03 — In His Incarnation

Chapter 3 CHRIST GLORIOUS IN HIS INCARNATION

It is no denial of the true and proper divinity of the Son of God to speak of him as the Son of man. The great Personage, whose divine glory fills so wide a place in the system of revealed truth, became incarnate and dwelt among us, as a man with his fellow-men. That he had an existence previous to his incarnation is distinctly taught in the New Testament. His own language to the Jews was, " Verily I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of heaven is He which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world." This is a truth which his disciples themselves did not at once receive; nor did they ultimately receive it without caution. When he perceived that they " murmured" at it, he said to them, " Doth this offend you? What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before?" He subsequently commends them because " they believed that he came out from God." In order to confirm their faith in this great truth, he afterwards instructs them, if possible, in still plainer language, " I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world. Our object in the present chapter requires, in the first instance, a brief statement of the doctrine of Christ’s incarnation. This we shall endeavor to make as plainly as we can, and divested of all technical phraseology.

Man is a complex being, consisting of a body and a soul; both which were alike necessary to constitute the humanity of Christ. It was not his divine and spiritual nature united to a body that is human that constituted him incarnate; this would have been a change from Deity to humanity. It would have been the Deity clothed in a corporeal form; the semblance of man, but not the reality. The human, in distinction from the divine and angelic natures, is human because it possesses a human soul as well as a human body. Christ’s humanity consisted in his assumption of man’s entire nature, and so uniting it with his divine nature, as to become both God and man. The divine nature became partaker of flesh and blood; human nature belonged to him as truly as the divine. God did not in any way alter his divine nature in order to become man; his divinity sustained no change; it was susceptible of none. Nor was it mixed or blended with his humanity, so as to form out of the two a compound nature which should be neither human nor divine. The natures were united, yet distinct; he was God, but became man, and he became man without ceasing to be God. He was more than human, yet was he human. His divine nature existed from eternity distinct from his human nature; his human nature never existed distinct from his divine nature. His human body and his human soul both subsisted in the Person of the Son of God. He brought the divine nature from heaven; his human nature was an assumed nature on earth; there were " two distinct natures and one person." This statement, if we mistake not, distinguishes the Scriptural doctrine of the Incarnation, not only from the fabled incarnations of Paganism, but from the erroneous views which have been given of it by different writers in different ages of the Christian Church.’’ It is a simple and truthful statement that in Christ Jesus the divine and human natures were united, and that the same person is both God and man.

We proceed, in the next place, to the proof of this doctrine. The truth of the statement we have just made will at once occur to every careful reader of the Scriptures. We are aware there are those who will listen to no proof of such a statement, because, in their judgment, it involves an impossibility. We confess that it stands among the inexplicable facts revealed in the Scriptures; yet, inexplicable as it is, it is not among impossible things. If the union of matter with spirit in the person of every human being is not impossible, there is no impossibility nor absurdity in the union of the divine and human natures in the person of Christ. Heathen mythology favors the idea of gods incarnate, which it would scarcely have done had the thought been so preposterous as some philosophical infidels affirm. Ancient and modern pantheism are but an implied recognition of the reasonableness of the doctrine of the incarnation. If philosophers have seen nothing preposterous in the doctrine that God is the soul of the material universe, and the material universe the body of God; where is the absurdity of supposing that God was in Christ? The alleged impossibility of the incarnation arises from erroneous views of the doctrine of the incarnation itself If the doctrine were that the divine nature was changed into the human, or was in any way altered by being united to the human; if it taught that God is not still a Spirit, infinite, eternal, unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth; it would be a preposterous doctrine. But if the doctrine be that though united to humanity, it is the divine nature still, in all its undiminished, unaltered glory; we see not why it should be charged with absurdity.

