It must be a spiritual one,--for “He maketh His angels spirits.
” It must be very pure,--for they are “the holy ones.” Very lofty,--for they “stand before the throne, and always behold God’s face.” Very powerful, too, they must be,--for “they excel in strength.” And very busy they must be, and very humble,--for “each has six wings, and with twain he covers his face, with twain he covers his feet, and with twain he does fly.” And very accurate they must be,--for they bear their messages so faithfully. And very unselfish,--for they always give all the glory to God alone. They are not entirely spotless,--for “He chargeth His angels with folly”; and some did once fall. And they never seem to originate anything-they go where they are sent, they say what they are instructed, they do whatever they are told. Neither does their love appear to be so much their own love, as a love with which they are commissioned. And their office is not, for the most part, so much with the souls of men, to convert, or to influence, Or to comfort them, as with the outer circumstances of men--to minister to them in their dangers, in their wants, in their difficulties. And how does “the nature of angels” stand related to our own? Is it higher or lower? Originally, in Eden, I do not know; but I should say the angelic nature was then the lower, because that is said of man which is never said of angels, that he was “made in the likeness of God,” and because to man was given what was never given to angels--supremacy and sovereignty over all the works of God. The fallen nature of man is, on the whole, lower. But only a little--“a little lower than the angels.” But how is it with man’s redeemed and renewed nature? Beyond a doubt, it is above angels; for such as Christ’s present glorified nature is, such is that. The angels never sing our song’--theirs is jubilant, but ours is triumphant, their theme is creation, ours is grace; they praise God in His works, we adore and love Him in His Son. And do not you know that we shall “judge angels,” and that we shall reign with Christ for ever and ever. We bless God for His holy angels! We bless Him that there is anything so pure and beautiful in His creation for us to think of and to love. We bless Him that we have such presences, so stilling, so assuring, so restful. We bless Him for that incentive to all propriety in our solitary hours--an angel’s ear, and an angel’s eye. We bless Him for the debts we owe to those ethereal beings, of which we are yet but dimly conscious. We bless Him that they take charge of our daily walk, and our midnight slumbers, live bless Him that He commits it to creatures so lovely to exercise His merciful providences. We bless Him that they ministered so tenderly to their and our dear Lord in the days of His sojourn here, and that now they do all they do for us for that Jesus’s sake. We bless Him that they take such pious interest in our spiritual welfare, and rejoice in the tears of which they know that the sadness is joy. We bless Him that those who look on us so kindly do also behold His face. We bless Him that when we come to die, it is they, those heavenly watchers, who shall waft our spirits on their wings to heaven. We bless Him that we with them, and they with us, we shall mingle our songs and our services, and encircle the throne together with our common praise.
We bless Him that when Christ, and we with Christ, shall come back again to this earth, we shall be attended by The glory of the holy angels. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
He took on Him the seed of Abraham
Christian sympathy
We are all of one nature, because we are sons of Adam; we are all of one nature, because we are brethren of Christ. All those common feelings, which we have by birth, are far more intimately common to us, now that we have obtained the second birth. Our hopes and fears, likes and dislikes, pleasures and pains, have been moulded upon one model, have been wrought into one image blended and combined unto “the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” Yes, and one thing needful; one narrow way; one business on earth; one and the same enemy; the same dangers; the same temptations; the same afflictions; the same course of life; the same death; the same resurrection; the same judgment. All these things being the same, and the new nature being the same, and from the same, no wonder that Christians can sympathise with each other, even as by the power of Christ’s sympathising in and with each of them. Nay, and further, they sympathise together in those respects too, in which Christ has not, could not have, gone before them; I mean in their common sins. This is the difference between Christ’s temptation and ours: His temptations were without sin, but ours with sin. Temptation with us almost certainly involves sin. We have still earthly principles in our souls, though we have heavenly ones, and these so sympathise with temptation, that, as a mirror reflects promptly and of necessity what is presented to it, so the body of death which infects us, when the temptations of this world assail it--when honour, pomp, glory, the world’s praise, power, ease, indulgence,sensual pleasure, revenge are offered to it--involuntarily responds to them, and sins--sins because it is sin; sins before the better mind can control it, because it exists, because its life is sin; sins till it is utterly subdued and expelled from the soul by the gradual growth of holiness and the power of the Spirit. Of all this, Christ had nothing. He was “born of a pure Virgin,” the immaculate Lamb of God; and though He was tempted, yet it was by what was good in the world’s offers, though unseasonable and unsuitable, and not by what was evil in them. He overcame what it had been unbecoming to yield to, while He felt the temptation. He overcame also what was sinful, but