It’s Christmastime, the time of year that we celebrate the glorious incarnation of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This is an important subject to ruminate over. Considering the marvelous truth of the incarnation will do the church well.
Jesus, God the Son, went from a place on high to the dirt below. He went from a throne to a manger. He went from honor to dishonor. He went from glory to humility.
Consider the words of Jonathan Edwards as he explains why we ought to return to this truth again and again – not just every December:
“The pride of man, which is the chief hindrance against his cleaving to God, can be confuted and healed through the great humility of God.
Man learns how far he has gone away from God and what it is worth to Him as a pain to cure him, when he returns through such a Mediator, who both as God assists men by His divinity, and as man agrees with men by His weakness.
For what greater example of obedience could be given to us, who had perished through disobedience, than God the Son obedient to God the Father, even to the death of the cross? (Phil. 2:8)
Where could the reward of obedience itself be better shown, than in the flesh of so great a Mediator, which rose again to eternal life?
It belonged also to the justice and goodness of the Creator, that the devil should be conquered by the same rational creature which he rejoiced to have conquered, and by one that came from that same race which, by the corruption of its origin through one, he held altogether.”
The mystery of God as man—Christ’s great humility—is a doctrine that holds an exceedingly humbling effect.