Christ's Incarnation
CHRIST'S INCARNATION,—AT THE RIGHT TIME.
Paul wrote to the Galatians, "When the fulness of the time was come, 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." The reservoir of time had to be filled by the inflowing of age after age; and when it was full to the brim, the Son of God appeared. Why the world should have remained without Him who is its one great Light for four thousand years after Adam was formed out of the dust of the earth, and why it should have taken that length of time for the Jewish Church to attain her full age, we cannot tell; but this we are plainly told, that Jesus was sent forth "when the fulness of the time was come." Our Lord did not come before His time, nor behind His time; He was punctual to the appointed hour, and cried, to the exact moment, "Lo, I come."
We may not curiously pry into the reasons why Christ came just when He did; but we may reverently muse on the great fact. The birth of Jesus is the grandest light of history, the sun in the heavens of all time. It is the pole-star of human destiny, the hinge of chronology, the meeting-place of the waters of the past and the future. Why did it happen just at that moment? The main reason is, because it was so predicted. There were many prophecies, in the Old Testament Scriptures, which pointed, as with unerring fingers, to the place, the manner, and the time when the Shiloh would come, and the great sacrifice for sin should be offered. Jesus came at the very hour which God had determined. The omniscient Lord of all appoints the date of every event; all times are in His hand, none are left to chance. There are no loose threads in the providence of God, and no dropped stitches. The great clock of the universe keeps perfect time, and the whole machinery of providence moves with unerring punctuality. It was to be expected that the greatest of all events should be most accurately and wisely timed, and so it was. God willed it to be when and where it was, and that will is to us the ultimate reason.
CHRIST'S INCARNATION,—A QUIETUS TO FEAR. The angel said to the shepherds, "Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." The very object for which He was born, and came into this world, was that He might deliver us from sin. What, then, was it that made us afraid? Were we not afraid of God, because we felt that we were lost through sin? Well, then, here is joy upon joy, for not only has the Lord come among us as a man, but He was made man in order that He might save man from that which separated him from God.
I feel as if the sorrow of my heart would flow forth in a flood of tears over the many sinners who have gone far away from God, and have been spending their lives riotously in various evil ways. I know they are afraid to come back; they think that the Lord will not receive them, and that there is no mercy for such sinners as they have been. But Jesus Christ has come to seek and to save that which was lost. If He does not save, He was born in vain, for the object of His birth was the salvation of sinners.
If He shall not be a Saviour, then His mission in coming to this earth has missed its end, for its design was that lost sinners might be saved.
Lost one, lost one, if there were news that an angel had come to save thee, there might be some good cheer in it; but there are better tidings still. God Himself has come; the Infinite, the Almighty, has stooped from the highest heaven that He may pick thee up, a poor undone and worthless worm. Is there not comfort for thee here? Does not the Incarnation of the Saviour take away the horrible dread which hangs over men like a black pall? The angel described the new-born Saviour as "Christ." There is His manhood, for it was as man that He was anointed. But the angel also rightly called Him "Christ the Lord." There is His Godhead. This is the solid truth upon which we plant our foot. Jesus of Nazareth is "very God of very God." He who was born in Bethlehem's manger is now, and always was, "over all, God blessed for ever."
There is no Gospel at all if Christ be not God. It is no news to me to tell me that a great prophet is born. There have been great prophets before; but the world has never been redeemed from evil by mere testimony to the truth, and it never will be. But tell me that God is born, that God Himself has espoused our nature, and taken it into union with Himself, then the bells of my heart ring merry peals, for now may I come to God since God has come to me.
God has sent an Ambassador who inspires no fear. Not with helmet and coat of mail, not with sword or spear, does Heaven's Herald approach us; but the white flag is held in the hand of a Child, in the hand of One chosen out of the people, in the hand of One who died, in the hand of One who, though He reigns in glory, wears the nailprints still.
O man, God comes to you in the form of one like yourself! Do not be afraid to draw near to the gentle Jesus. Do not imagine that you need to be prepared for an audience with Him, or that you must have the intercession of a saint, or the intervention of priest or minister. Anyone could have come to the Babe in Bethlehem. The horned oxen, methinks, ate of the hay on which He slept, and feared not. It is the terror of the Godhead which, oftentimes, keeps the sinner away from reconciliation; but see how the Godhead is graciously concealed in that little Babe, who needed to be wrapped in swaddling-bands like any other new-born child. Who feareth to approach Him? Yet is the Godhead there. My soul, when thou canst not, for very amazement, stand on the sea of glass mingled with fire, when the Divine glory is like a consuming fire to thy spirit, and the sacred majesty of Heaven is altogether overpowering to thee, then come thou to this Babe, and say, "Yet God is here, and here can I meet Him in the person of His dear Son, in whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." Oh, what bliss there is in the Incarnation of Christ as we remember that therein God's omnipotence cometh down to man's feebleness, and infinite majesty stoops to man's infirmity! The shepherds were not to find this Babe wrapped in Tyrian purple, nor swathed in choicest fabrics fetched from afar.
