The whole story of the sacrifice of Calvary is included in this wondrous first leaf of revelation.  If we had lost the Gospels, and didn’t know their story, nor the history of man, we yet could know from this Genesis page that, if ever the need arose, God would lavishly give out His very life, at any cost of suffering and pain, that His man might be saved.  John, three, sixteen is in the first chapter of Genesis.  Calvary is in the creation.  God gave His breath to man in creation, and His blood for man on Calvary.  He gave His blood because He had given His breath.  Each was His very life.

You know the way publishers have of putting an imprint in a book by means of what is called a water-mark.  By the skilful use of water in manufacturing the paper, a name or trade imprint is made a part of the very paper of which the book is made.

Have you ever noticed God’s water-mark on the paper of this first leaf of His Book?  Hold your Bible up as we talk; separate this first leaf and hold it up to the light and try to see through it.  The best light to use is that which came from Calvary.  Can you see the water-mark plainly imprinted there?  Look closely and carefully, for it is there.  In clear-cut outline, every bit of it showing sharply out, is a cross.  And if you look still more closely you will find this water-mark different from those in common use, in this—­there is a distinct blood-red tinge to it.

A Human Picture of God.

Illustrations of God from our common life are never full, and must not be taken too critically, but they are sometimes wonderfully vivid and very helpful.  Anything that makes God seem real and near helps.

A few years ago I heard a simple story of real life from the lips of a New England clergyman.  It was told of a brother clergyman of the same denomination, and stationed in the same city with the man who told me.

This clergyman had a son, about fourteen years of age, who, of course, was going to school.  One day the boy’s teacher called at the house and asked for the father.  When they met he said: 

“Is your son sick?”

“No; why?”

“He was not at school to-day.”

“You don’t mean it!”

“Nor yesterday.”

“Indeed!”

“Nor the day before.”

“Well!”

“And I supposed he was sick.”

“No, he’s not sick.”

“Well, I thought I should tell you.”

And the father thanked him, and the teacher left.  The father sat thinking about his son, and those three days.  By and by he heard a click at the gate, and he knew the boy was coming in.  So he went to the door to meet him at once.  And the boy knew as he looked up that the father knew about those three days.

And the father said, “Come into the library, Phil.”

And Phil went and the door was shut.