He felt no temptation to it. And yet it stands to reason, that though His temptations differed from ours in this main respect, yet His presence in us makes us sympathise one with another, even in our sins and faults, in a way which is impossible without it; because, whereas the grace in us is common to us all, the sins against that grace are common to us all also. We have the same gifts to sin against, and therefore the same powers, the same responsibilities, the same fears, the same struggles, the same guilt, the same repentance, and such as none can have but we. I do not of course mean to say that we are one and all at the same point in our Christian course, or have one and all had the same religious history in times past; but that, even taking a man who has never fallen from grace, and one who has fallen most grievously and repented, even they will be found to be very much like each other in their view of themselves, in their temptations, and feelings upon those temptations, than they might fancy beforehand. This we see most strikingly instanced when holy men set about to describe their real state. Even bad men at once cry out, “This is just our case,” and argue from it that there is no difference between bad and good. They impute all their own sins to the holiest of men, as making their own lives a sort of comment upon the text which his words furnish, and appealing to the appositeness of their own interpretation in proof of its correctness. And I suppose it cannot be denied, concerning all of us, that we are generally surprised to hear the strong language which good men use of themselves, as if such confessions showed them to be more like ourselves, and much less holy than we had fancied them to be. And on the other hand, I suppose, any man of tolerably correct life, whatever his positive advancement m grace, will seldom read accounts of notoriously bad men, in which their ways and feelings are described, without being shocked to find that these more or less cast a meaning upon his own heart, and bring out into light and colour lines and shapes of thought within him, which, till then, were almost in visible. Now this does not show that bad and good men are on a level, but it shows this, that they are of the same nature. They have common ground; and as they have one faith and hope, and one Spirit, so also they have one and the same circle of temptations, and one and the same confession. (J. H. Newman, D. D.)
On the Incarnation of Christ
I. WHAT IS NATURALLY INFERRED from Christ’s “ taking on Him the seed of Abraham.”
1. The Divine nature of Christ.
2. The reality of Christ’s human nature.
3. The truth of His office, and the divinity of His mission.
4. His voluntary choice and design, to assume a condition here upon earth low and contemptible.
II. WHY CHRIST TOOK UPON HIM THE NATURE OF MAN, AND NOT OF ANGELS.
1. The transcendent greatness and malignity of the sin of the angels above that of men.
(1) As being committed against a much greater light, which is to be the proper guide and ruler of the will in all its choices.
(2) The sin of the angels commenced upon a greater liberty of will and freedom of choice. There was no devil to tempt them to become devils; no seducer of a stronger reason to impose upon theirs; they moved entirely upon the motives of an intrinsic malice.
2. The next, and perhaps the grand cause, that induced Christ to take upon Him the nature and mediation of men, and not of angels, might be this; that without such a Redeemer, the whole race and species of mankind had perished, as being all involved in the sin of their representative; whereas, though many of the angels sinned, yet as many, if not more, persisted in their innocence; so that the whole kind was not cashiered by a universal ruin, nor made unserviceable to their Creator, in the nobler instances of active obedience. (R. South, D. D.)
The Incarnation
I. The general scope of this passage you will all apprehend to be this, that the children of Adam, being now all children of wrath, ALL NEEDED A SAVIOUR; and the Saviour they needed must not be in the form of God, or of an angel; He must be in the likeness of sinful flesh; whatever else He is, HE MUST BE MAN. Accordingly, Jesus Christ, the Mediator, who was God from eternity, became man, in the fulness of time. Concerning God, even the Father, we know something from other sources than Revelation. Nature and Providence declare His eternal power and Godhead; whereas our acquaintance with the Son of God is derived from Revelation alone. But the Bible assures us that Jesus Christ is God--and it assures us also that He is man; and the assertion of His Godhead is equally positive as that of His manhood. As we are told, the Word was made flesh--that the Divine, and not any angelic nature, was incarnate; so, we may confidently infer, that the assumption of manhood by any inferior, or created spirit, would not have answered the mighty purposes of God’s mercy in our redemption. For the Divine wisdom will never employ a mightier agency than the occasion demands. Having thus stated the necessity, as this is evidently asserted in the Word of God, that our Saviour should unite in His person the nature of God and the nurture of man, I would proceed
II. To inquire, WHEREIN THAT NECESSITY CONSISTED?
1. I do not propose to inquire into the propriety of this dispensation, as it regards the Divine nature or the Divine government. We are, indeed, assured of the fact, that the incarnation of the divinity, and the atonement made by the God-man, were requisite, in order that the expression of mercy to sinners might not be inconsistent with the glorious character, which unites perfect holiness and rectitude with boundless love and compassion. God reveals these things to us only as far as our present necessities require; and further, with certainty of truth, we cannot go.
