Note from Randy: No preacher of God‘s Word speaks to me more powerfully than Charles Spurgeon. His are the words of an old friend, though sadly many of my other friends don’t yet know him. Many thanks to Geoffrey Chang for giving us Spurgeon's rich insights into Christ’s incarnation. May this excerpt from A Wondrous Mystery help you contemplate Immanuel, God with us!
…“God with us” is exquisite delight. “GOD with us”: all that “God” means, the Deity, the infinite Jehovah with us; this, this is worthy of the burst of mid-night song, when angels startled the shepherds with their carols, singing “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased” (Luke 2:14). This was worthy of the foresight of seers and prophets, worthy of a new star in the heavens, worthy of the care which inspiration has manifested to pre-serve the record. This, too, was worthy of the martyr deaths of apostles and confessors who counted not their lives dear unto them for the sake of the incarnate God; and this, my brothers and sisters, is worthy at this day of your most earnest endeavors to spread the glad tidings, worthy of a holy life to illustrate its blessed influences, and worthy of a joyful death to prove its consoling power. Here is the first truth of our holy faith—“Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh” (1 Timothy 3:16).
He who was born at Bethlehem is God, and “God with us.” God—there lies the majesty; “God with us,” there lies the mercy. God—therein is glory; “God with us,” therein is grace. God alone might well strike us with terror; but “God with us” inspires us with hope and confidence.
Let us admire this truth: “God with us.” Let us stand at a reverent distance from it as Moses when he saw God in the bush stood a little back, and put his shoes from off his feet, feeling that the place on which he stood was holy ground. This is a wonderful fact, God the Infinite once dwelt in the frail body of a child, and tabernacled in the suffering form of a lowly man. “God was in Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:19 KJV). “He made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:7 KJV).
Observe the wonder of condescension contained in this fact, that God who made all things should assume the nature of one of his own creatures, that the self-existent should be united with the dependent and derived, and the Almighty linked with the feeble and mortal. In the case before us, the Lord descended to the very depth of humiliation, and entered into alliance with a nature which did not occupy the chief place in the scale of existence. It would have been great condescension for the infinite and incomprehensible Jehovah to have taken upon himself the nature of some noble spiritual being, such as a seraph or a cherub. The union of the divine with a created spirit would have been an unmeasurable stoop, but for God to be one with man is far more.
Excerpted from A Wondrous Mystery: Daily Advent Devotions by Charles H. Spurgeon © 2024 by editor Geoffrey Chang. Used with permission of New Growth Press. May not be reproduced without prior written permission. Available for purchase at newgrowthpress.com.