There were some early fore-shadowings of this incarnation of the Deity under the patriarchal. Mosaic, and prophetic ages. God appeared to Abraham in human form when he promised him Isaac, and when he renewed his promises to him in the person of the angel of the covenant. He appeared in the form of man to Jacob when the patriarch wrestled with him and prevailed. He appeared to Moses in the burning bush at Horeb. He appeared to Gideon, and announced himself as the deliverer of his trembling people; and to Daniel in the night visions, when " One like the Son of man" came to the Ancient of Days. These and other appearances of the Deity were, if I may so speak, the prefiguration, the commencement of that incarnation which was to be more real and sensible and permanent. The predictions of his incarnation are also abundant. So unequivocal are they, that the Jews were in expectation of that great event, and looked towards it as the great promise of the Old Testament. Christ was foretold as the " mighty God and everlasting Father;" as the one "whose goings forth have been of old, from everlasting;" yet is he most distinctly foretold as "the seed of the woman," as " the desire of all nations," as the " Son of the Virgin;" as the " Prophet whom God would raise up to the Jews from among their brethren;" as the " light beheld by the people that walked in darkness;" as one who would " open the eyes of the blind, unstop the ears of the deaf, and cause the tongue of the dumb to sing;" and as one who was anointed to " preach the gospel to the poor," to "feed his flock like a shepherd," and to "sit as king upon God’s holy hill of Zion." These, and other intimations like them, allude not only to a promised, but to an incarnate Saviour; and they prepared the Jewish mind, and prepare our own for the affecting narrative of the incarnation which is given by the evangelists. By adverting to this narrative, we learn that Christ’s human nature commenced from his conception in the womb of the Virgin Mary. It was miraculous, and altogether beyond the laws of nature. It was the immediate creation of God himself, and by the miraculous power of the Holy Ghost. It was human, not because he descended from earthly parents, but from an earthly parent. There was a literal fulfillment of the promise which had respect to the "seed of the Woman." He was made of a woman and therefore of human descent and stock; commencing his being at the lowest point of human existence, and thus clothing himself with flesh, bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh, who gave him birth. The narrative of these events is beautifully simple and touching. Four thousand years after the first apostasy, when the fulness of time for man’s redemption was come, the Angel Gabriel was sent from God to a virgin whose name was Mary, for the purpose of announcing to her that she was the highly favored and blessed among women who was to become the mother of the long expected Messiah. The dignity to which she was thus destined was altogether unexpected to herself. She was troubled at the angel’s word, " and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be." And the angel said unto her, " Fear not, Mary, for thou hast found favor with God. And behold thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord shall give unto him the throne of his Father David; and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end." To relieve her mind from all embarrassment, he also declared, " The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall over shadow thee: therefore that holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." Mary no longer doubted the mystery, but meekly replied, " Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word!" She conceived, and in the fulness of time brought forth her son; Immanuel, God with us. And then it was that the angel of the Lord made the announcement to the shepherds of Bethlehem. " Behold I bring you glad tidings of great joy; for unto you is born a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord!" This child of Mary thus possessed the two essential ingredients of humanity — a human body and a human soul. The Father prepares, the Holy Ghost forms, and the Eternal Word assumes a human body. When he cometh into the world, he saith, " Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast then prepared me." To have assumed the angelic nature would not have accomplished the objects of his incarnation. " Verily he took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham." His body was like the body of other men. " Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have." The shepherds of Bethlehem were told, that they should " find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger." He grew as other children grew, and by the same means of food, exercise and repose, increased in stature as they increase. The evidence is equally clear, that he possessed a rational, human soul. He not only increased in stature, " but in wisdom;" which he could not have done had not his intellectual nature been human; for the divine mind knows no advancement. So rapidly did he increase in wisdom, that at twelve years of age he was able to maintain successful argument with the teachers of the law in the temple; and such was the evidence of his intellectual progress, that his enemies exclaimed, " How knoweth this man letters?" Not less indicative of his humanity was his perfect dependence. He was dependent on his parents, and indebted to their watchfulness and love, and labors and bounty. He was dependent on divine providence, and looked to its daily supplies. He was a man of prayer, and this alone is proof that he was sensible of his dependence on God. He made the frank avowal, " I can do nothing of my self." So absolute was his dependence, that he could promise himself nothing but what his heavenly Father chose to give him from day to day.