2. But, as regards ourselves, and their bearing on our interests, our Father in heaven is as liberal in His communications, as He is reserved in the other case. And I propose to suggest a few of the reasons which make it apparent, that, in order to perform the part of a Saviour to us, it behoved Christ, the Son of God, to take on Him the nature of man. That are our wants, our miseries, as sinners? We have broken the Divine law; and of course we are condemned. We need therefore, pardon or justification. This can be obtained only by a sacrifice. Therefore, we need a priest who may offer the sacrifice and reconcile us. Then, we are very weak; we need support. We are very stubborn; and therefore we need to have our hard hearts broken. We cannot regulate our actions; therefore, we need a law and a lawgiver: and we are exposed to powerful enemies, from whom, unless protected, we perish; and for all these reasons, it is manifest we need One who has the authority and power of a King. And yet further, we are most ignorant of that which we are infinitely concerned to know, which we are most unwilling to learn, and most ready to forget; which needs to be demonstrated to us, and impressed upon us with the most striking evidence; and so Christ is our Prophet. What is necessary to be shown is, that our Redeemer must be both Divine and human, otherwise He could not discharge any one of these three offices.
(1) It was needful that, in order to be a Priest, our Redeemer should be both God and man. If the Word had not become man, He could not have died mile could not have offered up a sacrifice, nor made expiation. A priest implies a sacrifice, as a father implies a child, a master a servant, a governor subjects. Wherefore He took human nature, and made it part of Himself, that He might have something to offer up to God. We need to advert here to two distinct and important considerations: the essence of a sacrifice, a real sacrifice, is obedience, contrary to the natural inclination or will of that which is sacrificed. The Divine nature of the Son could not be a sacrifice to God, having the very will of God itself. But every man has that distinct will which is of the essence of freedom and responsibility. The man Jesus had that will. It is impossible those sufferings He needed to endure that He might make His soul an offering for sin, should have been inflicted on our Priest, had He appeared to the world in the form of God. But that He might suffer from man whatever was necessary for man’s redemption, He hid Himself under their own form, so that nothing of God might be visible but His moral glory, His holiness, His power, His rectitude, His unspeakable love, His unfathomable mercy: and men dared to inflict upon the Son of God so disguised, whatever the Divine government and their eternal salvation required. Our Priest, then, must be man. That He must be God, is too plain to need proof. A Divine sufferer alone could be a worthy sacrifice for the sins of the world. And now, oh, sinners, this wonderful Person is your Priest. The God-man made atonement, the God-man maketh intercession for you. Cling to His sacrifice; accept His mediation; plead His obedience with the Father.
2. But, secondly, because we are weak and wayward, and exposed to many foes, and powerful, therefore, we need a King. And none can be such a King as we need, but One who is both God and man. Almighty is His power, infinite His knowledge and wisdom, immeasurable His love, unfailing His rectitude; and He is “bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh.” In all your frailties and ignorances and temptations manifold, remember that He your Divine Sovereign is man, and has suffered being tempted, and is qualified to succour you when ye are tempted. Let the almightiness and infinite love of your most gracious King, God’s Son, your Brother, assure your hearts that following Him, ye shall be conquerors, yea, more than conquerors.
