light of God’s love, Jesus came to our sin-darkened earth. Isaiah prophesied of Him, “They shall call His name Immanuel, ... God with us.” Matthew 1:23; cf. Isaiah 7:14. HH 7.1
Jesus was “the Word of God”—God’s thought made audible. God gave this revelation not just for His earthborn children. Our little world is the lesson book of the universe. Both the redeemed and the unfallen beings will find their true knowledge and their joy in the cross of Christ. They will see that the glory shining in the face of Jesus is the glory of self-sacrificing love. They will see that for earth and heaven, the law of life is the law of self-renouncing love. The love that “does not seek its own” has its source in the heart of God and is shown in Jesus, the meek and lowly One. HH 7.2
In the beginning, Christ laid the foundations of the earth. His hand hung the worlds in space and fashioned the flowers of the field. He filled the earth with beauty and the air with song. See Psalm 65:6; 95:5. He wrote the message of the Father’s love on everything. HH 7.3
Now sin has marred God’s perfect work, yet that handwriting remains. Except for the selfish human heart, nothing lives just for itself. Every tree and shrub and leaf pours forth oxygen, without which neither people nor animals could live; and people and animals, in turn, support the life of tree and shrub and leaf. The ocean receives streams from every land, but it takes only to give back. The mists rising from it fall in showers to water the earth, so that plants may grow and bud. The angels of glory find their joy in giving. They bring light from above, moving upon the human spirit to bring the lost into fellowship with Christ. HH 7.4
But turning from all lesser examples, we see God in Jesus. We find that it is the glory of God to give. “I do not seek My own glory,” said Christ, but the glory of Him who sent Me. John 8:50; 7:18. Christ received from God, but He took to give. Through the Son, the Father’s life flows out to all. Through the Son, it returns in joyous service, a tide of love, to the great Source of all. In this way, through Christ the circle of blessing is complete. HH 7.5