He was also responsible to law in the broadest acceptation of the phrase. He felt and recognized his responsibility to human law, which he would not have done, had he not been human. " No law can bind any but those to whom it is given." Whatsoever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law. He was also responsible to the divine law, just as other men are. As God he was not thus subject, but was himself the lawgiver; as man he was God’s creature, and owed him allegiance. The law of God claimed his whole heart and service; he was bound to render it a perfect and sinless obedience. He was under no obligation to assume man’s nature; but when he had voluntarily assumed it, he was necessarily " made under the law," and responsible to its claims. He was made under the law as a covenant of works; the law demanded perfect obedience from him as the condition of life, and without a perfect obedience he would neither have obtained heaven for himself nor for his followers. The law relinquished none of its claims on account of his dignity when he was once made under it, but in every view treated him as its subject. And what stronger expression of his humanity than this, as well as of the glory of that humanity, that he himself gloried in this responsibility, and honored its claims in such redundant plenitude. The scriptural doctrine of the incarnation goes the whole length of this statement, and teaches that the Son of God thus assumed all the proper ties of humanity, and was the " seed of Abraham," the " Shiloh of Jacob," the " offspring of Jesse," the "Son of man." With this statement and proof of the humanity of Christ, we proceed, in the last place, to speak of his glory in this incarnation. How glorious was the Son of God in this assumption of human nature! We may not dismiss this thought with out some enlargement. The impression is vivid on our minds that his incarnation is glorious in the first place in its very mysteriousness. That it is a fact involved in mystery appears from the mere statement of it; and it is still more so the more it is contemplated. Though the statement in the Scriptures is not obscure, but perfectly intelligible, yet does it excite our wonder. It is among " the deep things of God." It is revealed to man as a fact utterly beyond his comprehension. The lofty mind of Paul himself, inspired as he was, was constrained to say, " With out controversy, great is the mystery of godliness; God manifest in the flesh!" We bow before it as an inexplicable fact. We believe the statement as we believe mysteries in the work of creation, and in the economy of divine providence; but there are things pertaining to it which surpass the comprehension of all, except the mind of God himself. How the eternal Son should be the omnipresent God, yet personally united to the man Christ Jesus; how the Deity, the whole Deity, should be in heaven, and at the same time in the manger of Bethlehem; how the divine nature could be imparted to the human nature of Mary’s son, and be the inhabitant of Palestine, while at the same time it is in heaven and every part of the universe, is more than can be explained by creatures. We know, indeed, that as God, he is present everywhere, and this itself is a fact sufficiently mysterious. But if he was not present with the man Christ Jesus, in a higher sense than he is everywhere present, his incarnation is a fable. By his incarnation he was personally united to the human nature of Christ and one with it. In the strong language of the New Testament, he is said " to have come down from heaven" for this purpose; while he himself at the same time declares that he is the " Son of man which is in heaven." He did not cease to be God, when he became man; nor lay aside his divine nature in order to assume the human. In his divine nature, he possessed all the attributes of God; in his human nature, all the attributes of man. As God, he was the " brightness of the Father’s glory, and the express image of his Person;" as man, he " took upon him the form of a servant. As God, he was rich in the possession and enjoyment of the universe; as man, he became poor and had not where to lay his head. As God, he was rich in the love and adoration of angels; as man, he was " the scorn and derision of the people." As God, he never slumbered, nor slept, nor was weary, but his eye run to and fro through out the earth, strong was his hand, and high his right hand; as man, he slept on the lake in the storm, he was weary and sat on the well, was weak and bound and scourged by his enemies. As man, he hungers; as God, he feeds the five thousand. As man, he thirsts; as God, he is the Fountain of living waters. As man, he wept, and died, and was laid in the sepulcher of Joseph; as God, lives and reigns for evermore.