3. It was necessary that our Prophet, He who should effectually teach us, should be not simply God, or mere man, but both: and none could so teach us who was not both God and man. It is a gross mistake to suppose that what mankind needed most was knowledge of good and evil; or that the possession of this knowledge, in even the highest perfection, is sufficient of itself to subdue the heart to the obedience and love of God. The Jews possessed this knowledge as much as we do. Even regarding the heathens themselves, I will make bold to affirm, there is scarcely a duty or rule of morality, laid down in the New Testament, but may be found expressed, with more or less clearness, in the writings of some one or more of their poets or philosophers. It was not necessary, therefore, that another temple of God should be reared of stones, or that, from that dead temple, the same dead law, the mere letter of outward and verbal instruction, should be promulgated. But when righteousness had grown a stranger upon earth, then God sent that Teacher, His Son, who should found a new, a living temple, of which He was the Foundation; and should be Himself a Living Law, not only informing men, but showing them, in His own life, what they should be; and overturning the notion that what He enjoined was impossible, by the undeniable performance of it by Himself in their own nature. He is an effectual Teacher, for He has power not only Himself to work the works of God, but to communicate that to others whereby they also may work them. His instruction is quickening and saving: He is the true light, for it is light which is the life of men. A perfect teacher of righteousness could neither be mere man, nor in the form of God. A mere man could not, as is evident from two plain reasons. He could not exemplify His own precepts--He could not prove that obedience was possible, and He could not give the Spirit, for the Spirit is God, and how could a man, a creature, communicate God the Creator? And yet, without the Spirit of God, no man can be taught of God. And now, let us suppose that Christ, the Prophet of the Church, had delivered His teaching to us in the form of God, that He taught us without being incarnate: might not the human heart have raised these plausible objections? “Thou commandest me to keep Thy law, but Thou art God, and I am dust and ashes. Thou dost promise me the aid of Thy Spirit; but I have not seen or heard of any one in whom, by that aid, this end was accomplished.” To prevent this murmur, and the reasons on which it might have rested, God became man, and, as man spoke to men from the same level on which they stood. We saw Him in humiliation, in sorrow, in the struggles of temptation, in the fears and agonies of death, “ever in the battle, but ever aloft”; and then finally victorious, when He seemed for ever vanquished, for, by yielding to death He conquered him and his ruler, in the irresistible might of weakness quelling all the powers of hell. This is our Redeemer, this our Saviour. This is He announced from of old, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. How wonderful, how glorious His person; uniting the majesty of the eternal God with the meanness of mortal man; qualified to do whatever was necessary to be done, to suffer whatever needed to be endured for the honour of God and the salvation of man! How mysterious is His condescension, how sublime His humility--the pure streams of His mercy overflowing the world, while the flames of His zeal consumed Himself. (R. Lee, D. D.)
On passing by angels to redeem wen
If He who made all things took upon Him man’s nature, we may feel sure that there is in that nature some intrinsic excellence and greatness, one proof of which is that it is capable of being united with the Person of the Word who was in the beginning with God, and was God. But so, unquestionably, was the angels’ nature; for man is a little lower than the angels. Here were two fallen races before the eye of the Redeemer, and we cannot doubt that it was optional with Him to redeem either of them, or both. Why He did not redeem both must be left to sovereign wisdom.
I. FALLEN ANGELS, IF REDEEMED, WOULD NO DOUBT BECOME AS GREAT AND GLORIOUS AS BEFORE. We see in this world enough of degradation made by sin to keep us from doubting the power or sin to degrade fallen angels into devils, and devils into alliance with swine. But the memory of innocence and of bliss in heaven no doubt remains in them. What a good work it would have been to redeem that memory and restore that angel. How sad, one might say, to think that Christ would not redeem him, but went after South Sea Islanders and the aborigines of the British Isles, than whom none was ever more lost to shame, or more distant from God. And what a wicked world this, which He redeemed, has proved. Thus far the few are saved; the many hate God.
II. But in reply it may be said, HIS SUCCESS MIGHT HAVE BEEN NO BETTER HAD CHRIST MADE REDEMPTION FOR ANGELS INSTEAD OF FOR MEN. Angels might have invented objections to Him as men did; some might go so far as to deny His Godhead and incarnation, and ask whether a good God would let His innocent Son visit such an abode, to suffer and die for devils; and what virtue there could be in the sufferings of one for the sins of others; and whether it is just to substitute an innocent being for the guilty? It is the great mystery of wisdom that while God does His pleasure, it is in such a way that every man exercises his free choice.
III. THOSE WHOM DO NOT ACCEPT REDEMPTION PROVIDED FOR THEM BY THE SON OF GOD ARE TO BE ASSOCIATED HEREAFTER WITH A RACE OF SINNERS WHOM CHRIST DID NOT REDEEM. Nothing surely is better adapted to make us accept the offers of the gospel; for if Christ passed them by and came to save us, no fancy can picture what it must be to receive from His lips a consignment to their abode and to their society.
