08-Chapter 1. The Appearing Of The World’s Redeemer

Chapter 1. The Appearing Of The World’s Redeemer

Amid the triumphant shouts of heavenly hosts the gospel entered the arena of the earthly world. “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” This rang out at that hour of night in the fields of Bethlehem-Ephrathah (Luke 2:14).

He, whose coming the fathers had so long awaited, entered into the midst of His people as the “hope” (Acts 26:6) and the “consolation” of Israel (Luke 2:25). “God manifest in the flesh.” What a mystery of godliness! (1 Timothy 3:16). It is true that He came in the form of a servant (Php 2:7) and in poverty-stricken lowliness (2 Corinthians 8:9, Gk. ptochos); but this exterior was only the “tabernacle” of His inherent divinity (John 1:14, Gk. eskenosen = tabernacled). Even in the realm of death He remained the Prince of Life (Acts 3:15); for “in him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4).

[1] The Divine Messages of the Change of Epoch

1. Christ—the Son of God. The first announcement occurred in the temple to Zacharias the priest (Luke 1:8-13). It was linked directly with the last and greatest of the Old Testament prophecies (Malachi 4:5). It spoke first of the birth of the one who would prepare the way, the second “Elijah,” and said that He, whose forerunner this “Elijah” was to be, would be no less a person than the Lord, the God of Israel Himself. “Many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. And he it is who shall go before his face in the spirit of and power of Elijah” (Luke 1:16-17). It was this coming Lord and God that Malachi had viewed in spirit and had named “the Lord of hosts (Jehovah Zebaoth), who shall come unawares to his temple” (Malachi 3:1). How appropriate it was, therefore, that the imminent fulfilment of this prophetic message was announced in a temple and to a priest.

2. Christ—the Son of David. The second proclamation was made to Mary, the pious virgin of David’s house (Luke 1:26—38). Beginning with the Davidic promises and indeed with the earliest and first promise, which had been given to David himself by Nathan the prophet and had described the Messiah as the Son of God and the Son of David (1 Chronicles 17:11-14), the angel added these words: “He shall be great, and shall be called Son of the Highest; and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David” (Luke 1:32). Thus here again the angel’s message is most significantly suited to the person who receives it.

3. Christ—the Saviour. Finally, the third announcement was made to Joseph. Despite his Davidic descent he came into the story not as father, but only as foster-father, and thus merely as a believing, penitent Israelite appointed only to receive the Redeemer into his house. To him was therefore stated what the Messiah would be to believing Israel in need of redemption. He is the “Immanuel, God with us,” predicted by Isaiah (Isaiah 7:14). Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for it is he that shall save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21-23). Here the office and the work of the Redeemer are spoken of as such. And this is the most important point; for Christ did not become Redeemer in order to be the Son of God and Son of David, but He appeared as the Son of God and the Son of David in order to be the Redeemer. Jesus—the Lord is salvation—is therefore His particular name, and the Redeemership is so entirely His very own and innermost being that He bears the name “Saviour” as a direct human and personal name.

All three angelic proclamations were, however, comprised in the message of the heavenly host that night above the shepherds’ field of Bethlehem:

“Unto you is born this day a Saviour”—this is the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophecy and of the name “Jesus” committed to Joseph;

“Who is Christ the Lord”—this is the fulfilment of Malachi’s message of the coming Lord and God as repeated to Zacharias;

“in the city of David”—this is the fulfilment of Nathan’s message concerning the Son of David as given to Mary. With this fourfold testimony of direct heavenly messages through mouths of angels there also sounded in harmony a sevenfold indirect witness of the Spirit through the mouths of believing men. Zacharias, the shepherds, Simeon, the wise men from the east, with Elisabeth, Mary, and Anna stand forth like flaming torches lighting the portal at the turning point of the ages, directing to Him, the Coming One, the Dayspring from on high (Luke 1:78), the great Deliverer out of David.

Zacharias praised God that He had visited men (Luke 1:68; Luke 1:76-79); the shepherds praised the Saviour (Luke 2:20, comp. 2);

Simeon praised the Light of the world (Luke 2:31-32); and of the three women Elisabeth celebrated the happiness (Luke 1:41-45);

Mary celebrated the mercy (Luke 1:14; Luke 1:50, comp. 48); and Anna celebrated the redemption (Luke 2:38).

[2] The Incarnation as Historical Fact

Mighty movements in the world above must have preceded the appearing of the Son of God on earth. Scripture lifts the veil but slightly. But it informs us, as if out of a conversation within the Godhead, of one word which the Son, at His entrance into the world, spake to the Father: “Sacrifice and food-offering hast thou not willed; but thou hast indeed prepared a body for me: in burnt offering and sin offering thou hast found no pleasure. Then said I, Behold, I come (in the roll of the book it is written of me), that I may do, O God, thy will (Hebrews 10:5-7). And then the incomprehensible came to pass. The Son forsook the splendour of heaven and became as really a man as ourselves. Surrendering the eternal form of God above all worlds He voluntarily entered into human relationships within the world. 1 Leaving the free, unconditioned, world-ruling absoluteness of the Divine form the Son entered the limits of time and space of the creature. The eternal Word became a human soul and emptied Himself of His world-embracing power as Ruler. The self-seeking mind may hold with tenacity even strange and unjustly acquired possessions, as being welcome “prey” (Php 2:6); but He, the primary fount of love, did not regard even His own original and legitimate possession, the Divine form and Divine position, as something to be maintained at all costs, but surrendered it in order to save us. He descended “into the lower regions of the earth” (Ephesians 4:9) so as to take us, the redeemed, with and in Himself up to the heights of heaven. God became man that man might become godly. He became poor for our sakes that we through His poverty might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9).