These things are all mysterious to us; we exclaim, as we contemplate them, " Who by searching can find out God? who can find out the Almighty to perfection?" O it is high as heaven and deeper than hell; the measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea! We cannot comprehend how the divine and human natures could be thus personally united; it is enough for our faith to know that God has told us they are united. We may not affirm that it is a presumption in its favor that it is mysterious; while we may affirm that its mysteriousness is no presumption against it, because we may well look for mysteries when we contemplate the incomprehensible Godhead. God himself would not be so glorious if he were not incomprehensible: he would not be infinite, if finite minds could comprehend him. Christianity glories in this great mystery. It may be foolishness in the judgment of a proud and reasoning world; but the foolishness of God is wiser than men. It is the glory of Christ that he is man as well as God. The mystery does but enhance the glory; if the mind of man could perfectly comprehend his mysterious nature, its glory would be unveiled and creatures would cease to wonder and adore. When Solomon dedicated the temple, the glory of the Lord filled the house, and the priests could not enter into the house of the Lord because the glory of the Lord filled the house. So when a greater than Solomon dedicated to God the temple of his human nature, there were, and still are, unutterable glories in that union which the mind of man cannot look upon. The light is too dazzling; they are not scattered, but condensed and concentrated rays; it is the brightness of the divine glory, and its profusion perplexes us; its insufferable splendor baffles alike the mightiest and meanest intellect. The human faculties may be forever employed in contemplating, yet never be able to penetrate its unsearchable mysteries. Every new thought and discovery of them possesses a freshness and excites astonishment which no other subject possesses and excites, and as we gradually unveil these combined and contrasted glories of the Great Emmanuel, we exclaim, " O the depth both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" It is delightful to lose ourselves in the contemplation of such a theme, as the ineffable glory of the Saviour incarnate. God is above creatures; nor does he ask counsel of creatures. " He holdeth back the place of his throne, and spreadeth his cloud upon it." The doctrine of the Incarnation is just like God; and like him, is the more glorious because it cannot be brought within the sphere of our comprehension.

Christ is glorious in his incarnation, in the next place, for the endearing properties of the divine nature which he thereby unfolds. God is a Spirit, whom no man hath seen, nor can see. He is the King, eternal, immortal, and invisible. Yet the incarnate Son affirms, " he that hath seen one hath seen the Father." Men have a strong propensity to invent for themselves gods which their eyes can look upon, and their ears hear, and their hands handle. In doing this, they have filled the world with idol worship, and made them gods altogether like unto themselves. To meet this universal weakness of humanity, God has become " manifest in the flesh." That man of Nazareth is God. There is God’s power, God’s wisdom, rectitude, justice, love and mercy. In the intellectual and moral properties of his nature, what Jesus of Nazareth was, that the eternal God is; yes, he is the Deity, the Deity in the most intimate relation to humanity. The union is absolute and indissoluble. It is God in human form, living among men; sympathizing with men, conversing with men, exerting his godlike influences among men, taking out the very heart of God and showing it to men. Mysterious as is this union, it is the great fact which unveils the world of mysteries; which dissipates the cloud from his pavilion who has said that he dwells in the thick darkness; which throws a flood of light upon the divine character, purposes, and government, which would have been otherwise inexplicable; and leaves nothing in obscurity to a mind which would acquaint itself with God. God here stoops in his condescension to men, not as he stoops to them in the daily walks of his providence, caring for them and visiting them, but in making man’s nature his own; " forasmuch as the children were partakers of flesh and blood, he himself likewise took part of the same."

