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Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh. 1 Timothy 3:16
This birth was unique, for it was the birth of the Man who is God. The apostle spoke of the Incarnation as a mystery. In the original manuscript, the word is musterioin, and it translates so easily into our word mystery; but this is unfortunate. A mystery is something which cannot be known. But that was not the apostles thought.
The apostle was not stating that the Incarnation is inscrutable. He was saying it is a secret known to the initiated but incomprehensible to outsiders. Musterion has the thought of silence imposed by initiation into a secret society. The Incarnation is a kind of family secret unknown to others but understood , in part at least, by the children of God. It is a mystery, but it is a mystery whose meaning is made plain to those who love the Lord. It is an enigma, but it is an enigma to which, for believers a clue is provided.
In other words it contains an element of paradox; The babe produced by that ineffable union between the Most High and Mary of Nazareth is One who is (1) so young and yet so old, (2) so poor and yet so rich, (3) So small and yet so great; (4) so mute and yet so vocal: and (5) so earthly and yet so heavenly.
So Young and yet so Old.
Our Lord did not begin His existence in the stable of Bethlehem. In fact He never had an origin! To this the whole bible bears witness.
The Old Testament declares “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel” Isaiah 7:14. And again “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder; and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the might God, The everlasting Father, The prince of Peace” Isaiah 9:6. And yet again “But thou Bethlehem Ephratah , though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from the days of eternity” Micah 5:2.
Nor does the New Testament differ. In face it is even more specific “The same was in the beginning with God” John 1:2. “Before Abraham was, I am” John 8:58. “O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory I had with thee before the world was” John 17:5. “He is before all things” Colossians 1:17. “God hath…..spoken unto us in His Son….by whom also he made the worlds…The angels of God worship him” Hebrews 1:1, 2, 6
G.H.Morrison wins complete concurrence when he confesses: “To me the bible is an unmeaning riddle if Christ began to be when he was born.” Our Lord was in fact the only one who ever lived before a mother conceived him.
A stately passage among the published works of Teilhard de Chardin declares “The prodigious expanse of time which preceded the first Christmas were not empty of Christ. They were imbued with the influx of His power. When Christ first appeared in the arms of Mary, He had already stirred up the world”
It is true, of course that the human Jesus began at a point in time. Five minutes before His virgin mother gave birth to Him, there was no such person on the earth as the Jesus we know we love. But there was never a time when the Christ who became incarnate in Jesus was not.
As Charles Wesley exclaimed “O wonder of wonders, which none can unfold, The Ancient of Days is an hour or two old”. He was not the produce of the uterus He was a Producer of the universe. His existence was eternal, yet He became a new-born infant.
So Poor and yet So Rich.
The New Testament makes no effort to disguise the fact that Christ was poor. He deliberately chose to belong to a peasant family. He elected to associate himself not with the ‘haves’ but with the ‘have not’s.’ When He came to earth, He did not sign in at the Jerusalem Hilton. He took the poorest of accommodation, what someone called “a one star hotel in Bethlehem.”
Graphically it is stated in 2 Corinthians 8:9 “Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might be rich” Notice that “through His poverty we might be rich” Not by His riches that we become rich, but by His poverty. Some millionaires becoming rich have made many poor. Jesus becoming poor made many rich.
So Small and yet So Great.
No baby is very big. Think of the great Creator becoming such a tiny helpless creature! It takes your breath away. The fact is that the God of 30 trillion galaxies became the size of a pinhead that he might enter the human race. At his conception He was smaller than the full stop at the end of a sentence, yet “In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” Colossians 2:9.
One day in 1809 at Hodgenville Kentucky, two men met. They hailed from the same rural area, but one of them had been away for a while “Any news from down home Ezra?” one asked. “Nothing at all, except that a baby was born at Tom Lincoln’s house. Nothing ever happens around here. That baby was Abraham Lincoln! A greater that Lincoln was born in Bethlehem. For this tiny Jew is the great Jehovah.
