The Incarnation.
Editorial Note: This article was uncovered in the Adventual Collection curated at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in South Hamilton, MA. I have been unable to learn much about A.G. Lyon - it is reasonable to suppose he was pastor. This piece appears in the March 7, 1900 issue of World’s Crisis (pp.6-7). - Tom Loghry
“And the Word was made flesh.”
The doctrine of the incarnation is the foundation of the evangelical faith; the climax of wonderfulness, a subject of astonishment for angels and a theme of eternal interest to men – Christ, the Son of God, clothed in flesh. This is “the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.” Christ could say without presumption: “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” “For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” Be it far from our thoughts to attempt to penetrate the depths of the Divine Councils in this great matter of which one of the fathers of the church has said: “Of things in heaven and earth, nothing is so wonderful as that God has become incarnate.”
Divinity was tabernacled among us, and we beheld his glory, or the real shekinah, and it fills us with admiration and holy delight. Faith lifts the veil of Christ's humanity and worships his divine glory; while to unbelief, he is a mere man. Critics may sneer at the idea of Jesus Christ being divine, but the time is coming when, “At the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” Here he is worshipped by the adoring universe. The apostles and primitive martyrs worshiped Christ. He was parted from them and carried up into heaven, and they worshipped him. Worship him, all ye gods and again, when he bringeth in the first begotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him.
Dr. Waterland's conclusion on this subject is twofold: (1) “From divine worship, all beings are to be excluded except God: (2) Christ not being excluded, must be God.“ John heard every creature “ascribing blessing and honor and glory and power unto the Lamb for ever and ever.” And the prophecies we read, “Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for lo, I come and will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord.” Surely the “Word was God.” “And the word was made flesh and dwelt among us.”
I can say in the words of that old hymn:
“Welcome to our wonderful wondering sight,
Eternity shuts in a span:
Summer and winter, day and night:
Heaven and earth, and God in man.
Great Little One, whose glorious birth
Lifts earth to heaven, stoops heaven to earth. “
We may not be able to know all the reasons why the Word was made flesh, but we can know some of them and enough to engage all our power of thought and feeling. The object of the incarnation is thus summed up:
First: To give for our imitation the life of a perfect man. Second: To bring not only God's attributes, but God Himself near to us. Third: The entire union of the infinite and the finite, the divine an the human natures, in one person. Fourth: The result, to which all others converge is the making of propitiation for our sins, and furnishing the headship for that eternal kingdom, in which is our accomplished salvation.
In the question, “Has the Son of God become incarnate for the redemption of the world?” The whole of the Christian system centers. Upon the decision of this question, rests the fate of Christianity and the destiny of a lost world.
I.We notice the fact of the incarnation. It was not possible that the Jewish offerings and the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. “Wherefore, when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, but a body hast thou prepared me.” “In the beginning was the Word.” “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” “God was manifest in the flesh.” The incarnation, then, is to be viewed first as a revealed fact; it is a revelation of God in the form of fact and history. It is not a mere speculation, nor a mere doctrine, but it belongs to those sublime realities of Christianity. It is an historical manifestation of God in the midst of men. Christ, the God-man, appears in human history as part of it. He becomes a member of the race, lives, suffers, and dies for our redemption; and in all this, we have a series of sublime facts of which the Bible gives us the record. The Scriptures enter into no speculation about the two natures in their union nor into philosophical objections, but they announce the grand and simple fact that “the Word was made flesh.” “God was in Christ.”
The gospel of John brings out two great truths, creation and incarnation. The first is the manifestation of God in nature; the second, the manifestation of God in the flesh. Isaiah declares that “a virgin shall bring forth a Son, and his name shall be called Immanuel,” “God with us.” Paul writes, “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God,” or “a prize to be seized.” How could it be a sign of humility in our Lord not to assert his equality with God if, he were not divine. Though in and of himself having the divine form, he yet did not account equality with God as a prize to be seized, but humbled [emptied] himself, and took the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, becoming obedient unto death, yea, the death of the cross. John testifies, “Hereby know ye the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is coming of flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesses not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God.” Divinity has assumed the nature, form, and speech of men. He dresses him as a member of the same race, as becoming united to man by all the ties of brotherhood. “Forasmuch then as the children are partaker of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same. “The incarnation, then, is the soul of Christianity, as the North Pole is to all the magnetic needles; by this, and this alone, are we able to build the whole system of Christian faith upon its proper grounds, the union of the human and divine. This is the perfection of divine condescension, and appeals to man more forcibly than can anything else. The difference between Moses and Christ is this, one is an ambassador delivering a message, the other is the king himself conversing with the subject, pleading with the rebel, and the grace, the glory and dignity of the incarnate God arrests us and attracts us. As the earth with its gravitation draws everything to it that comes within its radius, so Christ draws men to Himself.