Footnote 1: The fact of the personal, conscious, real pre-existence of Christ is taught plainly in John 8:58; John 17:5; Php 2:6-8, where voluntary action is ascribed to the Son of God as before the world was. This excludes a merely “ideal” pre-existence. Compare further the passages which deal with the “sending” of the Son and His “going out from” the Father. Further wee Micah 5:2; John 1:14, esp. 1-5; Hebrews 10:5-7. The history of human salvation concentrates on the appearing of Christ as its central point. What took place before Him came to pass wholly in anticipation of Him; what took place after Him was accomplished in His name. As the variegated colours of a prism, in spite of all differences, are rays of one and the same light, so is the history of revelation, with all its dispensations, the product of one uniform life principle. Christ the Mediator is the corner stone of the whole. His work on earth is the turning point of all development. and the history of His person is the essential content of all history. Therefore the incarnation of Christ is the coming out into view of the Divine basis of all that exists, the entrance of the Lord of history into the history itself; and the manger of Bethlehem, in conjunction with Golgotha, will for ever be “of all times—the turning point, of all love—the highest point, of all salvation—the starting point, of all worship—the central point.” But how in Christ these two, His deity and His humanity, unite in one, no one is able to explain. The secret of His self-humbling is for ever unfathomable. Christ not only did wonders but was Himself a wonder, indeed, the wonder of all wonders the original Wonder in person. We still do not comprehend time; to us it is a riddle. Still less do we comprehend eternity; truly much more is it to us a riddle. How then could we comprehend the riddle of riddles, the union of these opposed mysteries, the intersection in time of two parallels, the organic harmonious union of the infinite and the finite. 2 No, there remains for us here only the one confession: When I this wonder contemplate My spirit doth in reverence wait:

It worships, as it views this height— The love of God is infinite (Gellert).

Footnote 2: How insufficient here are all speculations, even the best intentioned, the Christological controversies of centuries four o seven have sufficiently proved, as have both the discussions of the “inter-trinitarian” relation of the eternal “Word” (Logos) to God (Arius), and the monophysite and monothelite contentions over the inner human relation of the divine and human “nature” of God’s Son incarnate (Apollinaris, Nestorius, Eutychus).

[3] Incarnation and Resurrection But to see and feel the saving significance of the Incarnation still more distinctly we must consider it in connexion with the resurrection of the Lord, and this under a threefold contrast:

1. Humiliation and Exaltation;

2. Obtaining salvation and Perfecting salvation;

3. Historical Form and Eternal Idea.

1. Yet in fact, in spite of all the descent from the height of heaven, it was not properly the incarnation in itself which meant for the Son of the Highest that infinite humiliation, but rather the taking the form of man standing dishonoured under the consequences of sin. Not indeed that He came in sinful flesh, yet truly “in the likeness of flesh of sin” (Romans 8:3). For if the becoming man as such had been a humiliating of the Son of God, then His exaltation could not have consisted at all in a glorifying of His entire human nature, but rather in a complete renunciation of it. Yet it is the clear teaching of Holy Scripture that Jesus in His exaltation has retained the form of Man 1:3 and that thus His resurrection and ascension to heaven involved nothing less than the making of His humanity eternal in transfigured glorified form, even if in a manner wholly incomprehensible to us. He took indeed the “form of a “slave” (in the K.J.V. “servant”) Php 2:7, which belongs to man in his present lowliness; yet through His redeeming work He so exalted and transfigured it that it can no longer even form a contradiction or antithesis to His own proper glory as the One sitting at the right hand of the Father. For the glory of the transfigured Man, Christ Jesus, in heaven is certainly no less than that which the eternal Word had before His incarnation. He said Himself: “Glorify me, Father, by thyself with the glory which I already possessed by thee before the world was” (John 17:5).

Footnote 3: John 20:15; John 20:25; Luke 24:13; Luke 24:36-43; Acts 1:11; Revelation 1:13; Php 3:21.

2. But yet more. This eternal continuance of the manhood of the Son of God is an indispensable condition for the completion and preservation of His work. For only as glorified Man could He be the “last Adam” (Romans 5:12-21; 1 Corinthians 15:21-22; 1 Corinthians 15:45), and the exalted Head of the “new man” Ephesians 4:15; Colossians 2:19; Ephesians 2:15) and the redeemed human organism, His church. Only so could it become possible that the saved should be “in Christ,” with organic life-fellowship as the “members” of His “body” with Himself, the “Head” (1 Corinthians 12:12; 1 Corinthians 12:27; Ephesians 1:23). Therefore that Christ remains man is a necessary, an essential part of His exaltation, and only through the resurrection and ascension is the wonder of Bethlehem set in its proper Biblical light.

3. Christ became man that He might be the “last Adam.” This is the eternal basic idea of His appearing in created form, and so for this is a glorifying of His person as the Redeemer. Yet He was a humbled man so that, by the way of substitution for the sinner, he should reach through suffering the glories of this last Adam. That was the historical form of His coming into the world; and in this respect it was self-deprivation and self-emptying of His glory. But the historical form was only the means to the realization of the eternal idea. He came to serve and to give His life a ransom for many (Matthew 20:28), in order, through His “hour” on Golgotha, to save for eternity those who, called by Him to repentance, permit themselves to be sought and found (:Luke 19:10). And through our being incorporated into Him who is our life, the heavenly Christ gains in us an ever more victorious stature; and thus the process advances to a continuous incarnating of His holy nature in us, His redeemed (2 Peter 1:4), and “the incarnation of the Son as the central point of universal history becomes at the same time the central point of our personal life history and the goal of our future.”