So Mute and yet So Vocal.
How fantastically incredible is the scene confronting us in that stuffy stable – the Word unable to say a word! The One who named each of the myriads of stars was incapable of saying even “Mama” It was written of Him, “Never man spake like this man” John 7:46 yet at His birth He was dumb as a rag doll. The Almighty who spoke the worlds into existence was a mute mite.
One of the finest poems in English literature is In Memoriam by Alfred Lord Tennyson. It contains a verse that is pertinent to the baby Jesus. So runs my dreams: but what am I? An infant crying in the night, An infant crying for the light, And with no language but a cry.
Can we conceive the One who devised the mental process and muscular mechanisms of speech lying mute in Mary’s arms?
Yet how vocal He became! His words have been translated into almost every tongue. They have been studied in every generation since they were uttered. They have been incomparably more influential for good than the sayings of all the rest of men put together.
So Earthly and yet so Heavenly
Every babe is a blend of earthliness and heavenliness. Nothing could be close to the soil than a little child. It is intensely and immensely physical. A bundle of biological needs. It is of the earth, earthly.
Yet nothing is more heavenly than a baby. Its little face is cherubic, its touch as gentle as an angel’s. Its smile is like a flash of glory. It is the most heavenly thing on earth. He was earthy, a normal human infant.
Luther brought this aspect of the incarnation into sharp focus when he wrote "There in a stable lay the Creator of all the world. And there was the maid of 15 years bringing forth her Firstborn without water, fire, light. or pan, a sight for tears. He was areal baby with flesh, blood, hands, and legs. He slept, cried and did everything else that a baby does, yet without sin."
And yet this earthly child was "the Lord from heaven" 1 Corinthians 15:47, the One who even then was in heaven" John 3:13., and Who is now in heaven interceding for us. He was the One for whom we "wait from heaven"
1 Thessalonians 1:10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZcVA9klMjY&index=4&list=PL805D20C106B53D80
This birth was unique, for it was the birth of the Man who is God. The apostle spoke of the Incarnation as a mystery. In the original manuscript, the word is musterioin, and it translates so easily into our word mystery; but this is unfortunate. A mystery is something which cannot be known. But that was not the apostles thought.
The apostle was not stating that the Incarnation is inscrutable. He was saying it is a secret known to the initiated but incomprehensible to outsiders. Musterion has the thought of silence imposed by initiation into a secret society. The Incarnation is a kind of family secret unknown to others but understood , in part at least, by the children of God. It is a mystery, but it is a mystery whose meaning is made plain to those who love the Lord. It is an enigma, but it is an enigma to which, for believers a clue is provided.
In other words it contains an element of paradox; The babe produced by that ineffable union between the Most High and Mary of Nazareth is One who is (1) so young and yet so old, (2) so poor and yet so rich, (3) So small and yet so great; (4) so mute and yet so vocal: and (5) so earthly and yet so heavenly.
So Young and yet so Old.
Our Lord did not begin His existence in the stable of Bethlehem. In fact He never had an origin! To this the whole bible bears witness.
The Old Testament declares “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel” Isaiah 7:14. And again “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder; and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the might God, The everlasting Father, The prince of Peace” Isaiah 9:6. And yet again “But thou Bethlehem Ephratah , though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from the days of eternity” Micah 5:2.
Nor does the New Testament differ. In face it is even more specific “The same was in the beginning with God” John 1:2. “Before Abraham was, I am” John 8:58. “O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory I had with thee before the world was” John 17:5. “He is before all things” Colossians 1:17. “God hath…..spoken unto us in His Son….by whom also he made the worlds…The angels of God worship him” Hebrews 1:1, 2, 6
G.H.Morrison wins complete concurrence when he confesses: “To me the bible is an unmeaning riddle if Christ began to be when he was born.” Our Lord was in fact the only one who ever lived before a mother conceived him.
