08 - Chapter 08

VIII. THE INCARNATION; THE POSSIBILITY OF IT, AND THE NECESSITY FOR IT.

Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh (1 Timothy 3:16).

God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons (Galatians 4:4-5). WITH Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury in the eleventh century, the great question, was, Cur Deus homo? Why did God become man? But in our day the question which most seriously perplexes many is the prior one, Deusne homo? Did God become man? If so, in what manner, Quomodo Deus homo?

Now, when we are considering this subject we must not make a mistake with regard to the kind of proof which alone is possible here. “ A demon-stration of the supernatural is an impossibility; it is a contradiction in terms... The facts which we allege as evidence of the supernatural, such as miracles and prophecy, are themselves supernatural, and our adducing them as such in proof of the supernatural is a mere begging of the question in dispute. The supernatural is not to be demonstrated; it is to be felt; it does not prove itself to sense; it reveals itself to faith.”

These words of the late Archbishop Magee serve to remind us of the fact that the manifestation of Himself which God has given us in Jesus Christ is one that is, so far as such a thing can be, perfectly natural and intelligible. For here as elsewhere though more perfectly than else-where the divine is revealed to us in and through the human, the spiritual in and through the material, the supernatural in and through the natural. And if in the preparation of the world for Christ, or in the Person and life and teaching of Christ, or in the consequences that followed in the train of Christ, we cannot perceive the divine in the human, God in man, then any merely external proof such as miracles will be unable to prove the divinity of Christ, much less to bring this great truth home to us in such wise that we may pass under the power and pressure of it. The great difficulty which many have in con-nection with the Incarnation arises from the fact that we are so prone to think of it as an isolated event, a strange freak of the supernatural, uncon-nected with everything that preceded it in history and in human life, and destitute of relationship with that which obviously resulted from it, viz., the Church which was founded by Christ, which in accordance with His promise has survived the ages, and which to-day is healthier, stronger, and more active than ever it was before. But we cannot have a true understanding of the Incarnation when we look at it in this way. And Scripture distinctly tells us that we are not to think of it after this fashion.

Christ came when the world was prepared for His coming. And when He came He ’ took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself.’ We are thus told that Christ’s Incarnation was a voluntary self-limitation of Himself for purposes of love to man. But otherwise we know that Christ lived and suffered and died for the eternal good of men, and that while He lived He was under the conditions and limitations of humanity conditions and limita-tions which, whatever their effect in other directions, did not seem to interfere with His full union and communion with God, His thorough discernment of the human heart, and His perfect knowledge of spiritual truth.

’ When the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law.’ But just because Christ assumed the form of frail mortality, and came into a world that was prepared for His coming, Christianity always has been, and possibly always will be, liable to what we may call a merely naturalistic explanation. ’ We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us.’ But men have devoted so much attention to the earthen vessels that they have been apt to overlook the treasure which they contain. God’s strength was made perfect in the human weakness of Jesus, but many have been so absorbed in the contemplation of this human weakness that they have often failed to perceive the divine strength that was revealed in and through it. God often accomplishes the most wonderful results by means and instruments which in themselves are weak and ineffective, but we shut our eyes to this fact, and many are consequently unable to understand the meaning and significance of the words of St. Paul, ’ the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.’ The most obvious fact about Christ was His humanity; but there is nothing in this fact incon-sistent with the truth brought out in the words, ’ God sent forth his Son/ ’ God was in Christ.’ For if we can find the Infinite in the finite, the super-natural in the natural, we surely need not be surprised to find God in man, who is the greatest of all the creatures of God the one who was made in the image of God, and who still retains some outline of that image, however far he may now be from that ideal life which was meant for him.

We often use the phrases “ a mere man,” “ the natural man,” but we sometimes use them carelessly and without a proper regard to their true meaning.

Mere man does not mean mere animal, for every man has gifts, powers, faculties which animals do not possess. The natural man is one who has so neglected the cultivation of his spiritual nature that the lower elements in his being have supreme control in his life. But we have no right to assume that there is no spark of life divine in comparatively unspiritual men, for even men fast bound in the chains of sin often feel inclined to give utterance to these words, ’ the good that I would, I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. 1 “ Down in the human heart crushed by the Tempter, Feelings lie buried that grace can restore.”

