“He came….” (John 1:11).
This is the great superlative truth of the ages; greater than all philosophy and the wisdom of men. He came! And why not? Isn’t that what God had promised through the prophets of old? A light unto the gentiles, a shepherd for His people, a man as man was meant to be?
As Milton put it;
This is the month, and this the happy morn,
Wherein the Son of Heaven, Eternal King,
Of wedded maid and virgin mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring.
For so the holy sages once did sing
That He our deadly forfeit should release
And with His Father work us perpetual peace.
That glorious form, that light insufferable
And that far beaming blaze of majesty,
Wherewith He wont at Heav’ns high Council Table
To sit the midst of Trinal Unity;
He laid aside, and here with us to be,
Forsook the courts of everlasting day
And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.
See how from far upon the Eastern road
The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet;
Oh run! present them with thy humble ode
And lay it at His blessed feet;
Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet
And join thy voice unto the angel choir,
From out His secret altar touched with hallowed fire!
How tragic that men and women everywhere have lost the sense of wonder at the Divine and reduced the glorious gospel of the revelation of God in Christ to a matter of utility. “How can I use it?”
The truth is that the birth of Christ was a declaration of God to fallen man, an exclamation mark to the words of the prophets, saying amongst much else;
- God is real; with the birth of the Son of man, heaven came to earth and dwelt amongst men.
- Life is meant to be spiritual, not material; where the first Adam failed, the Second Adam testified to man’s divine origin.
- God had indeed spoken to man through the prophets of old; now He has spoken in His Son.
- While man is lost, he is not abandoned; had men not been lost, they would have no need of a Saviour; had they been abandoned, no Saviour would have been provided.
- Man is made for two worlds; his habitation here in this world foreshadows his habitation in the next.
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