A stately passage among the published works of Teilhard de Chardin declares “The prodigious expanse of time which preceded the first Christmas were not empty of Christ. They were imbued with the influx of His power. When Christ first appeared in the arms of Mary, He had already stirred up the world”
It is true, of course that the human Jesus began at a point in time. Five minutes before His virgin mother gave birth to Him, there was no such person on the earth as the Jesus we know we love. But there was never a time when the Christ who became incarnate in Jesus was not.
As Charles Wesley exclaimed “O wonder of wonders, which none can unfold, The Ancient of Days is an hour or two old”. He was not the produce of the uterus He was a Producer of the universe. His existence was eternal, yet He became a new-born infant.
So Poor and yet So Rich.
The New Testament makes no effort to disguise the fact that Christ was poor. He deliberately chose to belong to a peasant family. He elected to associate himself not with the ‘haves’ but with the ‘have not’s.’ When He came to earth, He did not sign in at the Jerusalem Hilton. He took the poorest of accommodation, what someone called “a one star hotel in Bethlehem.”
Graphically it is stated in 2 Corinthians 8:9 “Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, that you through His poverty might be rich” Notice that “through His poverty we might be rich” Not by His riches that we become rich, but by His poverty. Some millionaires becoming rich have made many poor. Jesus becoming poor made many rich.
So Small and yet So Great.
No baby is very big. Think of the great Creator becoming such a tiny helpless creature! It takes your breath away. The fact is that the God of 30 trillion galaxies became the size of a pinhead that he might enter the human race. At his conception He was smaller than the full stop at the end of a sentence, yet “In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” Colossians 2:9.
One day in 1809 at Hodgenville Kentucky, two men met. They hailed from the same rural area, but one of them had been away for a while “Any news from down home Ezra?” one asked. “Nothing at all, except that a baby was born at Tom Lincoln’s house. Nothing ever happens around here. That baby was Abraham Lincoln! A greater that Lincoln was born in Bethlehem. For this tiny Jew is the great Jehovah.
So Mute and yet So Vocal.
How fantastically incredible is the scene confronting us in that stuffy stable – the Word unable to say a word! The One who named each of the myriads of stars was incapable of saying even “Mama” It was written of Him, “Never man spake like this man” John 7:46 yet at His birth He was dumb as a rag doll. The Almighty who spoke the worlds into existence was a mute mite.
One of the finest poems in English literature is In Memoriam by Alfred Lord Tennyson. It contains a verse that is pertinent to the baby Jesus. So runs my dreams: but what am I? An infant crying in the night, An infant crying for the light, And with no language but a cry.
Can we conceive the One who devised the mental process and muscular mechanisms of speech lying mute in Mary’s arms?
Yet how vocal He became! His words have been translated into almost every tongue. They have been studied in every generation since they were uttered. They have been incomparably more influential for good than the sayings of all the rest of men put together.
So Earthly and yet so Heavenly
Every babe is a blend of earthliness and heavenliness. Nothing could be close to the soil than a little child. It is intensely and immensely physical. A bundle of biological needs. It is of the earth, earthly.
Yet nothing is more heavenly than a baby. Its little face is cherubic, its touch as gentle as an angel’s. Its smile is like a flash of glory. It is the most heavenly thing on earth. He was earthy, a normal human infant.
Luther brought this aspect of the incarnation into sharp focus when he wrote "There in a stable lay the Creator of all the world. And there was the maid of 15 years bringing forth her Firstborn without water, fire, light. or pan, a sight for tears. He was areal baby with flesh, blood, hands, and legs. He slept, cried and did everything else that a baby does, yet without sin."
And yet this earthly child was "the Lord from heaven" 1 Corinthians 15:47, the One who even then was in heaven" John 3:13., and Who is now in heaven interceding for us. He was the One for whom we "wait from heaven"
1 Thessalonians 1:10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZcVA9klMjY&index=4&list=PL805D20C106B53D80
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