IV. THE SUBJECT OPENS TO US A VIEW OF HUMAN HAPPINESS FOR ALL WHO ACCEPT OF SALVATION. If the Redeemer sought the greater amount of happiness in those for whom He decided to make atonement, He surely will find it in us who enter heaven, not as a recovered seat from which we were ignominiously expelled, but a world new, untried, awakening in us sensations of wonder and joy which now it doth not enter into the heart of man to conceive. There will be a quality in our joy which could never be known to those who fell from heaven. And shall we lose it? Are we looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God? (N. Adams, D. D.)
Fallen humanity elected to redemption in preference to fallen angels
I. THERE ARE STRONG REASONS WHICH BLIGHT NAVE LED US TO SUPPOSE THAT GOD WOULD HAVE GIVEN THE PREFERENCE TO FALLEN ANGELS.
1. The superiority of angelic natures.
2. The probability of their greater misery.
3. Their greater competency of appreciating the redemptive act.
II. ALTHOUGH THERE RIGHT APPEAR STRONG REASONS FOR THE CHOICE OF FALLEN ANGELS, WE CAN DISCOVER MOST SATISFACTORY REASONS FOR THE ELECTION OF FALLEN MEN.
1. The election of men in preference to fallen angels furnishes a more striking manifestation of Divine justice.
2. A more striking manifestation of Divine independence.
3. A more striking manifestation of Divine condescension.
Lessons:
1. How cautious should we be in pronouncing judgment upon the conduct of God.
2. How devoutly earnest should man’s acceptance of this redemption be.
3. How zealously should those who have become participaters of this redemption seek to extend it to others. (Homilist.)
Men chosen--fallen angels rejected
I. In the first place, the translation of our authorised version runs thus: “HE TOOK NOT ON HIM THE NATURE OF ANGELS.” Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ did not take upon Himself the nature of angels, this condescension dictated to Him, that if He did stoop, He would descend to the very lowest degree; that if He did become a creature, He would become, not the noblest creature, but one of the most ignoble of rational beings, that is to say, man, therefore, He did not stoop to the intermediate step of angelship, but He stooped right down and became a man. Let us notice the wisdom and the love of this, and I think there will be something to cause us to glorify God for so doing.
1. If Christ had taken upon Himself the nature of angels, He could never have made an atonement for man.
2. Had our Saviour become an angel, He would never have been a fitting example for us. I cannot imitate an angelic example. If you would give me something to imitate, give me a man like myself, then I may attempt to follow him.
3. Sweetly, also, let us remember that if Christ had been an angel, He could not have sympathised with us. In order to sympathise with our fellow creatures we must be something like them. Suppose a man made of iron, or of brass, could he sympathise with our wearied lungs, or with our aching bones?
4. Once more, Christ became a man, and not an angel, because He desired to be one with His dear Church.
5. Again, if Christ had not taken upon Him the nature of man, then manhood would not have been so honourable or so comfortable as it is.
II. The literal translation, according to the marginal reading, is, “HE TOOK NOT UP ANGELS, BUT HE TOOK UP THE SEED OF ABRAHAM,” by which is meant, that Christ did not die to save angels, though many of them needed salvation, but He died to save fallen man.
1. I do not think it is because of any difference in the sin. When two criminals are brought before a judge, if one of them is to be saved, and the other punished, very likely the judge will say, “Let the greatest offender die, and let the less offender be saved.” Now, I do not know that Satan was a greater offender than man; I am not sure that the fallen angels sinned more than man did. “Why, sir,” you say, “man’s sin was a very little one; he only stole some of his Master’s fruit.” Aye, but if it was such a little thing to do, what a little thing it would have been not to do it! If it were so little a thing, how easily he might have avoided it I and, therefore, because he did it, it became all the greater sin.
2. But suppose there is not much difference in their sin, the next question is, which of those two beings is the most worth saving? Which would serve his Maker most, if his Maker should spare him? And I defy any of you to hold that a sinful man is a more valuable creature than an angel.
3. Sometimes the government will say, “Well, here are two persons to be executed; we desire to save one; which of the two would be the most dangerous character to allow to continue an enemy?” Now, which could hurt God the most, speaking as man would speak, a fallen angel, or a man? I answer, that fallen man can do but little injury to Divine government, compared to a fallen angel.
4. Perhaps it would be said, if one is to be saved, let that one be saved who would take the least trouble to save. Now, which could be saved with the greatest ease, should you suppose a fallen angel, or a fallen man? For my part, I can see no difference; but if there be any it strikes me that a restoration does not put things one-half so much out of order as a revolution; and to have restored the angels to the place from which they had fallen, speaking as a man must speak, would not have been so hard as to have taken fallen man out of the place from which he had fallen, and placed him where fallen angels bad once stood.
