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The Creator Incarnate, March 4
And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was
manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached
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unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
1 Timothy 3:16
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The incarnation of Christ is the mystery of all mysteries.
Christ was one with the Father, yet ... He was willing to step down from the
exaltation of one who was equal with God.
That He might accomplish His purpose of love for the fallen race, He became
bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh.
How wide is the contrast between the divinity of Christ and the helpless infant
in Bethlehem’s manger! How can we span the distance between the mighty God
and a helpless child? And yet the Creator of worlds, He in whom was the fullness
of the Godhead bodily, was manifest in the helpless babe in the manger. Far higher
than any of the angels, equal with the Father in dignity and glory, and yet wearing
the garb of humanity! Divinity and humanity were mysteriously combined, and
man and God became one.
It would have been an almost infinite humiliation for the Son of God to take
man’s nature, even when Adam stood in his innocence in Eden. But Jesus accepted
humanity when the race had been weakened by four thousand years of sin. Like
every child of Adam He accepted the results of the working of the great law of
heredity. What these results were is shown in the history of His earthly ancestors.
He came with such a heredity to share our sorrows and temptations, and to give us
the example of a sinless life.
Those who claim that it was not possible for Christ to sin, cannot believe that
He really took upon Himself human nature. But was not Christ actually tempted,
not only by Satan in the wilderness, but all through His life, from childhood to
manhood?
Our Saviour took humanity, with all its liabilities. He took the nature of man,
with the possibility of yielding to temptation. We have nothing to bear which He
has not endured.
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