GOD MANIFEST IN FLESH

How can we even begin to contemplate the mystery that we have before us today. The invisible God who is eternal, whom Heaven cannot contain, has become visible in human flesh as a Man amongst men, limited to a body and subject to the passage of time. Yet this is what He did. What did it involve for Him and what does it now mean for us?

For Him it meant letting go! Letting go of all the outward attachments of His glory and becoming physically indistinguishable from the creatures of His hand. Relinquishing the joy, purity and loveliness of His home, He came to the groaning agony of a world stricken on account of sin. He left the heavenly perfumes of myrrh and aloes and cassia, fragrances befitting perfection, for the pungent stench of our death and decay, Ps. 45. 8. From ivory palaces and the everlasting throne He came to the hay- strewn shelter of a manger for animals. He came from the place of eternal life to the dark regions of our place where life is short and the grave never full.

For Him it meant acquiring that which He had never had before; ‘a body hast thou prepared me.’ Heb. 10. 5. He now ‘learns obedience’ and walks the path of subjection to the Father’s will, Heb. 2. 9. Although His experience is unique, He also grew and developed as a child, youth and adult just as we do. He was misunderstood, despised, ridiculed and deserted. He became a participant of every human experience apart from sin and through it all brought the fragrance of His loveliness to bear upon it. Human life has never been the same since. These are just a few of the things that it meant for Him.

What then does it really mean for you and me dear believer? Christ is in Heaven again and He has taken His humanity with Him! There is a real visible Man in God’s dwelling place and He knows what it’s like to live in our world. All that experience is held in perfect sympathy for us, and as our Great High Priest He constantly intercedes on our account with total understanding, Heb. 4. 14-15. It means one day we are going to see His lovely face; we are the many sons He is bringing to His home, the Father’s house, our eternal resting place.