Men might have trembled at the thought that the great God was about to come and dwell on the earth. When he descended on Sinai, it was a day of terror; the mountain quaked because the Lord descended upon it. When he will descend to it in future ages, men there will be who will call to the rocks and to the mountains to fall on them to hide them from his presence, because he will come in his uncreated and unveiled greatness and majesty. But behold him as the word becomes flesh, and dwells among us full of truth and grace! What wonders of the Godhead are here! The last beings in the universe which one would think of ever being united are God and man. Strange unity! heaven and earth in one! Strange condescension! earth refusing to ascend to heaven, heaven stooping to descend to earth! The Creator becoming a creature, the eternal First Cause, by whom all things consist, uniting and becoming one with the effect which he himself produces and upholds! The Son of God born; born, not of a princess, but of the wife of a carpenter; not in the palace of a king, but in a stable! What wonders, what surpassing glories are these! His native dignity laid aside, in order to give lustre to humanity, and to the Deity loveliness! Well may we dwell on the endearing properties of the divine nature that are unfolded by this incarnation. He who exists in eternity, born in time, and dwelling in mortal flesh; he who is God blessed forever, becoming partaker of man’s lowliness and man’s sorrows, and making them all his own — what exhibition of the Deity is this! The God immortal putting on mortality — the uncreated One, the omnipotent One taking man’s weakness — the holy One so obscured and eclipsed in his glory as to take the likeness of sinful worms — what mingled emotions of admiration and grateful homage, what sublime and subduing thoughts come over our spirits as the wondrous fact strikes us! The Lord of glory, once the associate with cherubims, now taking upon him the form of a reptile sinner; not as a prince to reign, but as a servant of servants! O this surpasses all things, that he should stoop thus low to raise rebellious man so high! How full of blessing was the advent of this incarnate Deity, and what a pledge of blessing from the court of which he is the elected ambassador, and from the mighty King of heaven whom he represents!

It was an auspicious promise when God said, " Behold the days come that I will dwell in them, walk in them, and I will be their God and they shall be my people." It was an auspicious declaration when he said, " Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them." It was the high privilege of the children of Israel, that in their journeying through the wilderness God himself was with them, and the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night departed not from them. The Church of God under the new economy has higher privileges than these. The Saviour’s incarnation was not the token, nor the symbol, nor the pledge of God’s presence with men; man’s body was his tabernacle; he dwelt with man more intimately even than the Shekinah dwelt in the Temple, and in all the tenderness and plenitude of his love.

He could not stoop lower than thus to become a man. We look upon our race, and are mortified and humbled in view of its abjectness. Each one of us looks upon himself and exclaims, " Lord, what is man that thou takest knowledge of him!" Yet have I this comforting thought, that all abject, all vile, all nothing as I am; I am a man and my Saviour is a man. He is the friend of man because he is one of them. We would not make light of this "precious humanity," this endearing brotherhood by which he links himself to the race. God has interests in common with man, that man may have interests in common with God. Nor is this all. The glory of Jesus in his human nature appears, in the next place, in the fact that his incarnation is the foundation of the whole Christian system. " Behold, I lay in Zion," says the God of all grace, " a stone, a chief cornerstone, elect, precious." The humanity of Christ, in union with his divinity, constitutes that " sure foundation," which bears up the pillars of the redeemed church with all its principles, all its laws, and all its immense interests. It was a memorable occasion on which Jesus put the question to his disciples, "Whom say ye that I am?" and the answer was memorable, when Simon Peter replied, " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God." Nor was the rejoinder less memorable, when Jesus uttered the words, " Upon this Rock will I build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

Man had fallen, and was therefore at variance with God. God also was at variance with man, and by all the purity of his nature and the justice of his government was bound to curse him as a rebel. Whether he would save, was a question to be decided by himself alone; because he alone had the right of deciding it, and he alone had the wisdom to devise, and the power to effect man’s salvation by a method that should be consistent with his justice. That method was mediatorial and recognized the interposition of a third party between the parties at variance. The unquestioned characteristics of impartiality, ability, integrity, and kindness were demanded for such a service. He must be a mediator by nature, as well as a mediator by office, and must sustain such a relation both to God and man as puts his qualifications for the responsible office he bears beyond suspicion.