Yes, grace can restore these feelings, and grace alone can restore them. But they are there for restoration. Although crushed they are not utterly destroyed; although buried they are not wholly dead. Is there a man was there ever a man wholly destitute of every spark of the life divine? “ Look into your own souls,” says Bishop Lightfoot, “ and what do you find there? Yes, ye yourselves are the temples of the Living God. He is there, there, whether you will or not. Through your reason, through your conscience, through your remorse and regrets, through your capacity of amendment, through your aspirations and ideals He speaks to you. You are His coinage. His image and superscription are stamped upon you.” Verily we are greater than we know, and we have been more highly favoured than we are apt at times to imagine. Even the natural man may not be wholly destitute of spiritual life; and God is nearer to those who are His than even faithful Christians appear at times to realise. Now, if we are temples of God, if God dwells in us, except we be reprobates, if His Presence is specially vouch-safed to those who are God-fearing and holy, then in a most unique sense must it be true that God was in our Lord and Master, for in the pure heart of Jesus God must have found a peculiarly fitting abode, and the life lived by Christ and the words spoken by Him and the works done by Him clearly show that as He dwelt in no other, God must have dwelt in Him. The question is sometimes asked, Was Redemp-tion an after-thought on God’s part an arbitrary expedient suddenly resorted to when unexpected circumstances had arisen which called for drastic measures? Would, indeed, Christ have ever taber-nacled amongst men if man had never fallen from the estate wherein he was created? As every one knows, hypothetical questions are, as a rule, more interesting than useful. And of all hypothetical problems this is one of the least practical. For whatever answer be given to this question, we can never verify its truthfulness, and we cannot test it because we cannot reproduce the circumstances pre-supposed in the question. The world can never be what it would have been if man had never sinned.

It is difficult for us to think of the incarnation of the Son of God as wholly and solely conditioned by human sin. Does not such a view of things con-strain us to believe that it is a good thing for us that man has sinned? Is not sin, on this supposition, a fortunate and blessed thing, seeing it has procured for us so great a Saviour and such a marvellous manifestation of the divine love and mercy? “ O felix culpa quae talem ac tantum meruit habere redemptorem! “ And yet if man had never sinned there would have been no passion of Christ and no death on Calvary, for these were obviously brought about by the sin of man. And is it not difficult for us to see how, without the sufferings and death of Christ, we could have attained unto that knowledge of God’s love, which is to us “ the most immediately impressive and soul-subduing “ His infinite compas-sion for sinners and His unquenchable desire for their salvation? for these were realised and revealed to us in the sufferings and death of Christ.

Nevertheless, if man had never fallen it might, some think, have been necessary for the Son of God to become man, for innocence is not holiness: it is good unrealised. And the absence of sin is not the same as the presence of innumerable virtues trained to the utmost. And so for the further perfection of man and for his growth in grace, it might have been necessary for God to grant to man the privilege of a nearer and fuller revelation of His character and His will. The pure in heart shall see God, but if, as certain passages of Scripture would seem to suggest, there are to be degrees of glory in Heaven, why could there not have been on earth degrees of perfection, even supposing man had remained entirely free from sin? And does not the Word of God speak of Christ as the end as well as the beginning of creation as the goal and crown of the universe as well as its creative agent as the One in whom alone God’s purposes in creation are completely realised? And are not all these assertions in harmony with the supposition that Christ might have been born into the world even supposing man had never sinned? But we never dream of troubling ourselves with such questions when we think of creation as a Reve-lation of God: a revelation more clearly seen in the intelligence and conscience and virtues of good men than in anything to be found in the vegetable or animal world: a revelation which finds its highest realisation in Him who is the perfect pattern of what our human life should be. We never think of troubling ourselves with such questions when we remember that God’s purposes of love to man must in the end be carried out: else were He not the Creator and Ruler of all the greatest as well as the best in all the world. The possibility of sin on man’s part, therefore, naturally involves the ex-istence and, in God’s good time, the activity of a Saviour who is abundantly ’ sufficient for these things.’ Does it not indeed almost seem as if Atonement, At-one-ment, Reconciliation were eternal, “ in-wrought into the nature of things, for the merging of earth’s discords in the triumphant revelation of God as all in all? “Ever since the first origin of evil in the world God has been working powerfully for the good of man.

