Iniquity and idolatry are still widely prevalent, but one nation has been cured of its pagan tendencies, and been brought formally to worship the one true Jehovah. They have, moreover, thrown so much light over the polytheistic world, that the idolatrous nations have been obliged to recognize in the Jehovah of Israel a Deity more powerful and pure than any of their patron gods. They have also been made to expect, through Hebrew ritual and prophecy, the speedy coming of a heavenly Messenger, who shall bring with him divine deliverance for sorrowing humanity. Most of his own covenant people will be found still too sensuous to receive him, and faith in his salvation will make but slow progress among the Gentiles; but so many hearts have been made open for him, that the great Redeemer may now come and live among men, and preach his new Gospel of Salva tion to them, and the spiritual truths he shall reveal shall not fall on a soil wholly barren. The world's salvation will now be more rapidly hastened by his coming personally in it, than by any longer delay in preparation for him; "the fulness of time" has thus come, and the incarnation of Jehovah is at hand. He who made all things, and crowned his work on earth with man, is now to be made flesh and dwell with men. SECTION I. THE INCARNATION OF THE LOGOS. SPECULATIVE Reason can walk alone here just as little as in determining the work of creating the heavens and the earth. Phenomenal facts must first be apprehended, and in them the insight of reason must read the traces of God's handiwork; and equally so in redemption; revealed facts must be the symbols in which reason shall read God's spiritual meaning. The facts are indeed a dead letter to sense, and all logical deductions from sense; but they have in them a living meaning to reason's insight, and which can by no possibility be brought into contemplation, except by reason alone. They contain spiritual truth, and this must be spiritually discerned, not sensibly perceived, nor logically deduced from any sense-perceptions. Yet while the spiritual eye may read, the insight can get no more truth than God has put within the record; all this contemplative reason may see, and boldly should strive to read all that the record contains. 1. THE REDEEMER IS BORN OF A VIRGIN. Two evangelists only give the specific record of the facts in the Redeemer's incarnation, viz., Matthew1 and Luke.2 John states pre-existing truths, and teaches fundamental doctrine, beyond any other evangelist, about "the word made flesh;" but John records nothing concerning the birth from a human mother. The evangelical Epistles, also, communicate much valuable and valid doctrine of the coming of our Lord from heaven to earth, but do not say anything descriptive of the manner by which the Logos entered into hu manity. We may take these teachings afterwards and interpret the historic narrative by them, but the first lesson to learn is in these distinct and particular records of the above two evangelists: There is doubtless more meaning here than the human mind has yet recognized; and all that is here God would have men carefully contemplate, and comprehensively appropriate. He designed here to communicate supernatural truths; and as he has given to man reason competent to discern supernatural truth, it cannot be to God's honor that any man should deem the sanctity of the mysteries forbids an honest and hopeful attempt to attain the supernatural communication. The danger is twofold; that some shall sink the whole in bald naturalism, or that others shall take the supernaturalism to be too profound for human comprehension. The account in Luke has all that Matthew gives, and is the more explicit and particular. There is here, moreover, the advantage of having the account of John the Baptist's foretold birth and mission, paral 1 Matt. i. 18-25. 2 Luke i. 26-80. 3 John i. lel with the account of the birth and mission of the Messiah; and the comparisons and contrasts in the two will greatly help in comprehending the truths belonging to the Redeemer's personality. We thus carefully note the record in the Gospel of Luke. We have the account concerning John of the angel Gabriel appearing to the priest Zacharias in the temple, and foretelling, antecedently to his conception, the birth of his son, and that he should call his name John; that this son should be the Lord's forerunner, and should turn the faith of many in Israel to the Redeemer's advent. Beyond the angel's foresight, what was here supernatural was the quickening of Elisabeth from barreness; the making of the father dumb till the birth occurred, and then healing him, and the endowing of the child with unwonted spiritual power by the Holy Ghost. But this child, given under such supernatural conditions, was a human being only. Zacharias was his father, as Elisabeth was his mother; and John was a descendant of his parents by ordinary generation, just as they and he were natural descendants from the first man and woman. Six months after, the same angel Gabriel appeared to the virgin Mary, and foretold the birth of a son from her, and that she should call his name Jesus; that he should have an endless kingdom, and be known as the Son of the Highest. Mary's conscious virginity induced the scrupulous inquiry how such an event could be. The answer was direct, and intentionally unequivocal and emphatic, that the conception should be miraculous. The living seed should be God's creation in a virgin ovarium, and the originated embryo should there grow to the birth; and that "the holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God." In this is the parallelism between John's and Jesus' birth, that they are both human and born of woman; and so Jesus is man as truly as John. But beyond the parallel, there springs a contrast, for while John is son of Zacharias, Jesus is Son of God. And here, taking solely the evangelical narrative, perhaps it might be said, Adam was created man directly by God with no previous parentage, and tracing up the genealogy of Jesus to Adam, Luke says of Adam, "who was the son of God."1 And now Adam, though truly human, was yet no more than human: may it not then be accepted that this is the whole meaning of the appellation "Son of God," and that of Jesus, this alone is true, he is a mere man immediately originated from God? Leaving here the narrative to be in other things interpreted as it may, in this there is no dispute - that it teaches Jesus was man, and originally, as was Adam, immediately from God. But from other authentic and inspired sources, we have the clear revelation — Admit 2. JESUS WAS BORN MORE THAN HUMAN. that Adam and Jesus have their parallel in their direct divine origination; they find also their con Luke iii. 38. |