HAVE you ever thought of the miracle of power displayed in the Lord’s fashioning a human body capable of union with Godhead? Our Lord Jesus Christ was incarnate in a body, which was truly a human body, but yet which was, in some wondrous way, specially prepared to sustain the indwelling of Deity.

Contact with God is terrible: “He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth: He toucheth the hills, and they smoke.” tie puts His feet on Paran, and it melts; and Sinai dissolves in flames of fire at His presence. So strongly was this truth inwrought into the minds of the early saints, that they said, “No man can see God’s face, and live;” and yet here was a manhood which did not merely’ see the,. face of God, but which was inhabited by Deity. What a wonderful human frame was this which could abide the presence of Jehovah!

Paul represents our Savior, when He cometh into the world, as :saying to His Father, “A body hast Thou prepared Me.” That was indeed a body which was miraculously wrought; “that holy thing” was the special product of the Holy Spirit’s supernatural power. It was a body like our own, with nerves as sensitive, and muscles as readily strained, with every organization as delicately fashioned as our own; yet God was in it. It was a frail barque to carry such a wondrous freight. 0 man Christ Jesus, how couldst Thou bear the Deity within Thee? We know not how it was, but God knoweth. Let us adore this hiding of the Almighty in human weakness, this comprehending of the Incomprehensible, this revealing of the Invisible, this localization of the Omnipresent. Human language cannot adequately set forth this unutterable truth. Suffice it to say, that the Divine power was ‘wonderfully seen in the continued existence of the materialism of Christ’s body, which else had been consumed by such a wondrous contact with Divinity as was manifested in Emmanuel, “God with us.”

Christ took upon Him our nature in the fullest sense possible. His body contained everything that makes up a human body, — -flesh, blood, bone, mind, heart, soul, memory, imagination, judgment, — everything that naturally belongs to a rational man. Jesus of Nazareth was the Man of men, the model representative Man. Think not of Him as a deified man any more than you would dare to regard Him as a humanized God, or demigod. Do not confound the natures that were united in Him, nor divide the Person in whom they were so marvelously blended. He is but one Person, yet as truly man as He is “very God of very God.” As you think of this truth, say, “He who sits on the throne is such as I am, sin alone excepted.” “Oh, joy I there sitteth in our flesh, Upon a throne of light, One of a human mother born, In perfect Godhead bright I ” Behold, what manner of love God hath bestowed upon us, that He should espouse our nature! For never had He so united Himself with any creature before. His tender mercy had ever been over all His works, but they were so distinct from Himself that an immeasurable distance separated the Creator from His creatures so far as existence and relationship are’ concerned. ‘[he Lord had made many noble intelligences, principalities and powers of whom we know but little; we do not even know what those four living creatures may be who are nearest the eternal presence; but He had never allied Himself with any of them by actual union with His person. But, lo, He has joined Himself to man, that creature who is made to suffer death by reason of his sin; God has; come into union with man, and therefore we may feet sure that He loves him with amazing love, and that He has great: thoughts of good towards him. If a king’s son doth marry a member of a rebel race, then we may be certain that there are prospects of reconciliation, pardon, and restoration for that race. There must be, in the great heart of the Divine One, wondrous thoughts of pity and condescending love for guilty sinners, or He would never have deigned to take human nature into union with Himself. Let us sound the loud cymbals of delight and thanksgiving, for the Incarnation bodes good to our race.