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| Not the Lowliness of the Material, But the Dignity and Skill of the Maker, Must Be Remembered, in Gauging the Excellence of the Flesh. Christ Partook of Our Flesh.
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Chapter VI.—Not
the Lowliness of the Material, But the Dignity and Skill of the Maker,
Must Be Remembered, in Gauging the Excellence of the Flesh. Christ
Partook of Our Flesh.
Let me therefore pursue the subject before
me—if I can but succeed in vindicating for the flesh as much as
was conferred on it by Him who made it, glorying as it even then was,
because that poor paltry material, clay, found its way into the hands
of God, whatever these were, happy enough at merely being touched by
them. But why this glorying? Was it that,7325
without any further labour, the clay had
instantly assumed its form at the touch of God? The truth is,7326
a great matter was in progress, out of which
the creature under consideration7327
was being
fashioned. So often then does it receive honour, as often as it
experiences the hands of God, when it is touched by them, and pulled,
and drawn out, and moulded into shape. Imagine God wholly employed and
absorbed in it—in His hand, His eye, His labour, His purpose, His
wisdom, His providence, and above all, in His love, which was dictating
the lineaments (of this creature). For, whatever was the form and
expression which was then given to the clay (by the Creator) Christ was
in His thoughts as one day to become man, because the Word, too, was to
be both clay and flesh, even as the earth was then. For so did
the Father previously say to the Son: “Let us make man in our own
image, after our likeness.”7328
And God made
man, that is to say, the creature which He moulded and fashioned; after
the image of God (in other words, of Christ) did He make him. And the
Word was God also, who being7329
in the image of
God, “thought it not robbery to be equal to God.”7330
Thus, that clay which was even then putting
on the image of Christ, who was to come in the flesh, was not only the
work, but also the pledge and surety, of God. To what purpose is
it to bandy about the name earth, as that of a sordid and
grovelling element, with the view of tarnishing the origin of the
flesh, when, even if any other material had been available for forming
man, it would be requisite that the dignity of the Maker should be
taken into consideration, who even by His selection of His material
deemed it, and by His management made it, worthy? The hand of Phidias
forms the Olympian Jupiter of ivory; worship is given to the
statue, and it is no longer regarded as a god formed out of
a most silly animal, but as the world’s supreme
Deity—not
because of the bulk of the elephant, but on account of the renown of
Phidias. Could not therefore the living God, the true God, purge away
by His own operation whatever vileness might have accrued to His
material, and heal it of all infirmity? Or must this remain to
show how much more nobly man could fabricate a god, than God could
form a man? Now, although the clay is offensive (for its poorness), it
is now something else. What I possess is flesh, not earth, even
although of the flesh it is said: “Dust thou art, and unto dust
shalt thou return.”7331
In these words
there is the mention of the origin, not a recalling of the
substance. The privilege has been granted to the flesh to
be nobler than its origin, and to have happiness aggrandized by the
change wrought in it. Now, even gold is earth, because of the earth;
but it remains earth no longer after it becomes gold, but is a far
different substance, more splendid and more noble, though coming from a
source which is comparatively faded and obscure. In like manner, it was
quite allowable for God that He should clear the gold of our flesh from
all the taints, as you deem them, of its native clay, by purging
the original substance of its dross.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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