Such a Mediator we behold in the person of God manifest in the flesh; in every view a fitting Mediator; sustaining the same relation to both the parties; the same impartial kindness; the same integrity, and invested with a character and ability to conduct his mediation to safe and honorable issues. He is the only being in the universe who is qualified thus to stand between the two; to answer for God and to answer for man. He is the great Emmanuel, God with man and man with God; uniting the two extremes, and pledging before the universe his wondrous and perfectly unique character and influence, be the consequences to himself what they may, for the success of his perilous, yet great and glorious enterprise. That he is and must be God we have already shown in the preceding chapter. There is no other being sufficiently good, sufficiently powerful to effect this mighty work. The most pure and perfect seraph has no righteousness beyond his own necessities. No obedience, or suffering of any mere creature, or combination of creatures, could " make reconciliation for iniquity, and bring in everlasting righteousness." He would have no pretensions to be heard, and no rights of advocacy. He could but answer for himself, and for all that such a one could do or suffer, he must look on this race of criminals as without hope. And therefore it was that " God spared not his Son," whom all the angels worship, and "by whom were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible." And for reasons equally fitting and imperative, he must be man as well as God. Man was the subject of law, and the Mediator was to stand in man’s place. It was man’s obedience which the law required, and the Mediator was to stand in man’s place. If the law was broken by man, man’s punishment alone could satisfy its claims; and the Mediator was to stand in man’s place. When man became the actual culprit, and deserved to die, the Mediator was to stand in man’s place. Man was an exile from the divine family and kingdom; helpless and alone in this dark and friendless world; temptation and trial, grief and sadness, enemies and fear, distrust and despondency, were his destined allotment all through his earthly pilgrimage; and the Mediator was to stand in man’s place. And therefore he became man’s kinsman, his kinsman-Redeemer, his goel who, according to the Hebrew law, had the right of redemption. " It became him, that both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified, should be all of one; for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren. He had all the sympathies of a man, and has them still; and what his human nature now knows not of man’s condition, that his divine nature communicates to the human, so that " he knoweth our frame, and remembereth that we are dust." He is touched with the feeling of man’s infirmities; man’s grief and sadness he makes his own; the sharp temptations which assail man remind him that he was once tempted in all points as man is, though yet without sin. He is gentle toward man, as a nurse cherisheth her children. He gathers the lambs with his arm, and carries them in his bosom. He is accessible to man when "the overawing splendor of his divinity alone" might crush his hopes. His gentle voice breaks not the bruised reed; his breath of tenderness quenches not the smoking flax; his eye of pity looks upon the wanderer, and reclaims the lost sheep.