"No crown bedecks His forehead fair, No pearl, nor gem, nor silk is there." Nor would they discover Him in the marble halls of princes, nor guarded by praetorian legionaries, nor attended by vassal sovereigns; but they would find Him the babe of a peasant woman,—of princely lineage, it is true, but of a family whose stock was dry and forgotten in Israel. The Holy Child was reputed to be the son of a carpenter. If you looked on the humble father and mother, and at the poor bed they had made up, where aforetime oxen had come to feed, you would say, "This is condescension indeed."
O ye poor, be glad, for Jesus is born in poverty, and cradled in a manger! O ye sons of toil, rejoice, for the Saviour is born of a lowly virgin, and a carpenter is His foster-father! O ye people, oftentimes despised and downtrodden, the Prince of the democracy is born, One chosen out of the people is exalted to the throne! O ye who call yourselves the aristocracy, behold the Prince of the kings of the earth, whose lineage is Divine, and yet there is no room for Him in the inn! Behold, O men, the Son of God, who is bone of your bone, and flesh of your flesh; who, in His after life, was intimate with all your griefs, hungered as ye hunger, was weary as ye are weary, and wore humble garments like your own; yea, suffered worse poverty than you do, for He was without a place whereon to lay His head! Let the heavens and the earth be glad, since God hath so fully, so truly come down to man.
Jesus is the Friend of the poor, the sinful, and the unworthy. You, poor ones, need not fear to come unto Him; for He was born in a stable, and cradled in a manger. You have not worse accommodation than He had; you are not poorer than He was. Come and welcome to the poor man's Prince, to the peasant's Saviour. Stay not back through fear of your unfitness; the shepherds came to Him in all their deshabille. I read not that they tarried to put on their best garments; but, in the clothes in which they wrapped themselves that cold midnight, they hastened, just as they were, to the young Child's presence. God looks not at garments, but at hearts; and accepts men when they come to Him with willing spirits, whether they be rich or poor.
CHRIST'S INCARNATION,—JOYOUS AND PERSONAL. To the shepherds the angel said, "Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people;" and, truly, the angelic message is still the source of joy to all who hear it aright: "Unto you is born . . . a Saviour." Rejoice, then, ye who feel that ye are lost; for Christ Jesus the Saviour comes to seek and to save you. Be of good cheer, ye who are in the prison-house of sin, for He comes to set you free. Ye who are famished and ready to die, rejoice that Christ Jesus the Lord has consecrated for you a better Bethlehem, a true "house of bread," and that He has Himself come to be the bread of life to your souls. Rejoice, O sinners, everywhere, for the Restorer of the castaways, the Saviour of the fallen, is born!
Join in the joy, ye saints, for He is also the Preserver of the saved ones, delivering them from innumerable perils, and He is the sure Perfecter of all whom He preserves. Jesus is no partial Saviour, beginning a work, and never completing it; but, saving and cleansing, restoring and upholding, He also perfects and presents the Saved ones, without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, before His Father's face. Rejoice, then, all ye people; let your hills and valleys ring with joy, for a Saviour, who is mighty to save, is born among you. This joy began with the shepherds, for the angel said to them, "Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." Reader, shall the joy begin with you to-day? It avails you little that Christ is born, or that Christ died, unless unto you a Child is born, and for you Jesus bled. A personal interest in the birth, life, and death of Christ is the main point for each one of us.
"But I am poor," saith one. So were the shepherds. O ye poor, to you this mysterious Child is born! "The poor have the Gospel preached unto them." "He shall judge the poor of the people, He shall save the children of the needy, and shall break in pieces the oppressor."
"But I am obscure and unknown," saith one. So were the watchers on the midnight plain. Who, save God, knew the men who endured hard toil, and kept their flocks by night? And you, unknown of men, are known to God; shall it not, then, be said that "unto you a Child is born"? The Lord regardeth not the greatness of men, but He hath respect unto the lowly.
Possibly, you say that you are illiterate, you cannot understand much. Be it so; but unto the shepherds Christ was born, and their simplicity did not hinder them from receiving Him, but even helped them to do so. Let it be so with yourself; receive gladly the simple truth as it is in Jesus. The Lord hath exalted One chosen out of the people. No aristocratic Christ have I to commend to you, but the Saviour of the people, the Friend of publicans and sinners. Jesus is the true "poor man's Friend;" He is "a Witness to the people, a Leader and Commander to the people." Oh, that each one of us might truly say, "Unto me is Jesus born"! If I truly believe in Him, Christ is born unto me, and I may be as sure of it as if an angel announced it personally to me, since the Scripture assures me that, if I believe in Jesus, He is mine, and I am His, and through union with Him I become a partaker in His everlasting life, and in all that He has.
CHRIST'S INCARNATION,—THE WONDER OF ANGELS.
