INTRODUCTION
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MARK.- Christ is set forth as SERVANT. `Behold My Servant' (Isa.
42:1).
Christ is set forth as the BRANCH. `Behold I will bring
forth My Servant, the Branch' (Zech. 3:8).
Christ as a servant, needs no genealogy.
Christ, relatively, presented as in the lowliest earthly
position, a SERVANT.
LUKE.-
Christ is set forth as MAN. `Behold the Man' (Zech. 6:12).
Christ is set forth as the BRANCH. `Behold the man whose
name is the Branch' (Zech. 6:12).
Christ's genealogy is traced back to Adam.
Christ, intrinsically, presented as the ideal MAN.
JOHN.-
Christ is set forth as GOD. `Behold your God' (Isa. 40:9).
Christ is set forth as Jehovah's BRANCH. `In that day shall
Jehovah's Branch be beautiful and glorious' (Isa. 4:2).
Christ, as God can have no genealogy. He `was' in the
beginning.
Christ, intrinsically, presented as `GOD', mediatorially as
the `WORD', and savingly as `JESUS THE CHRIST, THE
SON OF GOD', `THE WORD MADE FLESH'.
The `Logos' in Philosophy and in Revelation
When the apostle Paul was confronted with the Stoic and
Epicurean philosophers at Athens, he did not use words of scorn or
derision, but rather of sympathy. The Jew in him, as well as the
Christian, abominated the sight of idols, and we read that `his spirit
was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry'
(Acts 17:16). Nevertheless, when he was arraigned before these
philosophers, he did not alienate them by ridicule or contempt, but
rather used the local conditions as a starting point for his speech:
`I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD.
Whom, therefore, ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you'
(Acts 17:23).
It is in much the same spirit that John, at Ephesus, surrounded by
Greek and Alexandrian philosophies, opens his Gospel with the title
Logos. There is no introduction to the title, no leading up to it, but