We were made for holiness and not for sin, and our God-given nature is such that it is well-nigh im-possible for a simple and unsophisticated man to sin without being the possessor of thoughts and feelings which tend to bring him back into, and to urge him on in, the way of God’s will for Him. God has always been revealing His righteousness through the ways of Providence, the rise and fall of nations, the movements of society, the incidents and accidents in the lives of men. When God’s judgments are in the earth the inhabitants of the world are taught righteousness. The conscience of man has ever borne testimony to the righteous laws of God. ’ For when the Gentiles which have not the law do by nature the things contained in the law, these having not the law are a law unto themselves, which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another.’ The spirit of truth in man, our sense of right, our love and pity and generosity, our heavenly aspira-tions, our yearnings for a life completely free from sin what are these but the indications of the Presence and the Power of that Spirit of God that is for ever moving around and within our souls, re-proving us of sin and righteousness and judgment, revealing to us the awful obligations of duty and purity, and holiness, and “ illuminating our con-sciences with higher and holier thoughts of God? “In the inspired Prophets of the Lord, who were terribly alive to the righteousness and holiness of God, and who were for ever calling upon men to live soberly and righteously before God, and in all humble and God-fearing men and women whose pious and holy lives have commended them to the best and deepest instincts of our nature, we have a revelation of God that must be fruitful for good to all those who are able to discern it.

Now, when we think of these things after this fashion the transition to Christ is not so difficult.

We then see that Christ came in the line of the Prophets and of all the best and wisest men in the preceding ages. “ It is,” says Principal Caird, “ a conception of the divine order of the world not less shallow than irreverent which regards the religious experience of the pre-Christian ages only in the light of an abortive experiment, and represents uncounted generations of the human race as having being utilised by Providence merely to prove man’s spiritual incapacity and ineptitude.” To understand the necessity for the Incarnation it is above all things necessary to bear in mind the relative importance of things material and things spiritual. ’ That is not first which is spiritual but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual.’ These words remind us of the relative importance of the material and the spiritual, but in so doing they bring before us the order or sequence in accordance with which the material and the spiritual come into visible prominence. They tell us that the material leads up to and terminates in the spiritual, which, it is to be remembered, is the flower and crown of the material. The truthfulness of this is apparent both in nature and in human life.

Those who can read the book of History which is written on the rocks tell us that long ages had to elapse before that life of any kind was possible upon the earth, and that when it did appear it manifested itself in simpler forms which gradually led up to the higher, assuming at last its highest and noblest form in the life of man. First we have the lifeless earth, and then we have living organisms: vegetable and animal life terminating in the life of man. The introduction of life, the principle of growth and fertility, distinguishes the organic world from the inorganic which underlies and supports it. The introduction of sensation, or the sentient and appe-titive principle, marks off the life of the animal from the life of the plant: while reason and freedom and self-determination and the moral life draw a line of distinction between man and the animals. There is thus in nature a progressive order in the develop-ment of life, each stage being clearly marked off from and yet closely connected with the one be-neath it, each stage underlying and preparing the way for one above it, where a newer and higher principle of life is introduced into the existent and natural order of things. And when we look at the life of man we see it to be a law of his being that the natural should lead up to and terminate in the spiritual. Our intellectual and moral faculties are the last to be developed. At first we are met by the demands of our bodily nature, and so our appetites and senses are exercised first of all, and at the beginning almost solely. But by and by the intelligence and the conscience make them-selves manifest, and the soul with its marvellous powers and infinite aspirations shows us that man is above all things a spiritual being. ’ When I was a child I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man I put away childish things.’ “ What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! “ How the spiritual grew out of the natural; what were the steps in the process by which man has become what he is, we may not exactly know. But this we do know, and this we should carefully remember, man is the flower and crown of all visible created things.