How surprised the angels must have been when they were first informed that Jesus Christ, the Prince of life, intended to shroud Himself in clay, and become a human babe, and live and die upon the earth! We know not how the information was first communicated to the angels; but when the rumour began to circulate among the shining hosts, we may imagine what strange wonderment there was in their lofty minds. What! was it true that He, whose crown was all bedight with stars, would lay that crown aside? What! was it certain that He, about whose shoulders was cast the purple robe of universal sovereignty, would become a man, dressed in a peasant's garment? Could it be true that He, who was everlasting and immortal, would one day be nailed to a cross? How their wonderment must have increased as the details of the Saviour's life and death were made known to them. Well might they desire to "look into" these things, which were so surprising and mysterious to them. And when He descended from on high, they followed Him; for Jesus was "seen of angels," and seen in a very special sense; for they looked upon Him in rapturous amazement, wondering what it could mean when He, "who was rich, for our sakes became poor." Do you see Him as, on that day of Heaven's eclipse, He did, as it were, ungird Himself of His majesty? Can you conceive the increasing wonder of the heavenly hosts when the great deed was actually done, when they saw His priceless tiara taken off, when they watched Him unbind His girdle of stars, and cast away His sandals of gold? Can you conceive what must have been the astonishment of the angels when He said to them, "I do not disdain the womb of the virgin; I am going down to earth to become a man"? Can you picture them as they declared that they would follow Him? They followed Him as near as He would permit them; and when they came to earth, they began to sing, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." Nor would they go away till they had made the shepherds also wonder, and till heaven had hung out new stars in honour of the new-born King. And now wonder, ye angels, as ye see that the Infinite has become an infant. He, upon whose shoulders the universe doth hang, hangs at His mother's breast. He, who created all things by the word of His power, and who bears up the pillars of creation, hath now become so weak that He must be carried in the arms of a woman! Wonder, ye that knew Him in His riches, whilst ye behold Him in His poverty. Where sleeps the new-born King? Hath He the best room in Caesar's palace? Hath a cradle of gold been prepared for Him, and pillows of down, on which to rest His head? No; in the dilapidated stable where the oxen stood, and in the manger where they fed, there the Saviour lies, swathed in the swaddling-bands of the children of poverty. Nor doth He rest long there; on a sudden, His mother must carry Him to Egypt; He must go there, and become a stranger in a strange land. When He came back, and grew up at Nazareth, the angels must have marvelled to see Him that made the worlds handle the hammer and the nails, assisting His reputed father in the trade of a carpenter.
CHRIST'S INCARNATION.—THE MARVEL OF MORTALS.
If the angels were so astonished at Christ's birth, it is not surprising that man should be filled with holy wonder at the great mystery. That God should have such consideration for His fallen creatures that, instead of sweeping them away with the besom of destruction, He should devise a wonderful scheme for their redemption, and that He should Himself undertake to be their Redeemer, and to pay their ransom price, is, indeed, marvellous.
Probably, it will seem most marvellous to you in its relation to yourself, that you should be redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus, that God should forsake the thrones and royalties above to suffer ignominiously below for you. If you truly know yourself, you can never see any adequate motive or reason in your own self for such a wonderful deed as this. "Why should God display such love to me?" you may well ask.
If David, when the Lord revealed to him the honours in store for him and for his family, could only say, "Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that Thou hast brought me hitherto? And is this the manner of man, O Lord God?" what should you and I say? Had we been the most meritorious of individuals, and had we unceasingly kept the Lord's commands, we could not have deserved such a priceless boon as Christ's Incarnation; but as we are sinners, offenders, rebels, who have revolted, and continually gone further and further away from God, what shall we say of this incarnate God dying for us, but "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins"?
Let your soul lose itself in wonder, for wonder is, in this way, a very practical emotion. Holy wonder will lead you to grateful worship; being amazed at what God has done, you will pour out your soul with astonishment at the foot of the golden throne in the grateful and adoring song, "Blessing, and honour, and glory, and majesty, and power, and dominion, and might be unto Him who sitteth on the throne, and doeth these great things to me." This wonder will also produce in you godly watchfulness; you will be afraid to sin against such love as this. Feeling the presence of the mighty God in the gift of His dear Son, you will put off your shoes from off your feet, because the place whereon you stand is holy ground.
You will be moved, at the same time, to a glorious hope. If Jesus has given Himself to you, if He has done this marvellous thing on your behalf, you will feel that Heaven itself is not too great for your expectation, and that the rivers of pleasure at God's right hand are not too sweet or too deep for you to drink thereof. Who can be astonished at anything when he has once learned the mystery of the manger and the cross?
What is there wonderful left after one has seen the Saviour? The nine wonders of the world! Why, you may put them all into a nutshell,—machinery and modern art can excel them all; but this one wonder is not the wonder of earth only, but of Heaven and earth, and even of hell itself. It is not the wonder of the olden time, but the wonder of all time, and the wonder of eternity. They who see human wonders a few times, at last cease to be astonished; the noblest pile that architect ever raised, at last fails to impress the onlooker; but not so this marvellous temple of incarnate Deity; the more we look at it, the more we are astonished; the more we become accustomed to it, the more have we a sense of its surpassing splendour of love and grace. There is more of God's glory and majesty to be seen in the manger and the cross, than in the sparkling stars above, the rolling deep below, the towering mountain, the teeming valleys, the abodes of life, or the abyss of death. Let us then give ourselves up to holy wonder, such as will produce gratitude, worship, love, and confidence, as we think of that great "mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh."