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The Humanity of Christ by A. W. Pink

January 17, 2010 by ADMIN

It has been truly said: “Right views concerning Christ are indispensable to a right faith, and a right faith is indispensable to salvation.  To stumble at the foundation, is, concerning faith, to make shipwreck altogether; for as Immanuel, God with us, is the grand Object of faith, to err in views of His eternal Deity, or to err in views of His sacred humanity, is alike destructive.  There are points of truth which are not fundamental, though erroneous views on any one point must lead to God-dishonoring consequences in strict proportion to its importance and magnitude; but there are certain foundation truths to err concerning which is to insure for the erroneous and the unbelieving, the blackness of darkness forever” (J. C. Philpot, 1859).

To know Christ as God, to know Him as man, to know Him as God-man, and this by a divine revelation of His person, is indeed to have eternal life in our hearts.  Nor can He be known in any other way than by divine and special revelation.

“But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me” (Galatians 1:15-16).

An imaginary conception of His person may be obtained by diligently studying the Scriptures, but a vital knowledge of Him must be communicated from on high (Matthew 16:17).  A theoretical and theological knowledge of Christ is what the natural man may acquire, but a saving, soul-transforming view of Him (2 Corinthians 3:18) is only given by the Spirit to the regenerate (1 John 5:20).

“But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:7).

The first clause (and the preceding verse) was before us in the last two chapters.  The two expressions we consider here balance with (and thus serve to explain) those in verse 6.  The last clause of v. 7 is an exegesis of the one immediately preceding.  “Made in the likeness of men” refers to the human nature Christ assumed. The “form of a servant” denotes the position or state which He entered.  So, “equal with God” refers to the divine nature, the “form of God” signifies His manifested glory in His position of Lord over all.

The humanity of Christ was unique. History supplies no analogy, nor can His humanity be illustrated by anything in nature.  It is incomparable, not only to our fallen human nature, but also to unfallen Adam’s.  The Lord Jesus was born into circumstances totally different from those in which Adam first found himself, but the sins and griefs of His people were on Him from the first.  His humanity was produced neither by natural generation (as is ours), nor by special creation, as was Adam’s.  The humanity of Christ was, under the immediate agency of the Holy Spirit, supernaturally “conceived” (Isaiah 7:14) of the virgin.  It was “prepared” of God (Hebrews 10:5); yet “made of a woman” (Galatians 4:4.).

The uniqueness of Christ’s humanity also appears in that it never had a separate existence of its own.  The eternal Son assumed (at the moment of Mary’s conception) a human nature, but not a human person.  This important distinction calls for careful consideration.  By a “person” is meant an intelligent being subsisting by himself.  The second person of the Trinity assumed a human nature and gave it subsistence by union with His divine personality.  It would have been a human person, if it had not been united to the Son of God.  But being united to Him, it cannot be called a person, because it never subsisted by itself, as other men do.  Hence the force of  “that holy thing which shall be born of thee” (Luke 1:35).  It was not possible for a divine person to assume another person, subsisting of itself, into union with Himself.  For two persons, remaining two, to become one person, is a contradiction.  “A body hast thou prepared me” (Hebrews 10:5).  The “me” denotes the divine Person, the “body,” the nature He took unto Himself.

The humanity of Christ was real. “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also Himself likewise took part of the same… Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren” (Hebrews 2:14, 17).  He assumed a complete human nature, spirit, soul, and body.  Christ did not bring His human nature from heaven (as some have strangely and erroneously concluded from 1 Corinthians 15:47), but it was composed of the very substance of His mother.  In clothing Himself with flesh and blood, Christ also clothed Himself with human feelings, so He did not differ from His brethren, sin only excepted.

“While we always contend that Christ is God, let us never lose the conviction He is most certainly a man.  He is not God humanized, nor a human deified; but, as to His Godhead, pure Godhead, equal and coeternal with the Father; as to His manhood, perfect manhood, made in all respects like the rest of mankind, sin alone excepted.  His humanity is real, for He was born.  He lay in the virgin’s womb, and in due time was born.  The gate by which we enter our first life he passed through also. He was not created, nor transformed, but His humanity was begotten and born.  As He was born, so in the circumstances of His birth, he is completely human.  He was as weak and feeble as any other babe.  He is not even royal, but human.  Those born in marble halls of old were wrapped in purple garments, and were thought by the common people to be a superior race.  But this Babe was wrapped in swaddling clothes and had a manger for a cradle, so that the true humanity of His being would come out.”

As He grows up, the very growth shows how completely human He is.  He does not spring into full manhood at once, but He grows in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.  When he reaches man’s estate, He gets the common stamp of manhood upon His brow.  “In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread” is the common heritage of us all, and He receives no better.  The carpenter’s shop must witness to the toils of a Savior, and when He becomes the preacher and the prophet, still we read such significant words as these — “Jesus, being weary sat thus on the well.”  We find Him needing to betake Himself to rest in sleep. He slumbers at the stem of the vessel when it is tossed in the midst of the tempest.

Brethren, if sorrow be the mark of real manhood, and “man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward,” certainly Jesus Christ has the truest evidence of being a man.  If to hunger and to thirst be signs that He was no shadow, and His manhood no fiction, you have these.  If to associate with His fellow-men, and eat and drink as they did, will be proof to your mind that He was none other than a man, you see Him sitting at a feast one day, at another time He graces a marriage-supper, and on another occasion He is hungry and “hath not where to lay His head” (C. H. Spurgeon).

They who deny Christ’s derivation of real humanity through His mother undermine the atonement.  His very fraternity (Hebrews 2:11), as our Kinsman-Redeemer, depended on the fact that He obtained His humanity from Mary.  Without this, He would neither possess the natural nor the legal union with His people, which must lie at the foundation of His representative character as the “last Adam.”  To be our Goel (Redeemer), His humanity could neither be brought from heaven nor immediately created by God, but must be derived, as ours was, from a human mother.  But with this difference: His humanity never existed in Adam’s covenant to entail guilt or taint.

The humanity of Christ was holy. Intrinsically so, because it was “of the Holy Ghost” (Matthew 1:20); absolutely so, because taken into union with God, the Holy One.  This fact is expressly affirmed in Luke 1:35, “that holy thing,” which is contrasted with, “but we are all as an unclean thing” (Isaiah 64:6), and that because we are “shapen in iniquity” and conceived “in sin” (Psalm 51:5).  Though Christ truly became partaker of our nature, yet He was “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners” (Hebrews 7:26).  For this reason He could say, “For the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me” (John 14:30).  There was nothing in His pure humanity which could respond to sin or Satan.

It was truly remarkable when man was made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26).  But bow in wonderment and worship at the amazing condescension of God being made in the image of man!  How this manifests the greatness of His love and the riches of His grace!  It was for His people and their salvation that the eternal Son assumed human nature and abased Himself even to death.  He drew a veil over His glory that He might remove our reproach.  Surely, pride must be forever renounced by the followers of such a Savior.

Inasmuch as “the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5) lived in this world for thirty-three years, He has left “an example, that ye should follow his steps” (1 Peter 2:21).  He “did no sin,” nor should we (1 Corinthians 15:24).  “Neither was guile found in his mouth,” nor should it be in ours (Colossians 4:6).  “When he was reviled, He reviled not again,” nor must His followers.  He was weary in body, but not in well-doing.  He suffered hunger and thirst, yet never murmured.  He “pleased not himself” (Romans 15:3), nor must we (2 Corinthians 5:15).  He always did those things which pleased the Father (John 8:29).  This too must ever be our aim (2 Corinthians 5:9).

Posted in A. W. Pink |

No Room for Christ in the Inn by Charles Spurgeon

January 17, 2010 by ADMIN

“And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.” — Luke 2:7

It was needful that it should be distinctly proven, beyond all dispute, that our Lord sprang out of Judah.  It was necessary, also, that he should be born in Bethlehem-Ephratah, according to the word of the Lord which he spoke by his servant Micah.  But how could a public recognition of the lineage of an obscure carpenter and an unknown maiden be procured?  What interest could the keepers of registers be supposed to take in two such humble persons? As for the second matter, Mary lived at Nazareth in Galilee, and there seemed every probability that the birth would take place there; indeed, the period of her delivery was so near that, unless absolutely compelled, she would not be likely to undertake a long and tedious journey to the southern province of Judea.  How are these two matters to be arranged?  Can one turn of the wheel affect two purposes?

It can be done!  It shall be done!  The official stamp of the Roman Empire shall be affixed to the pedigree of the coming Son of David, and Bethlehem shall behold his nativity.  A little tyrant, Herod, by some show of independent spirit, offends the greater tyrant, Augustus.  Augustus informs him that he shall no longer treat him as a friend, but as a vassal; and albeit Herod makes the most abject submission, and his friends at the Roman court intercede for him, yet Augustus, to show his displeasure, orders a census to be taken of all the Jewish people, in readiness for a contemplated taxation, which, however, was not carried out till some ten years after.  Even the winds and waves are not more fickle than a tyrant’s will; but the Ruler of tempests knoweth how to rule the perverse spirits of princes.  The Lord our God has a bit for the wildest war horse and a hook for the most terrible leviathan.  Autocratic Caesars are but puppets moved with invisible strings, mere drudges to the King of Kings.  Augustus must be made offended with Herod; he is constrained to tax the people; it is imperative that a census be taken; nay, it is of necessity that inconvenient, harsh, and tyrannical regulations should be published, and every person must return to the town to which he was reputed to belong; thus, Mary is brought to Bethlehem, Jesus Christ is born as appointed, and, moreover, he is recognized officially as being descended from David by the fact that his mother came to Bethlehem as being of that lineage, remained there, and returned to Galilee without having her claims questioned, although the jealousy of all the women of the clan would have been aroused had an intruder ventured to claim a place among the few females to whom the birth of the Messiah was now by express prophecies confined.

Remark here the wisdom of a God of providence, and believe that all things are ordered well.  When all persons of the house of David were thus driven to Bethlehem, the scanty accommodation of the little town would soon be exhausted.  Doubtless friends entertained their friends till their houses were all full, but Joseph had no such willing kinsmen in the town.  There was the caravanserai, which was provided in every village, where free accommodation was given to travelers; this, too, was full, for coming from a distance, and compelled to travel slowly, the humble couple had arrived late in the day.  The rooms within the great brick square were already occupied with families; there remained no better lodging, even for a woman in travail, than one of the meaner spaces appropriated to beasts of burden.  The stall of the ass was the only place where the child could be born.  By hanging a curtain at its front, and perhaps tethering the animal on the outer side to block the passage, the needed seclusion could be obtained, and here, in the stable, was the King of Glory born and in the manger was he laid.

My business this morning is to lead your meditations to the stable at Bethlehem, that you may see this great sight — the Savior in the manger and think over the reason for this lowly couch — “because there was no room for them in the inn.”

I. I shall commence by remarking that THERE WERE OTHER REASONS WHY CHRIST SHOULD BE LAID IN THE MANGER.

1. I think it was intended thus to show forth his humiliation.  He came, according to prophecy, to be “despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;” he was to be “without form or comeliness,” “a root out of a dry ground.”  Would it have been fitting that the man who was to die naked on the cross should be robed in purple at his birth?  Would it not have been inappropriate that the Redeemer who was to be buried in a borrowed tomb should be born anywhere but in the humblest shed and housed anywhere but in the most ignoble manner?  The manger and the cross standing at the two extremities of the Savior’s earthly life seem most fit and congruous the one to the other.  He is to wear through life a peasant’s garb; he is to associate with fishermen; the lowly are to be his disciples; the cold mountains are often to be his only bed; he is to say, “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head;” nothing, therefore, could be more fitting than that in his season of humiliation, when he laid aside all his glory, and took upon himself the form of a servant, and condescended even to the meanest estate, he should be laid in a manger.

2. By being in a manger he was declared to be the king of the poor.  They, doubtless, were at once able to recognize his relationship to them, from the position in which they found him.  I believe it excited feelings of the tenderest brotherly kindness in the minds of the shepherds, when the angel said — “This shall be a sign unto you; you shall find the child wrapped in swaddling-clothes and lying in a manger.”  In the eyes of the poor, imperial robes excite no affection, a man in their own garb attracts their confidence.  With what pertinacity will workingmen cleave to a leader of their own order, believing in him because he knows their toils, sympathizes in their sorrows, and feels an interest in all their concerns.  Great commanders have readily won the hearts of their soldiers by sharing their hardships and roughing it as if they belonged to the ranks.  The King of Men who was born in Bethlehem was not exempted in his infancy from the common calamities of the poor, nay, his lot was even worse than theirs.  I think I hear the shepherds comment on the manger-birth, “Ah!” said one to his fellow, “then he will not be like Herod the tyrant; he will remember the manger and feel for the poor; poor helpless infant, I feel a love for him even now, what miserable accommodation this cold world yields its Savior; it is not a Caesar that is born to-day; he will never trample down our fields with his armies, or slaughter our flocks for his courtiers, he will be the poor man’s friend, the people’s monarch; according to the words of our shepherd-king, he shall judge the poor of the people; he shall save the children of the needy.”  Surely the shepherds, and such as they — the poor of the earth, perceived at once that here was the plebeian king; noble in descent, but still as the Lord hath called him, “one chosen out of the people.”  Great Prince of Peace!  The manger was thy royal cradle!  Therein wast thou presented to all nations as Prince of our race, before whose presence there is neither barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free; but thou art Lord of all.  Kings, your gold and silver would have been lavished on him if ye had known the Lord of Glory, but inasmuch as ye knew him not he was declared with demonstration to be a leader and a witness to the people.  The things which are not, under him shall bring to nought the things that are, and the things that are despised which God hath chosen, shall under his leadership break in pieces the might, and pride, and majesty of human grandeur.

3. Further, in thus being laid in a manger, he did, as it were, give an invitation to the most humble to come to him.  We might tremble to approach a throne, but we cannot fear to approach a manger.  Had we seen the Master at first riding in state through the streets of Jerusalem with garments laid in the way, and the palm-branches strewed, and the people crying, “Hosanna!” we might have thought, though even the thought would have been wrong, that he was not  approachable.  Even there, riding upon a colt the foal of an ass, he was so meek and lowly, that the young children clustered about him with their boyish “Hosanna!”  Never could there be a being more approachable than Christ.  No rough guards pushed poor petitioners away; no array of officious friends were allowed to keep off the importunate widow or the man who clamored that his son might be made whole; the hem of his garment was always trailing where sick folk could reach it, and he himself had a hand always ready to touch the disease, an ear to catch the faintest accents of misery, a soul going forth everywhere in rays of mercy, even as the light of the sun streams on every side beyond that orb itself.  By being laid in a manger, he proved himself a priest taken from among men, one who has suffered like his brethren, and therefore can be touched with a feeling of our infirmities.  Of him it was said “He doth eat and drink with publicans and sinners;” “this man receiveth sinners and eateth with them.”

Even as an infant, by being laid in a manger, he was set forth as the sinner’s friend.  Come to him, ye that are weary and heavy-laden!  Come to him, ye that are broken in spirit, ye who are bowed down in soul!  Come to him, ye that despise yourselves and are despised of others!  Come to him, publican and harlot!  Come to him, thief and drunkard!  In the manger there he lies, unguarded from your touch and unshielded from your gaze.  Bow the knee, and kiss the Son of God; accept him as your Savior, for he puts himself into that manger that you may approach him.  The throne of Solomon might awe you, but the manger of the Son of David must invite you.

4. Methinks there was yet another mystery.  You remember, brethren, that this place was free to all; it was an inn, and please to remember the inn in this case was not like our hotels, where accommodation and provision must be paid for.  In the early and simple ages of the world every man considered it an honor to entertain a stranger; afterwards, as traveling became more common, many desired to shift the honor and pleasure upon their neighbors; wherefore should they engross all the dignity of hospitality?  Further on still, some one person was appointed in each town and village, and was expected to entertain strangers in the name of the rest; but, as the ages grew less simple, and the pristine glow of brotherly love cooled down, the only provision made was the erection of a huge square block, arranged in rooms for the travelers, and with lower stages for the beasts, and here, with a certain provision of water and in some cases chopped straw for the cattle, the traveler must make himself as comfortable as he could.  He had not to purchase admittance to the caravanserai, for it was free to all, and the stable especially so.

Now, beloved, our Lord Jesus Christ was born in the stable of the inn to show how free he his to all comers.  The Gospel is preached to every creature and shuts out none.  We may say of the invitations of Holy Scripture, “None are excluded hence but those

Who do themselves exclude;

Welcome the learned and polite,

The ignorant and rude.

Though Jesus’ grace can save the prince,

The poor may take their share;

No mortal has a just pretense

To perish in despairs.”

Class exclusions are unknown here, and the prerogatives of caste are not acknowledged.  No forms of etiquette are required in entering a stable; it cannot be an offense to enter the stable of a public caravanserai.  So, if you desire to come to Christ you may come to him just as you are; you may come now.  Whosoever among you hath the desire in his heart to trust Christ is free to do it.  Jesus is free to you; he will receive you; he will welcome you with gladness, and to show this, I think, the young child was cradled in a manger.  We know that sinners often imagine that they are shut out.  Oftentimes the convicted conscience will write bitter things against itself and deny its part and lot in mercy’s stores.  Brother, if God hath not shut thee out, do not shut thyself out.  Until thou canst find it written in the Book that thou mayest not trust Christ; till thou canst quote a positive passage in which it is written that he is not able to save thee, I pray thee take that other word wherein it is written — “He is able to save unto the uttermost them that come unto God by him.”  Venture on that promise; come to Christ in the strength and faith of it, and thou shalt find him free to all comers.

5. We have not yet exhausted the reasons why the Son of Man was laid in a manger.  It was at the manger that the beasts were fed; and does the Savior lie where weary beasts receive their provender and shall there not be a mystery here?  Alas, there are some men who have become so brutal through sin, so utterly depraved by their lusts that to their own consciences every thing manlike has departed, but even to such the remedies of Jesus, the Great Physician, will apply.

We are constantly reading in our papers of men who are called incorrigible, and it is fashionable just now to demand ferociously, that these men should be treated with unmingled severity.  Some few years ago all the world went mad with a spurious humanity, crying out that gentleness would reform the brutal thief whom harsh punishments would harden hopelessly; now the current has turned, and everybody is demanding the abandonment of the present system.  I am no advocate for treating criminals daintily; let their sin bring them a fair share of smart; but if by any means they can be reformed, pray let the means be tried.  The day will come when the paroxysm of this fever is over, we shall blush to think that we were frightened by silly fears into a dangerous interference with a great and good work which hitherto has been successfully carried on.  It is a fact that under the present system, which (abating some faults that it may be well to cure) is an admirable one, crime is growing less frequent, and the class of gross offenders has been materially lessened.  Whereas in 1844, 18,490 convicts were transported, in 1860 the corresponding number was 11,533, and that notwithstanding the increase of the population.  The ticket-of-leave system, when the public would employ the convicts and so give them a chance of gaining a new character, worked so well that little more than one percent in a year were re-convicted, and even now only five per cent, per annum are found returning to crime and to prison.  Well, now, if the five percent receive no good, or even become worse, ought we not to consider the other ninety-five, and pause awhile before we give loose to our vengeance and exchange a Christian system of hopeful mercy for the old barbarous rule of unmitigated severity?  Beware, fellow citizens, beware of restoring the old idea that men can sin beyond hope of reformation, or you will generate criminals worse than those which now trouble us.  The laws of Draco must ever be failures, but fear not for the ultimate triumph of plans which a Christian spirit has suggested.

I have wandered from the subject — I thought I might save some from the crime of opposing true philanthropy on account of a sudden panic; but I will return at once to the manger and the babe.  I believe our Lord was laid in the manger where the beasts were fed, to show that even beast-like men may come to him and live.  No creature can be so degraded that Christ cannot lift it up.  Fall it may, and seem to fall most certainly to hell, but the long and strong arm of Christ can reach it even in its most desperate degradation; he can bring it up from apparently hopeless ruin.  If there be one who has strolled in here this morning whom society abhors, and who abhors himself, my Master in the stable with the beasts presents himself as able to save the vilest of the vile, and to accept the worst of the worst even now.  Believe on him and he will make thee a new creature.

6. But as Christ was laid where beasts were fed, you will please to recollect that after he was gone beasts fed there again.  It was only his presence which could glorify the manger, and here we learn that if Christ were taken away the world would go back to its former heathen darkness.  Civilization itself would die out, at least that part of it which really civilizes man, if the religion of Jesus could be extinguished.  If Christ were taken away from the human heart, the most holy would become debased again, and those who claim kinship with angels would soon prove that they have relationship to devils.  The manger, I say, would be a manger for beasts still, if the Lord of Glory were withdrawn, and we should go back to our sins and our lusts if Christ should once take away his grace and leave us to ourselves.  For these reasons which I have mentioned, methinks, Christ was laid in a manger.

II. But still the text says that he was laid in a manger because there was no room for him in the inn, and this leads us to the second remark, THAT THERE WERE OTHER PLACES BESIDES THE INN WHICH HAD NO ROOM FOR CHRIST.

The palaces of emperors and the halls of kings afforded the royal stranger no refuge?  Alas! my brethren, seldom is there room for Christ in palaces!  How could the kings of earth receive the Lord?  He is the Prince of Peace, and they delight in war!  He breaks their bows and cuts their spears in sunder; he burneth their war-chariots in the fire.  How could kings accept the humble Savior?  They love grandeur and pomp, and he is all simplicity and meekness.  He is a carpenter’s son, and the fisherman’s companion.  How can princes find room for the new-born monarch?  Why he teaches us to do to others as we would that they should do to us, and this is a thing which kings would find very hard to reconcile with the knavish tricks of politics and the grasping designs of ambition.

O great ones of the earth, I am but little astonished that amid your glories, and pleasures, and wars, and councils, ye forget the Anointed, and cast out the Lord of All.  There is no room for Christ with the kings.  Look throughout the kingdoms of the earth now, and with here and there an exception it is still true —“The kings of the earth stand up, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed.” In heaven we shall see here and there a monarch; but ah! how few; indeed a child might write them.  “Not many great men after the flesh, not many mighty are chosen.”  State-chambers, cabinets, throne-rooms, and royal palaces, are about as little frequented by Christ as the jungles and swamps of India by the cautious traveler.  He frequents cottages far more often than regal residences, for there is no room for Jesus Christ in regal halls.

“When the Eternal bows the skies

To visit earthly things,

With scorn divine he turns his eyes

From towers of haughty kings.

He bids his awful chariot roll

Far downward from the skies,

To visit every humble soul

With pleasure in his eyes.”

But there were senators, there were forums of political discussion, there were the places where the representatives of the people make the laws, was there no room for Christ there?  Alas! my brethren, none, and to this day there is very little room for Christ in parliaments.  How seldom is religion recognized by politicians!  Of course a State-religion, if it will consent to be a poor, tame, powerless thing, a lion with its teeth all drawn, its mane all shaven off, and its claws all trimmed — yes, that may be recognized; but the true Christ and they that follow him and dare to obey his laws in an evil generation, what room is there for such?  Christ and his gospel — oh! this is sectarianism, and is scarcely worthy of the notice of contempt.  Who pleads for Jesus in the senate?  Is not his religion, under the name of sectarianism, the great terror of all parties?  Who quotes his golden rule as a direction for prime ministers, or preaches Christ-like forgiveness as a rule for national policy?  One or two will give him a good word, but if it be put to the vote whether the Lord Jesus should be obeyed or no, it will be many a day before the ayes have it.  Parties, policies, place-hunters, and pleasure-seekers exclude the Representative of Heaven from a place among representatives of Earth.

Might there not be found some room for Christ in what is called good society?  Were there not in Bethlehem some people that were very respectable, who kept themselves aloof from the common multitude; persons of reputation and standing — could not they find room for Christ?  Ah! dear friends, it is too much the case that there is no room for Him in what is called good society.  There is room for all the silly little forms by which men choose to trammel themselves; room for the vain niceties of etiquette; room for frivolous conversation; room for the adoration of the body, there is room for the setting up of this and that as the idol of the hour, but there is too little room for Christ, and it is far from fashionable to follow the Lord fully.  The advent of Christ would be the last thing which gay society would desire; the very mention of his name by the lips of love would cause a strange sensation.  Should you begin to talk about the things of Christ in many a circle, you would be tabooed at once.  “I will never ask that man to my house again,” so-and-so would say — “if he must bring his religion with him.”  Folly and finery, rank and honor, jewels and glitter, frivolity and fashion, all report that there is no room for Jesus in their abodes.

But is there not room for him on the exchange?  Cannot he be taken to the marts of commerce?  Here are the shop-keepers of a shop-keeping nation — is there not room for Christ here?  Ah! dear friends, how little of the spirit, and life, and doctrine of Christ can be found here!  The trader finds it  inconvenient to be too scrupulous; the merchant often discovers that if he is to make a fortune he must break his conscience. How many there are — well, I will not say they tell lies directly, but still, still, still — I had better say it plainly — they do lie indirectly with a vengeance.  Who does not know as he rides along that there must be many liars abroad?  For almost every house you see is “The cheapest house in London,” which can hardly be; full sure they cannot all be cheapest!  What sharp practice some indulge in!  What puffery and falsehood!  What cunning and sleight of hand!  What woes would my Master pronounce on some of you if he looked into your shop windows, or stood behind your counters?  Bankruptcies, swindlings, frauds are so abundant that in hosts of cases there is no room for Jesus in the mart or the shop.

Then there are the schools of the philosophers, surely they will entertain him.  The wise men will find in him incarnate wisdom; he, who as a youth is to become the teacher of doctors, who will sit down and ask them questions and receive their answers, surely he will find room at once among the Grecian sages, and men of sense and wit will honor him.  “Room for him, Socrates and Plato!  Stoics and Epicurians give ye way; and you, ye teachers of Israel, vacate your seats; if there is no room for this child without your going, go; we must have him in the schools of philosophy if we put you all forth.”  No, dear friends, but it is not so; there is very little room for Christ in colleges and universities, very little room for him in the seats of learning.  How often learning helps men to raise objections to Christ!  Too often learning is the forge where the nails are made for Christ’s crucifixion; too often human wit has become the artificer who has pointed the spear and made the shaft with which his heart should be pierced.  We must say it, that philosophy, falsely so called. (for true philosophy, if it were handled aright, must ever be Christ’s friend) hath done mischief to Christ, but seldom hath it served his cause.  A few with splendid talents, a few of the erudite and profound have bowed like children at the feet of the Babe of Bethlehem, and have been honored in bowing there, but too many, conscious of their knowledge, stiff and stern in their conceit of wisdom, have said, — “Who is Christ, that we should acknowledge him?”

They found no room for him in the schools.  But there was surely one place where he could go — it was the Sanhedrin, where the elders sit.  Or could he not be housed in the priestly chamber where the priests assemble with the Levites.  Was there not room for him in the temple or the synagogue?  No, he found no shelter there; it was there, his whole life long, that he found his most ferocious enemies.  Not the common multitude, but the priests were the instigators of his death, the priests moved the people to say “Not this man, but Barabbas.”  The priests paid out their shekels to bribe the popular voice, and then Christ was hounded to his death.  Surely there ought to have been room for him in the Church of his own people; but there was not.  Too often in the priestly church, when once it becomes recognized and mounts to dignity, there is no room for Christ.  I allude not now to any one denomination, but take the whole sweep of Christendom, and it is strange that when the Lord comes to his own his own receives him not.  The most accursed enemies of true religion have been the men who pretended to be its advocates.  It is little marvel when bishops undermine the popular faith in revelation; this is neither their first nor last offense.  Who burned the martyrs, and made Smithfield a field of blood, a burning fiery furnace, a great altar for the Most High God?  Why, those who professed to be anointed of the Lord, whose shaven crowns had received Episcopal benediction.  Who put John Bunyan in prison?  Who chased such men as Owen and the Puritans from their pulpits?  Who harried the Covenanters upon the mountains?  Who, Sirs, but the professed messengers of heaven and priests of God?  Who have hunted the baptized saints in every land, and hunt them still in many a Continental state?  The priests ever; the priests ever; there is no room for Christ with the prophets of Baal, the servants of Babylon.  The false hirelings that are not Christ’s shepherds, and love not his sheep, have ever been the most ferocious enemies of our God and of his Christ.  There is no room for him where his name is chanted in solemn hymns and his image lifted up amid smoke of incense.  Go where ye will, and there is no space for the Prince of peace but with the humble and contrite spirits which by grace he prepares to yield him shelter.

III. But now for our third remark, THE INN ITSELF HAD NO ROOM FOR HIM; and this was the main reason why he must be laid in a manger.

What can we find in modern times which stands in the place of the inn?  Well, there is public sentiment free to all.  In this free land, men speak of what they like, and there is a public opinion upon every subject; and you know there is free toleration in this country to everything — permit me to say, toleration to everything but Christ.  You will discover that the persecuting-spirit is now as much abroad as ever.  There are still men at whom it is most fashionable to sneer.  We never scoff at Christians now-a-days; we do not sneer at that respectable title, lest we should lose our own honor; we do not now-a-days, talk against the followers of Jesus under that name.  No; but we have found out a way of doing it more safely.  There is a pretty word of modern invention — a very pretty word — the word “Sectarian.”  Do you know what it means?  A sectarian means a true Christian; a man who can afford to keep a conscience, and does not mind suffering for it; a man who, whatever he finds to be in that old Book, believes it, and acts upon it, and is zealous for it. I believe that the men aimed at under the term, “sectarians,” are the true followers of Christ, and that the sneers and jeers, and all the nonsense that you are always reading and hearing, is really aimed at the Christian, the true Christian, only he is disguised and nick-named by the word sectarian.  I would give not a farthing for your religion, nay, not even the turn of a rusty nail, unless you will sometimes win that title.  If God’s Word be true, every atom of it, then we should act upon it; and whatsoever the Lord commandeth, we should diligently keep and obey, remembering that our Master tells us if we break one of the least of his commandments, and teach men so, we shall be least in his kingdom.  We ought to be very jealous, very precise, very anxious, that even in the minutiae of our Savior’s laws, we may obey, having our eyes up to him as the eyes of servants are to their mistresses.  But if you do this, you will find you are not tolerated, and you will get the cold shoulder in society.  A zealous Christian will find as truly a cross to carry now-a-days, as in the days of Simon the Cyrenian.  If you will hold your tongue, if you will leave sinners to perish, if you will never endeavor to propagate your faith, if you will silence all witnessing for truth, if, in fact, you will renounce all the attributes of a Christian, if you will cease to be what a Christian must be, then the world will say, “Ah! that is right; this is the religion we like.”  But if you will believe, believe firmly, and if you let your belief actuate your life, and if your belief is so precious that you feel compelled to spread it, then at once you will find that there is no room for Christ even in the inn of public sentiment, where everything else is received.  Be an infidel, and none will therefore treat you contemptuously; but be a Christian, and many will despise you.  “There was no room for him in the inn.”

How little room is there for Christ, too, in general conversation, which is also like an inn.  We talk about many things; a man may now-a-days talk of any subject he pleases; no one can stop him and say, “There is a spy catching your words; he will report you to some central authority.”  Speech is very free in this land; but, ah! how little room is there for Christ in general talk!  Even on Sunday afternoon how little room there is for Christ in some professed Christian’s houses.  They will talk about ministers, tell queer anecdotes about them — perhaps invent a few, or, at least, garnish the old ones, and add to them, and make them a little more brilliant; they will talk about the Sunday school, or the various agencies in connection with the Church, but how little they say about Christ!  And if some one should in conversation make this remark, “Could we not speak upon the Godhead and manhood, the finished work and righteousness, the ascension, or the second advent of our Lord Jesus Christ,” why we should see many, who even profess to be followers of Christ, who would hold up their heads and say, “Why, dear, that man is quite a fanatic, or else he would not think of introducing such a subject as that into general conversation.”  No, there is no room for him in the inn; to this day he can find but little access there. I address many who are working-men.

You are employed among a great many artisans day after day; do you not find, brethren — I know you do — that there is very little room for Christ in the workshop.  There is room there for everything else; there is room for swearing; there is room for drunkenness; there is room for lewd conversation; there is room for politics, slanders, or infidelities, but there is no room for Christ.  Too many of our working men think religion would be an encumbrance, a chain, a miserable prison to them.  They can frequent the theater, or listen in a lecture-hall, but the house of God is too dreary for them.  I wish I were not compelled to say so, but truly in our factories, workshops, and foundries, there is no room for Christ.  The world is elbowing and pushing for more room, till there is scarce a corner left where the Babe of Bethlehem can be laid.

As for the inns of modern times — who would think of finding Christ there?  Putting out of our catalogue those hotels and roadside houses which are needed for the accommodation of travelers, what greater curse have we than our taverns and pot-houses?  What wider gates of hell?  Who would ever resort to such places as we have flaring with gas light at the corners of all our streets to find Christ there?  As well might we expect to find him in the bottomless pit!  We should be just as likely to look for angels in hell, as to look for Christ in a gin palace!  He who is separate from sinners, finds no fit society in the reeking temple of Bacchus.  There is no room for Jesus in the inn.  I think I would rather rot or feed the crows, than earn my daily bread by the pence of fools, the hard-earnings of the poor man, stolen from his ragged children, and his emaciated wife.  What do many publicans fatten upon but the flesh, and bones, and blood, and souls of men.  He who grows rich on the fruits of vice is a beast preparing for the slaughter.  Truly, there is no room for Christ among the drunkards of Ephraim.  They who have anything to do with Christ should hear him say — “Come ye out from among them, and be ye separate; touch not the unclean thing, and I will receive you, and be a father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters.”  There is no room for Christ now-a-days even in the places of public resort.

IV. This brings me to my fourth head, which is the most pertinent, and the most necessary to dwell upon for a moment. HAVE YOU ROOM FOR CHRIST?  HAVE YOU ROOM FOR CHRIST?

As the palace, and the forum, and the inn, have no room for Christ, and as the places of public resort have none, have you room for Christ?

“Well,” says one, “I have room for him, but I am not worthy that he should come to me.”  Ah! I did not ask about worthiness; have you room for him?  “Oh,” says one, “I have an empty void the world can never fill!”  Ah! I see you have room for him.  “Oh! but the room I have in my heart is so base!”  So was the manger.  “But it is so despicable!”  So was the manger a thing to be despised.  “Ah! but my heart is so foul!”  So, perhaps, the manger may have been.  “Oh! but I feel it is a place not at all fit for Christ!”  Nor was the manger a place fit for him, and yet there was he laid.”  Oh! but I have been such a sinner; I feel as if my heart had been a den of beasts and devils!”  Well, the manger had been a place where beasts had fed.  Have you room for him?  Never mind what the past has been; he can forget and forgive.  It matters not what even the present state may be if thou mourn it.  If thou hast but room for Christ he will come and be thy guest.

Do not say, I pray you, “I hope I shall have room for him;” the time is come that he shall be born; Mary cannot wait months and years.  Oh! sinner, if thou hast room for him let him be born in thy soul today.  “Today if ye will hear his voice harden not your hearts as in the provocation.”  “Today is the accepted time; today is the day of salvation.”  Room for Jesus! Room for Jesus now!

“Oh!” saith one, “I have room for him, but will he come?”  Will he come indeed!  Do you but set the door of your heart open, do but say, “Jesus, Master, all unworthy and unclean I look to thee; come, lodge within my heart,” and he will come to thee, and he will cleanse the manger of thy heart, nay, will transform it into a golden throne, and there he will sit and reign forever and forever.  Oh! I have such a free Christ to preach this morning!  I would I could preach him better. I have such a precious loving, Jesus to preach, he is willing to find a home in humble hearts.  What!  Are there no hearts here this morning that will take him in?  Must my eye glance round these galleries and look at many of you who are still without him and are there none who will say, “Come in, come in?”  Oh! it shall be a happy day for you if you shall be enabled to take him in your arms and receive him as the consolation of Israel!  You may then look forward even to death with joy, and say with Simeon — “Lord, now let thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.”  My Master wants room!  Room for him!  Room for him!  I, his herald, cry aloud, Room for the Savior!  Room!  Here is my royal Master — have you room for him?  Here is the Son of God made flesh — have you room for him?  Here is he who can forgive all sin — have you room for him?  Here is he who can take you up out of the horrible pit and out of the miry clay — have you room for him?  Here is he who when he cometh in will never go out again, but abide with you forever to make your heart a heaven of joy and bliss for you-have you room for him?  ‘Tis all I ask.  Your emptiness, your nothingness, your want of feeling, your want of goodness, your want of grace — all these will be but room for him.  Have you room for him?  Oh! Spirit of God, lead many to say, “Yes, my heart is ready.”

Ah! then he will come and dwell with you.

“Joy to the world the Savior comes,

The Savior promised long;

Let every heart prepare a throne

And every voice a song.”

V. I conclude with the remark, that if you have room for Christ, then from this day forth remember THE WORLD HAS NO ROOM FOR YOU; for the text says not only that there was no room for him, but look — “There was no room for them,” — no room for Joseph, nor for Mary, any more than for the babe.

Who are his father, and mother, and sister, and brother, but those that receive his word and keep it?  So, as there was no room for the blessed Virgin, nor for the reputed father, remember henceforth there is no room in this world for any true follower of Christ.  There is no room for you to take your ease; no, you are to be a soldier of the cross, and you will find no ease in all your life-warfare.  There is no room for you to sit down contented with your own attainments, for you are a traveler, and you are to forget the things that are behind, and press forward to that which is before; no room for you to hide your treasure in, for here the moth and rust doth corrupt; no room for you to put your confidence, for “Cursed is he that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm.”  From this day there will be no room for you in the world’s good opinion — they will count you to be an offscouring; no room for you in the world’s polite society — you must go without the camp, bearing his reproach. From this time forth, I say, if you have room for Christ, the world will hardly find room of sufferance for you; you must expect now to be laughed at; now you must wear the fool’s cap in men’s esteem; and your song must be at the very beginning of your pilgrimage.

“Jesus, I thy cross have taken,

All to leave and follow thee;

Naked, poor, despised, forsaken,

Thou from hence my all shall be.”

There is no room for you in the worldling’s love.  If you expect that everybody will praise you, and that your good actions will all be applauded, you will quite be mistaken.  The world, I say, has no room for the man who has room for Christ.  If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. “Woe unto you when all men speak well of you.”  “Ye are not of the world, even as Christ is not of the world.”  Thank God, you need not ask the world’s hospitality.  If it will give you but a stage for action, and lend you for an hour a grave to sleep in, ‘tis all you need; you will require no permanent dwelling-place here, since you seek a city that is to come, which hath foundations; whose builder and maker is God.  You are hurrying through this world as a stranger through a foreign land, and you rejoice to know that though you are an alien and a foreigner here, yet you are a fellow citizen with the saints, and of the household to God.  What say you, young soldier, will you enlist on such terms as these?  Will you give room for Christ when there is to be henceforth no room for you — when you are to be separated forever, cut off from among the world’s kith and kin mayhap — cut off from carnal confidence forever? Are you willing, notwithstanding all this, to receive the traveler in?  The Lord help you to do so, and to him shall be glory forever and ever.  Amen.

Posted in C. H. Spurgeon |

Room for Jesus? by Charles Spurgeon

January 17, 2010 by ADMIN

Room for Jesus? by Charles Spurgeon

“And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.” — Luke 2:7

Have you room for Christ?  Have you room for Christ? As the palace, and the forum, and the inn, have no room for Christ, and as the places of public resort have none, have you room for Christ?

“Well,” says one, “I have room for him, but I am not worthy that he should come to me.”  Ah! I did not ask about worthiness; have you room for him?  “Oh,” says one, “I have an empty void the world can never fill!”  Ah! I see you have room for him.  “Oh! but the room I have in my heart is so base!”  So was the manger.  “But it is so despicable!”  So was the manger a thing to be despised.  “Ah! but my heart is so foul!”  So, perhaps, the manger may have been.  “Oh! but I feel it is a place not at all fit for Christ!”  Nor was the manger a place fit for him, and yet there was he laid.”  Oh! but I have been such a sinner; I feel as if my heart had been a den of beasts and devils!”  Well, the manger had been a place where beasts had fed.  Have you room for him?  Never mind what the past has been; he can forget and forgive.  It matters not what even the present state may be if thou mourn it.  If thou hast but room for Christ he will come and be thy guest.

Do not say, I pray you, “I hope I shall have room for him;” the time is come that he shall be born; Mary cannot wait months and years.  Oh! sinner, if thou hast room for him let him be born in thy soul today.  “Today, if ye will hear his voice harden not your hearts as in the provocation.”  “Today is the accepted time; today is the day of salvation.”  Room for Jesus! Room for Jesus now!

“Oh!” saith one, “I have room for him, but will he come?”  Will he come indeed!  Do you but set the door of your heart open, do but say, “Jesus, Master, all unworthy and unclean I look to thee; come, lodge within my heart,” and he will come to thee, and he will cleanse the manger of thy heart, nay, will transform it into a golden throne, and there he will sit and reign forever and forever.  Oh! I have such a free Christ to preach this morning!  I would I could preach him better. I have such a precious loving, Jesus to preach, he is willing to find a home in humble hearts.  What!  Are there no hearts here this morning that will take him in?  Must my eye glance round these galleries and look at many of you who are still without him and are there none who will say, “Come in, come in?”

Oh! it shall be a happy day for you if you shall be enabled to take him in your arms and receive him as the consolation of Israel!  You may then look forward even to death with joy, and say with Simeon — “Lord, now let thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.”  My Master wants room!  Room for him!  Room for him!  I, his herald, cry aloud, Room for the Savior!  Room!  Here is my royal Master — have you room for him?  Here is the Son of God made flesh — have you room for him?  Here is he who can forgive all sin — have you room for him?  Here is he who can take you up out of the horrible pit and out of the miry clay — have you room for him?  Here is he who when he cometh in will never go out again, but abide with you forever to make your heart a heaven of joy and bliss for you-have you room for him?  ‘Tis all I ask.  Your emptiness, your nothingness, your want of feeling, your want of goodness, your want of grace — all these will be but room for him.  Have you room for him?  Oh! Spirit of God, lead many to say, “Yes, my heart is ready.”

Ah! then he will come and dwell with you.

“Joy to the world the Savior comes,

The Savior promised long;

Let every heart prepare a throne

And every voice a song.”

But I must remind you … that if you have room for Christ, then from this day forth remember THE WORLD HAS NO ROOM FOR YOU; for the text says not only that there was no room for him, but look — “There was no room for them,” — no room for Joseph, nor for Mary, any more than for the babe.

Who are his father, and mother, and sister, and brother, but those that receive his word and keep it?  So, as there was no room for the blessed Virgin, nor for the reputed father, remember henceforth there is no room in this world for any true follower of Christ.  There is no room for you to take your ease; no, you are to be a soldier of the cross, and you will find no ease in all your life-warfare.  There is no room for you to sit down contented with your own attainments, for you are a traveler, and you are to forget the things that are behind, and press forward to that which is before; no room for you to hide your treasure in, for here the moth and rust doth corrupt; no room for you to put your confidence, for “Cursed is he that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm.”  From this day there will be no room for you in the world’s good opinion — they will count you to be an offscouring; no room for you in the world’s polite society — you must go without the camp, bearing his reproach. From this time forth, I say, if you have room for Christ, the world will hardly find room of sufferance for you; you must expect now to be laughed at; now you must wear the fool’s cap in men’s esteem; and your song must be at the very beginning of your pilgrimage.

“Jesus, I thy cross have taken,

All to leave and follow thee;

Naked, poor, despised, forsaken,

Thou from hence my all shall be.”

There is no room for you in the worldling’s love.  If you expect that everybody will praise you, and that your good actions will all be applauded, you will quite be mistaken.  The world, I say, has no room for the man who has room for Christ.  If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. “Woe unto you when all men speak well of you.”  “Ye are not of the world, even as Christ is not of the world.”  Thank God, you need not ask the world’s hospitality.  If it will give you but a stage for action and lend you for an hour a grave to sleep in, ‘tis all you need; you will require no permanent dwelling-place here, since you seek a city that is to come, which hath foundations whose builder and maker is God.  You are hurrying through this world as a stranger through a foreign land, and you rejoice to know that though you are an alien and a foreigner here, yet you are a fellow citizen with the saints, and of the household to God.  What say you, young soldier, will you enlist on such terms as these?  Will you give room for Christ when there is to be henceforth no room for you — when you are to be separated forever, cut off from among the world’s kith and kin mayhap — cut off from carnal confidence forever? Are you willing, notwithstanding all this, to receive the traveler in?  The Lord help you to do so and to him shall be glory forever and ever.  Amen.

Posted in C. H. Spurgeon |

The Person of Christ by A. W. Pink

January 17, 2010 by ADMIN

We enter with fear and trembling upon this high and holy subject.  Christ’s name is called “Wonderful” (Isaiah 9:6), and even the angels of God are commanded to worship Him (Hebrews 1:6).  There is no salvation apart from a true knowledge of Him (John 17:3).  “Whosoever denieth the Son [either His true Godhead, or His true and holy humanity]… hath not the Father” (1 John 2:23).  They are thrice-blessed to whom the Spirit of Truth communicates a supernatural revelation of the Being of Christ (Matthew 16:17).  It will lead them in the only path of wisdom and joy, for in Him “are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3) until they are taken to be where He is and behold His supernal glory forever (John 17:24).  An increasing apprehension of the Truth concerning the person of Christ should be our constant aim.

“Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh” (1 Timothy 3:16).  In view of such a divine declaration as this, it is both useless and impious for any man to attempt an explanation of the wondrous and unique person of the Lord Jesus.  He cannot be fully comprehended by any finite intelligence.  “No man knoweth the Son, but the Father” (Matthew 11:27).  Nevertheless, it is our privilege to grow “in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18).  So too it is the duty of His servants to hold up the person of the God-man as revealed in Holy Scriptures, as well as to warn against errors which cloud His glory.

The one born in Bethlehem’s manger was “the mighty God” (Isaiah 9:6), “Immanuel” (Matthew 1:23), “the great God and our Savior” (Titus 2:13).  He is also the true Man, with a spirit, a soul and a body, for these are essential to human nature.  None could be real man without all three.  Nevertheless, the humanity of Christ (that holy thing, Luke 1:35) is not a distinct person, separate from His Godhead, for it never had a separate existence before taken into union with His deity.  He is the God-man, yet “one Lord” (Ephesians 4:5).  As such He was born, lived here in this world, died, rose again, ascended to heaven, and will continue thus for all eternity.  As such He is entirely unique and the Object of lasting wonder to all holy beings.

The person of Christ is a composite one.  Two separate natures are united in one peerless Person; but they are not fused into each other, instead, they remain distinct and different.  The human nature is not divine, nor has it been, intrinsically, deified, for it possesses none of the attributes of God.  The humanity of Christ, absolutely and separately considered, is neither omnipotent, omniscient, nor omnipresent.

On the other hand, His deity is not a creature and has none of the properties which pertain to such.  Taking to Himself a human nature did not effect any change in His divine being. It was a divine person who wedded to Himself a holy humanity, and though His essential glory was partly veiled, yet it never ceased to be, nor did His divine attributes cease to function.  As the God-man, Christ is the “one mediator” (1 Timothy 2:5).  He alone was fitted to stand between God and men and effect a reconciliation between them.

It needs to be maintained that the two natures are united in the one person of Christ, but that each retains its separate properties, just as the soul and body of men do, though united.  Thus, in His divine nature, Christ has nothing in common with us — nothing finite, derived or dependent.  But in His human nature, He was made in all things like to His brethren, sin excepted.  In that nature He was born in time, and did not exist from all eternity. He increased in knowledge and other endowments.  In the one nature, He had a comprehensive knowledge of all things; in the other, He knew nothing but by communication or derivation.  In the one nature, He had an infinite and sovereign will; in the other, He had a creature will.  Though not opposed to the divine will, its conformity to it was of the same kind with that in perfect creatures.

The necessity for the two natures in the one person of our Savior is self-evident.  It was fitting that the Mediator should be both God and man, that He might partake of the nature of both parties and be a middle person between them, filling up the distance and bringing them near to each other.  Only thus was He able to communicate His benefits to us; and only thus could He discharge our obligations.  As Witsius, the Dutch theologian (1690) pointed out: “None but God could restore us to true liberty.  If any creature could redeem us, we should be the peculiar property of that creature: but it is a manifest contradiction to be free and yet at the same time be the servant of any creature.  So too none but God could give us eternal life: hence the two are joined together — ‘The true God, and eternal life’ (1 John 5:20).”

It was equally necessary that the Mediator be Man.  He was to enter our Law-place, be subject to the Law, keep it, and merit by keeping it.  “But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law” (Galatians 4:4).  Note the order.  He must first be “made of a woman,” before He could be “made under the law.”  But more, He had to endure the curse of the Law, suffer its penalty.  He was to be “made sin” for His people, and the wages of sin is death.  But that was impossible to Him until He took upon Him a nature capable of mortality.  “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14).

Thus, the person of the God-man is unique.  His birth had no precedent and His existence no analogy.  He cannot be explained by referring Him to a class, nor can He be illustrated by an example.  The Scriptures, while fully revealing all the elements of His person, yet never present in one formula an exhaustive definition of that person, nor a connected statement of the elements which constitute it and their mutual relationships.

The “mystery” is indeed great.  How is it possible that the same person should be at the same time infinite and finite, omnipotent and helpless?  He altogether transcends our understanding.  How can two complete spirits coalesce in one person?  How can two consciousnesses, two understandings, two memories, two wills, constitute one person?  No one can explain it.  Nor are we called upon to do so.  Both natures act in concert in one person.  All the attributes and acts of both natures are referred to one person.  The same person who gave His life for the sheep, possessed glory with the Father before the world was!

This amazing Personality does not center in His humanity, nor is it a compound one originated by the power of the Holy Spirit when He brought those two natures together in the womb of the virgin Mary.  It was not by adding manhood to Godhead that His personality was formed.  The Trinity is eternal and unchangeable.  A new person is not substituted for the second member of the Trinity; neither is a fourth added.  The person of Christ is just the eternal Word, who in time, by the power of the Holy Spirit, through the instrument of the virgin’s womb, took a human nature (not at that time a man, but the seed of Abraham) into personal union with Himself.  The Person is eternal and divine; His humanity was introduced into it.  The center of His personality is always in the eternal and personal Word, or Son of God.

Though no analogy exists by which we may illustrate the mysterious person of Christ, there is a most remarkable type in Exodus 3:2-6.  The “flame of fire” in the midst of the “bush,” was an emblem of the presence of God indwelling the Man Christ Jesus.  Observe that the One who appeared there to Moses is termed, first, “the angel of the LORD,” which declares the relation of Christ to the Father, namely, “the angel (messenger) of the covenant.”  But secondly, this angel said unto Moses, “I am the God of Abraham,” that is what He was absolutely in Himself.  The fire — emblem of Him who is a “consuming fire” — placed itself in a bush (a thing of the earth), where it burned, yet the bush was not consumed.  A remarkable foreshadowing this was of the “fullness of the Godhead,” dwelling in Christ (Colossians 2:9).  That this is the meaning of the type is clear, when we read of “The good will of him that dwelt in the bush” (Deuteronomy 33:16).

The great mystery of the Trinity is that one Spirit should subsist eternally as three distinct Persons: the mystery of the person of Christ is that two separate spirits (divine and human) should constitute but one person.  The moment we deny the unity of His person we enter the bogs of error.  Christ is the God-man.  The humanity of Christ was not absorbed by His deity, but preserves its own characteristics. Scripture does not hesitate to say, “Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52).  Christ is both infinite and finite, self-sufficient and dependent at the same time, because His Person embraces, two different natures, the divine and the human.

In the incarnation, the second Person of the Trinity established a personal union between Himself and a human spirit, soul, and body.  His two natures remained and remain distinct, and their properties or active powers are inseparable from each nature respectively.  The union between them is not mechanical, as that between oxygen and nitrogen in our air; neither is it chemical, as between oxygen and hydrogen when water is formed; neither is it organic, as that subsisting between our hearts and brains; but it is a union more intimate, more profound, and more mysterious than any of these.  It is personal. If we cannot understand the nature of the simpler unions, why should we complain because we cannot understand the nature of the most profound of all unions? (A. A. Hodge, to whom we are also indebted for a number of other thoughts in this article).

“Is there a thing beneath the sun

That strives with Thee my heart to share?

O tear it thence, and reign alone,

The Lord of every motion there.

Then shall my heart from earth be free,

When it has found repose in Thee.”

Posted in A. W. Pink |

God in Christ is Love by Ebenezer Erskine

January 17, 2010 by ADMIN

I hope to make it a little more evident, that God in Christ is a God of love. This will be abundantly clear, if we consider these few things:—1. God in Christ is a reconciled God, a God of peace that has received the atonement: 2 Corinthians 5:19: “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself.”  Romans 5:10: “When we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son.”  He both finds the ransom, and accepts of the ransom that he has found; and having accepted of the ransom, of the Surety, he proclaims himself to be “the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Oh, sirs!  Does not this say that God is love? What greater evidence of it could God give, than to provide a ransom, and to receive it, than to cry, “Deliver them from going down to the pit, for I have found a ransom?”

2. God in Christ is a promising God and does not this say that he is a God of love?  God abstractly considered is a threatening God, a revenging God; but in Christ, a promising God; and we find, 2 Corinthians 1:20, that “all the promises of God are in Christ, and in him yea and amen.”  Whenever you meet with any promise in the Bible, of grace or of glory, of peace or of pardon, or be what it will, you should still take it up as a promise of a God in Christ: Christ having fulfilled the condition of the promise of eternal life, by his obedience and death, the promises are given out to us, through him, as the immediate ground and foundation of our faith, with an intimation and advertisement, “The promise is unto you, and to your seed, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.”  Sirs, if any man should present to you a bond, bill, or security, for a vast sum of money, which would enrich you for all your days, you would look upon it as a great and indisputable evidence of his love to you.  Well, this is the very case between God and you; through Christ, he is a promising God; he comes in a gospel dispensation, saying, “I will put my Spirit within you; I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.”  These promises are presented to you as the ground of your faith; and that very moment you take hold of them in a way of believing, you come to be possessed of them, and all the benefits of his purchase, according to that, Isaiah 55:3: “Hear, and your soul shall live;” it is the hearing of faith that is intended; “and I will make” or establish “an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.”  Oh, sirs! does not this say that God is love?

3. God in Christ is a God sitting upon a throne of grace: and does not this say, that God is love? God has a threefold throne, —a throne of glory, a throne of justice, and a throne of grace.  The first of these, his throne of glory, is so bright, that it dazzles the eyes of angels, and they cover their faces with their wings when they approach it.  The second, namely, his throne of justice, is clothed with red vengeance; and it is so terrible, that the most holy saints tremble when they behold it, “If thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? In thy sight shall no man living be justified.”  And because we were not able to stand here, he has erected another throne, namely, a throne of grace, from whence he issues out acts of grace and mercy to guilty sinners; and so soon as he is seen sitting upon his throne, he is taken up as a God of love; and upon this the poor sinner, that was trembling at the thoughts of being cited before the throne of justice, flees for his life to the throne of grace, saying with the apostle, Heb. 4:16: “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.”

4. God in Christ is a God matching with us, and betrothing us unto himself in loving kindness; and does not this say, that he is a God of love?  There is a twofold match that the great and infinite JEHOVAH has made with Adam’s family.

(1.) He espouses with our nature by a personal union in the person of his eternal Son: he marries our nature; and thus he becomes akin to the whole family of Adam, an honor that the angelic family was never dignified with; for “he takes not on him the nature of angels, but the seed of Abraham.”  Oh, sirs!  What shall I tell you?  Strange and surprising news indeed, “God is manifested in the flesh!”  The great God becomes related to us in Christ; for he is clothed with our nature; he is become “bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh;” and what is the language of this, but that of the angels at his birth, “glad tidings of great joy, good will and peace towards men upon earth?.”

(2.) Another espousal he makes with us, is, by taking us actually under the bond of a marriage relation.  The espousal is proposed to all in the call and offer of the gospel: but you know the bare proposal of marriage does not make marriage, till once the consent of the bride be obtained; and the moment the soul gives its assent and consent to the proposal made in the gospel, he betroths that soul to himself in loving kindness and in mercy, in righteousness and in judgment; and the Lord rejoices over that soul, as a bridegroom rejoices over the bride, saying to it, “Thy Maker is thine husband, the Lord of hosts is his name,” Isaiah 54:5.  And, oh, sirs! Does not this say that God is love? Because the distance between him and us was too great, (abstractly considered,) therefore, he first comes on a level with us, by taking on our nature, that so the inequality of the persons might be no barrier: he becomes our husband, and we his spouse and bride.

5. God in Christ is a God with us, on our side, our friend, and takes part with us against all evil or danger: and does not this say, that God is love, as he is in Christ?  Oh, sirs! God out of Christ is a God against us: hence, he is said to be “angry with the wicked every day;” he “whets his glittering sword, and his hand takes hold on judgment,” to render vengeance to every transgressor of his holy law.  But God in Christ is not a God against us, but a God with us, or a God for us; the name Immanuel imports, God with us. And every one that takes a God in Christ for their God, may say, upon warrantable grounds, with the church, Psalm 46:7: “The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge.”  And they may say it upon a covenant ground, for God in Christ has said, Isaiah 43:2: “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee. I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.”

6. God in Christ is a pardoning God, and does not this declare him to be a God of love?  “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.  I will be merciful to their unrighteousness.”

7. God in Christ is a pitying God. He pities Christless and unbelieving sinners, and is loath at his very heart to give up with them: Hosea 11:8: “How shall I give thee up, Ephraim?  How shall I deliver thee, Israel?  How shall I make thee as Admah?  How shall I set thee as Zeboim?  Mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled together.”  And how great is his pity to the soul that believes in him!  His pity to them is like the pity of a father to his son: Psalm 103:13: “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him.”  It is like the pity of a fond mother to a sucking child: Isaiah 69:15: “Can a woman forget her sucking child, that he should not have compassion on the son of her womb?  Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.”

8. God in Christ is a God of infinite bounty and liberality, and a prayer-hearing God; (I cast things together, that I may not be tiresome.)  Oh, sirs! his heart is free, and his hand is full and open; open-hearted, open-handed: “If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not.”  Such is his bounty and liberality, that it is nothing but ask and have with him: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you,” Matthew 7:7.  When we have asked great things of him, he chides us, as if we had asked nothing: he does not deal with a miserly or a sparing hand: no, no: “Ask, and ye shall receive,” says he, “that your joy may be full.”  Yes, such is his bounty, that he is ready to do for us exceeding abundantly above what we can either ask or think; such is his bounty, that he presents us with the blessings of his goodness: his goodness and mercy are like the rain or dew, that does not wait for the sons of men: Isaiah 65:24: “And it shall come to pass, that, before they call, I will answer, and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.”

9. God in Christ is an urging God, an entreating God, to sinners: and does not this say, that he is a God of love?  He invites us to come to him for all needful grace: Isaiah 55:1: “Ho, every one that thirsteth come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money, and without price.”  He is an entreating God in Christ: 2 Corinthians 5:20: “We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.”  He complains of the backwardness of sinners to come to him: “Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.”  He complains to them on this account: “O my people, what have I done unto thee, and wherein have I wearied thee?  Testify against me.”  He waits for an answer; he will not take a repulse.  “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock.”  And he stands knocking till his locks are wet.  Oh! Does not all this say that God in Christ is love?

10. To crown all, God in Christ is our God. He makes a grant of himself in the covenant as such; “I will be their God:” and he allows us to claim him by faith as our God, upon this very grant he makes of himself to us in Christ, Zechariah 13:9:” I will say, It is my people; and they shall say, The Lord is my God.”  And, oh! happy that soul that is enabled to give faith’s echo to this covenant grant, and say, “This God is my God forever and ever; and he will be my Guide even unto death.”  In a word, God in Christ is our Father; for it is only a God in Christ that says, “I will be unto them a Father, and they shall be unto me sons and daughters.”  He has taught us to say, “Our Father which art in heaven.”  And he is displeased with us, when we are shy with unbelief to call him by this endearing title: Jeremiah 3:4: “Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, My Father, and not turn away from me?”  Oh! What but infinite feelings of sympathy and love could speak in such a style and dialect?  Now, from all this I think the truth of the doctrine is abundantly evident, that God in Christ is a God of love.

Posted in Ebenezer Erskine |

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