Poetry · Chapter
The Word of God explained
A meditation on the insufficiency of the letter without the spirit, affirming that Jesus Christ, as the Word and Spirit of God, contains and bestows all spiritual inheritance.
What happens
A meditation on the insufficiency of the letter without the spirit, affirming that Jesus Christ, as the Word and Spirit of God, contains and bestows all spiritual inheritance.
Themes in this chapter
Redemption and Grace
The poem presents Jesus as the embodiment of God's Word and Spirit, through whom all spiritual blessings are inherited.
Divine Fatherhood
Implied in the inheritance of all things from God through Jesus, the divine Word.
Characters to notice
- Jesus Christ
Addressed as the Word and Spirit in whom all things are inherited.
- Godhead
Described as stored in Jesus, the source of all inheritance.
Key passages
“Where the bud has never blown Who for scent is debtor? Where the spirit rests unknown Fatal is the letter.”
A place where no flower has bloomed owes no fragrance; where the spirit is absent, the mere written word brings death.
Contrasts the dead letter of the law with the life-giving spirit, a Pauline theme (2 Corinthians 3:6).
“In thee, Jesus, Godhead-stored, All things we inherit, For thou art the very Word And the very Spirit!”
In you, Jesus, who contains the fullness of God, we receive everything as our inheritance, because you are both the Word and the Spirit.
Affirms the incarnation as the union of divine revelation and life-giving presence.