John iii, 12.

The Word made Flesh

of God.

matter. Think for a moment how utterly different these two things are. The mind is spirit; the body is matter; between the two there is nothing in common; spirit and matter, so far as we know, are absolute antitheses. In fact, to talk of the union of spirit and body is, as the skeptic says of the Word made flesh, "a contradiction in terms." Nevertheless the skeptic believes it, absurd and à priori impossible though it is. He does not deny the union of soul and body on the ground that he can not understand it. If he can not understand earthly things and yet believes them, why then does he disbelieve heavenly things on the ground that he can not understand them?

Secondly, The Word made flesh is in the cmithe Prophet nent sense the Prophet of God, interpreting God to man. As we have seen, he had always been in the world. He had spoken in creation, in providence, in conscience. He had spoken especially to the Jew, uttering himself in law and prophet. But his utterances, compared with those which were to come, had been dim and vague. At length he made himself distinctly articulate in and by his own incarnation. God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son. The Word, by becoming flesh, became by that very act, and in the pre-eminent sense, The Word of God, God's very Prophet, speaking to us for God, interpreting God to us. Yes, the Divine Man is God in selfdisclosure.

Heb. i, 1.

have aroused

We need to

made Flesh the Prophet of Man.

Thirdly, The Word made flesh is also the The Word Prophet of man, interpreting man to himself. We know not what giant faculties of moral power lie within us, what capacities of seraphic aspiration, until Jesus Christ speaks to us. We need to be touched by a God-man in order to what in us is Godlike and Godward. have the Divine Word prophesy to us, to interpret God to us; and we need to have the Divine Word made flesh prophesy in us, to interpret us to ourselves. And so Jehovah our God, as he promised Moses, has raised up unto us from among his brethren a prophet like unto ourselves, born of God and born of man: unto him, then, let us all give heed in all things, lest our souls also be destroyed.

Dent. xviii, 15

19.

Acts iii, 22, 23.

made Flesh the Ideal Man.

Fourthly, The Word made flesh answers that The Word instinct of perfection of which all of us are more or less conscious, and which is an original, inalienable part of our nature. We instinctively conceive, and in our golden moments long to behold, a perfect Character, or ideal Man. Hence the tendency common to all nations to conceive either a Divine Man, or a human God; either, with the Greek, to believe in the deification of man, as, for example, Hercules; or, with the Hindu, in the incarnation of God, as, for example, Vishnu. These and such as these are but attempts to realize the vague and mighty yearnings of humanity's heart for a Perfect Man. And the Word made flesh fulfills that sublime yearning. Jesus Christ, the God-man, is the perfected Character, L'homme à venir, the ideal Man, the embodiment and sum

Col. ii, 9, 10.

Col. i, 28.

The Word

the Pivot of

total of perfected humanity, the symbol and representative of fulfilled human nature, The Son of Man. As in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, so in him dwelleth all the fullness of an unfolded, perfected, fulfilled humanity. Perfect in Jesus Christ.

Fifthly, The Word made flesh is the pivotal made Flesh truth of Christianity. truth of Christianity. Everything of the ChrisChristianity. tian religion depends on the truth of the story of Bethlehem. If he who was born there was not really God, then the religion he set up is but a human religion, and our hopes of a manhood perfected in a Divine Man are quenched. If he who was born there was not really man, but only phantom flesh, then the religion he set up is a deceitful religion, leaving to us-it may be-nothing but a phantom God. Therefore, I say that Christianity from center to circumference is balanced on the pivot of the Divine Nativity. Revelation, mediation, passion, death, resurrection, ascension, return -all revolve around Bethlehem's manger. What is the resurrection of Jesus Christ himself but the resurrection of an embodied God, the Word made flesh?

The Word Lastly, Belief in the incarnation or enfleshment made Flesh of the eternal Word is the appointed test of ChrisChristianity. tianity: "Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus

the Test of

1 John iv, 2.

Christ is come in the flesh is of God." That is to say: Every one who believes that the Babe of Bethlehem was really God and really man-that the Word, who in the beginning was and was with God and was God, really became flesh-every one who really believes and really acts out the belief

that Jesus Christ was really God-man, is born of God. Hold fast then, O friend, to the Godhood of Jesus Christ as the Word who in the beginning was: hold fast to the manhood of Jesus Christ as the Word made flesh. Adore the God in the man -the humanized God: cling to the Man in the God-the divinized Man.

Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away Collect. the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which Thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious Majesty to judge both the quick and dead, we may rise to the life immortal, through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.