Christ is not only superhuman, he is also superangelic above all. The “firstborn of every creature,” and the “firstborn from the dead, that in all things he might have the pre-eminence,” “the prince of the kings of the earth,” and “the beginning of the creation of God.” By this teaching of the incarnation all is made clear; it rules out of court all impure thinking and coarse blasphemies concerning the Virgin Mary, and shows the purpose, counsel, and working of God in Christ. To speak of a divine being begotten by a sinful man is a contradiction of terms, an insult to spiritual perception and understanding. Unitarianism is weighed in the balances of divine revelation and is found wanting. Christ is incarnate divinity, shed his precious blood for our redemption, and by his glorious resurrection gave us the receipt in full.
II. The Necessity of the Incarnation. Especially is the need of an incarnation seen when we realize that it is indispensable to our redemption. It meets man's moral wants as a sinner as nothing else could; here then is a real moral necessity for it. No mere human being, however wise and good and loving, could ever redeem us. Man's spiritual perception is darkened, his heart is cold and indifferent to the call of God's love. What we need is Him who commands the light to shine out of darkness, to shine in our hearts, to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Divinity must be clothed in human form that we might behold his glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Christ, in the most persuasive manner, brings spiritual truth with authority, dispels the darkness, and the fullness of his divine and human love appeals to the human heart, overcoming its sin, redeeming us from the fall.
The purpose of mercy antedates the fact of sin, for Christ is a Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. He is the only medium of access for all creatures to their heavenly Father. Christ declared, “No man cometh unto the Father but by me. “ This made the incarnation a necessity. The eternal Son of God assumed our nature, lived in his sinless life, and in it died a sacrificial death. The cross of Christ is a link between earth and heaven, and the only shield between man and eternal ruin: Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross. “Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances, for to make in himself of twain, one new man, so making peace, and that he might reconcile both unto God [i.e. Jew and Gentile] in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby.”
There converge and commingle the rays of divine justice and of divine love. There we behold our Saviour appointed to suffer and conquer for those who are involved in the wreck and ruin of the Fall. We hear we hear his dying words of unutterable anguish, yet full of unspeakable blessings for our lost race. His dying cry is the watchword of our salvation. “It is finished.” Here we read the sum of human destiny - its beginning, its center, and its eternal issues. Here we behold the whole of law, the whole of the gospel, the whole of justice, the whole of mercy blended in one system.
The Bible explicitly represents sin as the final cause of the incarnation. “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and forced in, condemns sin in the flesh.” “For verily he took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore, in all things, it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.” This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. For this purpose, was the Son of God manifest or made his appearance that he might destroy the works of the devil. Jesus Himself said that he came “to give himself to give his life a ransom for many.” Christ took on him our flesh with all its weaknesses and with all its perfections, that he might touch it with his own divinity, and save us from eternal ruin, to make our vile bodies like his glorious body.
III. The result of the Incarnation. Over against the sin of the world, to redeem men from sin, the God-man appeared. This is his position. The fact of sin made it necessary, i.e., that he should appear for this object, “to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.” And so, “When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.”
In relation to the human race, he is the second Adam. He assumes the same position in respect to the race as to his redemption from sin to eternal life, that the first Adam did in respect to sin and death; this is clearly shown by Paul in 1 Cori. xv. 46, 49. Such is the headship of Adam in relation to the race, entailing sin and death as a sad consequence of the great original apostasy. But over against this headship of Adam the grace of God has established another economy, centering in another covenant. The headship of Christ is one of life and redemption. The divine plan of redemption from the evil and curse of sin centers in the incarnate Son of God - Immanuel - the “Word made flesh.” Christ willed to become what man is in order that man may have power to become what Christ is. He has bridged the awful chasm that sin made and restores the relations between man and God, so that in Christ we cry, “Abba, Father.” The black past is obliterated, the present life elevated and the future irradiated, for it is now bright with the coming glory of our King. Not as a sin-offering, but in immortal glory “unto salvation.” The incarnation is not confined to the mere birth of Christ, but extends through his whole divine life, death, resurrection, ascension, and his return. “This same Jesus.” Said Knox, “Has not our Lord carried up our flesh into heaven? And shall he not return? We know that he shall return. -To-day he is the one Mediator between God and man, because “he bare the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.”
“Awake, awake the sacred song,
To our incarnate Lord;
Let every heart and every tongue
Adore the eternal Word.
Adoring angels tune their songs
To hail the joyful day;
With rapture then let mortal tongues
Their grateful worship pay.”
Taunton, Mass.