Chapter 37—God with Us
They shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God
with us.
Matthew 1:23
.
From the days of eternity the Lord Jesus Christ was one with the Father;
He was “the image of God,” the image of His greatness and majesty, “the
outshining of his glory.” It was to manifest this glory that He came to our
world. To this sin-darkened earth He came to reveal the light of God’s
love—to be “God with us.”...
Our little world is the lesson book of the universe. God’s wonderful
purpose of grace, the mystery of redeeming love, is the theme into which
“angels desire to look”, and it will be their study throughout endless ages.
Both the redeemed and the unfallen beings will find in the cross of Christ
their science and their song. It will be seen that the glory shining in the face
of Jesus is the glory of self-sacrificing love. In the light from Calvary it will
be seen that the law of self-renouncing love is the law of life for earth and
heaven; that the love which “seeketh not her own” has its source in the heart
of God....
Jesus might have remained at the Father’s side. He might have retained
the glory of heaven, and the homage of the angels. But He chose to give
back the scepter into the Father’s hands, and to step down from the throne
of the universe, that He might bring light to the benighted, and life to the
perishing....
This great purpose had been shadowed forth in types and symbols. The
burning bush, in which Christ appeared to Moses, revealed God.... The
all-merciful God shrouded His glory in a most humble type, that Moses
could look upon it and live. So in the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar
of fire by night, God communicated with Israel, revealing to men His will,
and imparting to them His grace. God’s glory was subdued, and His majesty
veiled, that the weak vision of finite men might behold it. So Christ was
to come in “the body of our humiliation” (
Philippians 3:21
, R.V.), “in the
likeness of men.”... His glory was veiled, His greatness and majesty were
hidden, that He might draw near to sorrowful, tempted men.
[46]
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