Who is this Babe in a manger?

 

Can anyone adequately describe God? Or the Son of God who is the Word made flesh? Or the Holy Spirit who impresses truth in our hearts? Charnock tries, first by what the Bible says about their roles. All three had a role in creation. The Father is the lawgiver who presented His holiness to humanity and the way to our happiness. However, the fall into sin made us impotent to obey His law or experience the joy of union with Him. Redemption became necessary that humanity could be recovered. Jesus was given the task, but because humanity was blinded by sin and had turned to our own way, enlightenment was needed to change that condition. This work is assigned to the Holy Spirit.

In brief, the Father sends, and the Son is sent because God cannot properly send himself, so the Son acts, and the Holy Spirit applies it by purifying our souls to understand, believe, and love these mysteries. It is the wisdom of God to prepare and present these truths, then impress them on those He chooses.

As to the deity of Jesus Christ, God wisely “unites finite and infinite, almightiness and weakness, immortality and mortality, immutability, with a creature subject to change; to have a nature from eternity, and yet a nature subject to the revolutions of time; a nature to make a law, and a nature to be subjected to the law; to be God blessed forever, in the bosom of his Father, and an infant exposed to calamities from the womb of his mother — terms seeming most distant from union, most incapable of conjunction, to shake hands together, to be most intimately conjoined; glory and vileness, fulness and emptiness, heaven and earth; the creature with the Creator; he that made all things, in one person with a nature that is made; Immanuel, God, and man in one; that which is most spiritual to partake of that which is carnal flesh and blood; one with the Father in his Godhead, one with us in his manhood; the Godhead to be in him in the fullest perfection, and the manhood in the greatest purity; the creature one with the Creator, and the Creator one with the creature. Thus is the incomprehensible wisdom of God declared in the ‘Word being made flesh.’ ”

As Charnock says, this union of two natures in Christ is incomprehensible: and it is a mystery we cannot fully fathom. How can the Son who is the same nature as the Father and the Holy Spirit be united to human nature, without its being said that the Father and the Holy Ghost were made flesh? The Scripture speaks only of the Word being made flesh, and that He is “the only begotten of the Father.”

As the Bible affirms, deity is not changed into flesh, nor flesh transformed into God: they are distinct and yet united, conjoined and yet unmixed. It is impossible that the majesty of God can be altered or the “meanness of humanity” be changed into deity, yet the Incarnation of Jesus Christ unites the two so that the properties of both remain firm. Two become one person in two natures containing the perfections of the Divine, and the weaknesses of the human.

For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. (Colossians 2:9)
Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. (Hebrews 2:14–15)

This Christmas season puts my focus even more on who Jesus is, this babe born in a manger. Reading the above explanations fills my heart with joy. I know that Jesus delivers from the power of sin as well as from the guilt of sin. I’ve learned how trusting Him keeps me from evil and delivers me from temptation. I do not need to rely on my own ideas or efforts for salvation because Christ is able and willing to keep me from falling and will restore me even when I do fall.

PRAY: Jesus, You have cleansed my heart and by grace continue to work through the power of Your Spirit to transform me into the person You intend me to be. I give myself to You because only You can purge me, cleanse me, and sanctify me. Your plan shows both my need and Your incredible ability to  meet that need, to change my heart and delivery me from both the penalty and the power of sin. I look forward to being with You and being delivered from even the presence of sin. You are able and willing and I am joyful.