5. But, you may say, God saved man because He pitied him. But then why did not He pity the devils? I know two men living on three or four shillings a week. I pity one of them very much, indeed; but the other, who is no better off, I pity him the most, for he once knew better times. Man, it is true, fell out of Eden; but Satan fell out of heaven, and is the more to be pitied on account of the greatness of his fall; and, therefore, if pity had ruled the day, God would have decided for the fallen angels, and not for fallen men. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Kindred aids rescue
There is no sympathy like that of those who are bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. Let some stranger see a child fall into yonder river, and his irresistible impulse is to plunge in and rescue that child. But his zeal to do so is mere indifference compared with the heartrending agony that tears the soul of the child’s mother. Some years since, in a wild valley of Dauphine, in France, an eagle, we are told, swooped down from its lofty eyrie, clutched a helpless infant in its sharp talons, and soared aloft with it to the peak of an almost inaccessible mountain. The peasants, looking on with horror at the sight, in confusion and excitement, knew not what to do. But not so the mother. Hearing of the disaster, love gave wings to her feet, and so she leaped, nay, flew almost, from crag to crag, until, mounting higher and higher, she reached the summit and clasped the uninjured captive to her bosom. Kinship intensifies sympathy. It is just of that the apostle would have us to gather a clear and strong idea. Christ is bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, one of ourselves; bound up with us in the bundle of life, bound to us by ten thousand close and tender ties, along which there thrill and throb the vibrations of a strength--a Divine, a supernatural strength, that flows down indeed to the heart of even the feeblest and lowliest of His sufferers upon earth. (Bp. of Algoma.)
Humiliation of Jesus
The founder of the Russian empire left his palace and capital, the seductive pleasures and all the pomp and royalty, to acquire the art of ship-building in the dockyard of a Dutch sea-port. He learned it that he might teach it to his subjects; he became a servant, that he might be the better master, and lay in Russia the foundations of a great naval power. Nor has his country been ungrateful; her capital, which bears his name, is adorned with a monument to his memory, massive as his mind; and she has embalmed his deathless name in her heart and in her victories. Yet, little as men think of Jesus, lightly as they esteem Him, a far greater sight is here. There, in a king becoming a subject that his subjects might find in him a king, there was much for men; but here there is much both for men and angels to wonder at, and praise through all eternity. The Son of God stoops to toil. What an amazing scene! (T. Guthrie. D. D.)
The secret of true philanthropy
Great philanthropic programmes must begin at Bethlehem, and comprehend the mysteries of Golgotha, if ever they would ascend from Bethany into the heavens. He who would make life redemptive mission must go to the very base of society, and begin his work there. Men invariably fail when they begin at the high twig rather than the buried root. To serve man, Christ became man. So in serving others we must identify ourselves with them. Christ was in the darkness, but the darkness was not in Him. This identification of Himself with the human race made Christ accessible to all classes. Man needed for a season--only for a season, as one summer in the year is enough--a visible manifestation of God. So by coming to us, and being like us, trod humbling Himself to the death of the Cross, He saved us. We, too, in our philanthropic work must go down. Kings are only the blossomings of the great communal tree. “Down to the roots” is the cry of the true philanthropy. (J. Parker, D. D.)
Christ’s close contact with humanity
You remember that happy story of the wild negro child who could never be won till the little lady sat down by her, and laid her hand upon her. Eva won poor Topsy by that tender touch. The tongue failed, but the hand achieved the victory. So was it with our adorable Lord. He showed us that He was bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh; He brought Himself into contact with us, and made us perceive the reality of His love to us, and then He became more than a conqueror over us. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
“He was one of its”
On the centenary of the birth of Robert Stephenson there was a very large demonstration at Newcastle. The town was paraded by a vast precession who carried banners in honour of the distinguished engineer. ]n the procession there was a band of peasants, who carried a little banner of very ordinary appearance, but bearing the words, “He was one of us.” They were inhabitants of the small village in which Robert Stephenson had been born, and had come to do him honour. They had a right to a prominent position in that day’s proceedings, because he to whom so many thousands did honour was one of them. Even so, whatever praise the thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers can ascribe to Christ in that grand celebration when men shall be no more, we from earth can wave our banners with the words written upon it, “He was one of us.”