We add, in the last place, this union of the divine and human natures is that which constitutes his FULLNESS as the appointed and accepted Mediator. He thus fills the chasm between heaven and earth which was made by sin, and those who are afar off are brought nigh. Both natures bear a part in the great redemption in order to make it full and complete. They form the elements of his unchangeable Priesthood; so that he " is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him." Whatever influences are necessary for the accomplishment of his gracious purpose for men and in men, whether they be of providence, or of grace, are at His command. The Father "giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him," because it hath pleased him, " that in him all fulness should dwell." The fulness is complete. Whatever the sinner wants, he shall find in Christ. Be it life, light, power, pardon, sympathy, hope, righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost; they are all wrapped up in the union of his two natures. This mystery is the envelope which contains wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. He is able and willing to suffer, to endure, and to bestow. He is a storehouse that can never be exhausted; full of grace and full of truth; full of promises and full of authority to fulfil them; full of glory and majesty, and full of heaven. He is Christ, the wisdom of God and the power of God. No burden of sin is so heavy, but he removes it; no fears are so agitating, but he gives them relief; no weakness is so depressing, but it makes his strength perfect. Hope and expectation are never defeated that centre in him. He is filled to over-flowing with all that man can become and enjoy, and God impart. Blessing, and glory, and honor, and power are his. Expand as the faculties of the human soul may, they can never become so enlarged, and never drink so freely of his fulness; but the streams will still flow, and the fountain still be full. Augment man’s unworthiness and ill-desert to an unmeasured infinity; multiply his wants to countless ages; and there is yet room in the mansions he has prepared, and bread enough and to spare. Angels and archangels, thrones, dominions, principalities and powers, in all their primeval and ever-growing beauty and glory, do not rise so high as the lofty eminences of glory and blessedness which the God-man Mediator bestows upon every sinner that repenteth, filled as he will be with " all the fullness of God," and satisfied from those rivers of pleasure which flow at God’s right hand. But we may not further pursue these illustrations. Such is the loveliness, the beauty, the glory of Christ in his human nature. Glorious truth! " there is but one Mediator between God and man, the MAN Christ Jesus." This is the keystone of the arch which binds together the great edifice of man’s redemption, setting forth its divine symmetry and beauty, its strength and safety, and bearing the indelible inscription, " The foundation of God standeth sure." And is not this feature of the Redeemer’s glory one that ought to interest us as sinners — as men? It is honor enough for an otherwise degraded race, that Jesus of Nazareth was human. There is no such lineage and no such brotherhood in the universe as that redeemed line of spiritual descendants of which he is the progenitor; that Christian household of which God is the Father, and Mary’s son the elder brother. I love to think that my Saviour is not only divine, but human; there is endearment, there is palpableness here, and something that appeals to my weak senses as a man. The day is coming when, if I am even less than the least of all his followers, I shall see him as he is. It is not too much to look for from this mystery of godliness, that these eyes shall see him, these ears hear him; these arms hang upon his bosom, this heart be filled with his love, these lips vocal with his praise.

Yes, " every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him," and " all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him." Woe to the man who shall have remained till then, the despiser’s of this God-man Redeemer! Whose is that heart of stone that breaks not as he stands at Bethlehem’s manger, and sees the "child that was born?" Whose is that icy bosom that melts not, and is not filled with glowing love, as he looks upon him who is " fairer than the sons of men, and whom God hath anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows?" Whose is that obdurate unbelief, to whom this mysterious truth, so full of goodness and so full of comfort, is so repulsive that it claims homage in vain, and in vain solicits the proud and aspiring sons and daughters of earth to receive and trust in it? " Behold he stands at the door and knocks." It is not he who dwells in light inaccessible, encompassed with the glories of his majesty and the terrors of his justice; it is he who once " dwelt among us," not to fill us with fear, but to invite the guilty to come to him, without distrust, without timidity, and even with joy. Were he now on the earth, you might approach him. You might approach him as the sinner’s friend; you might approach him as your counselor and helper; you might approach him in your abjectness and poverty and sorrows; you might approach him as the poor, the halt, the lame, and the blind approached him in the days of his flesh, and without the least distance or reserve. He is man still, though exalted at the right hand of God; the same meek, humble, condescending man; the " same yesterday, to day, and forever," and still inviting the lost to come to him that they might have life; the weary and heavy-laden, that they might have rest; the exile and the orphan, that he may guide them by his counsel and afterward receive them to glory. " This man because he continueth ever, and hath an unchangeable priesthood, is able also to save them to the uttermost, that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them." You have his sympathy on earth, and you may have his influence in the court of heaven. It was for no trivial object that he left that high and holy place, and descended to this low earth. It was to seek and to save that which was lost. It was to convince you of sin, and lead you to repentance. It was to emancipate you from bondage, and introduce you to the glorious liberty of the children of God. It was to make the conquest of your heart. Has he made that conquest Have you given him that heart? And, with a mind absorbed in the greatness and condescension of this incarnate One, can you appreciate the wondrous truth, that "without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness; God manifest in the flesh?"