“ There is,” says Professor Hugh Walker, “ a gulf never satisfactorily bridged between ethical principles as gradually evolved out of the non-moral state and the “ moral imperative “ as it is felt by the human conscience. Hence, the man of religion insists, the necessity of being specific about that vague Power dimly seen behind the philosophy of evolution; and hence the necessity, in the view of the metaphysician, of regarding evolution from above as well as from below. We learn much by tracing things to their origin; but to learn all we must consider as well what they ultimately become. It is, in fact, the final form that gives importance to the question of origin.”

It is true, indeed, that multitudes of men and women live neglectful, to a greater or less extent, of the fact that they are intellectual, moral, and spiritual beings endowed with reason and conscience which were meant to be the guides and regulators of their lives. Instead of being masters of them-selves, rulers of their own lives, they are slaves of their senses, their appetites, their passions, their desires. Only too often men and women live as if the lower elements of their being were not only the most important, but the only elements in their nature; and so their spiritual nature is neglected or crushed, and their noblest gifts and faculties are destroyed, and they become total strangers to those aspirations, high instincts, mysterious yearn-ingswhich reach out beyond this passing world until they lose themselves in the bliss of communion with God. The make and structure of our being is not for sin, but for holiness. ’ As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.’ “ Thou has made us,” says St. Augustine, “ for Thyself, and our heart is ill at ease until it find repose in Thee.” Nevertheless man has been endowed with moral freedom, and so he can, and only too often does, cause evil things to be in what was otherwise God’s fair universe. Men talk of the violations of Nature’s laws which must be, they think, involved in every miracle, but the greatest, the most frequently repeated, yea the only violation of Nature’s laws of which we have any experience is sin. God made man in His own image, and righteousness was meant to be His being’s end and aim. Every sin we commit, there-fore, is a violation of the true laws of our being, which are in very truth real laws of Nature. And as moral and spiritual interests are for us of in-finitely more importance than material interests, it is easy to see how it is that the havoc wrought in this world by the sins of thoughtless and wicked men is of the most serious character. God is our absolute Lord and infinite benefactor, and sin is rebellion against God. God is holy, and as evil is the opposite of holiness there is to God in all this world nothing so horrible as sin. Sin is the greatest evil which can happen to any man, and no amount of material advantage should weigh with an honest man against his moral degradation. ’ What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul, or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?’

Need we be surprised, therefore, when it is asserted that God found it necessary to interfere in His own wise and rational way in and among the affairs of men? to specially manifest Himself to men who were so prone to ignore Him? to reveal plainly and unmistakably His true nature and character to men who were so apt to have false and erroneous beliefs with regard to Him? to make sinful men alive to the true design of their being, and to supply the means whereby they could be enabled to realise it?

We are spiritual beings, and we could not believe in a God who thought more of matter than of the souls of men. Whatever we may think of the cosmic order and of the sequence of cause and effect, we could not believe in a God who is untouched by the tragedies played on the stage of the human heart “ where the fierce lights of passion blaze.” And how could Christ have been our Example, our Ideal, our Teacher, our Helper, if He had been raised high above the ordinary conditions of human life, and had passed through none of our experiences? How could He have been the great Head of our redeemed humanity, the first Fruits from the dead, our Representative with the Father, our Intercessor with the Father, if He had not been closely allied to us, bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh? ’ Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things per-taining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.’

It is therefore quite in accordance with our deepest thoughts and noblest feelings that Christ comes before us in the Gospel as a renewing power: a Saviour from sin, striving to put right what has been done amiss by man and to re-establish in human life a harmony which has been destroyed or marred by sin. And so the life of Christ may well be thought of as God’s protest against man’s blindness to Himself as He is revealed in Nature and in Providence and in the soul of man. Yea, it is a manifestation of God’s love and mercy towards men who are con-tinually violating the laws of their own true nature, and living neglectful of the fact that the material is subservient to the moral and spiritual in man, and who have forgotten the important truth that “ the object of living is to live well and to grow in righteousness and in holiness and in nearness to the perfection of God.” And if in making this protest and this Revelation the Gospel writers would seem to represent God as violating the uniformity of Nature, we must remember that this apparent violation of Nature’s laws is, even with them, in the interests of a deeper law the law of the true nature of man, the law of the righteousness of God, the law of the moral order of the universe.