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| Art by Full of Eyes. |
«What a grand and glorious truth is this to the believing soul: the absolute Deity of the Savior, the essential Godhead of Christ! How it endears Him to the heart as the Rock of ages upon which its hope is built! How precious must be every evidence of the divine strength, stability, and durability of that basis upon which the believing sinner reposes his whole salvation. Precious, then, is Christ as God. Precious in His Deity, precious as a distinct person in the adorable Godhead, precious as "God over all, blessed for evermore." But pause, Christian reader, for a moment, in wonder and praise before this august truth. If there is a spot where we should put off the shoes from our feet, surely it is this. With what profound reverence, with what silent awe, yet with what adoring love should we contemplate the GODHEAD of our Redeemer!
But this personal representation of the Lord Jesus involves also the preciousness of His manhood. His [Christ's] personal alliance with our nature, His condescending stoop to our humanity, is not the least endearing feature to the heart of His believing saints. We have claimed for the Son of God absolute Deity; we now claim for Him perfect humanity. "Flesh," real and substantial, yet, "harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners," was He "made." A humanity identical with His people in all but its original and actual sinfulness. "He knew no sin." And yet, what a sin-bearer was He! All the transgressions of His elect met upon Him! But He could only bear sin, as He himself was essentially free from its taint. Had there been the remotest breath of pollution adhering to Him- had one drop of the moral virus circulated through His veins, it had rendered Him utterly and forever incapable of presenting to the justice of God, an atonement for sin. He then would have needed, like the high priest of old, to have offered for sins "first for Himself, then for the people."
How precious, then, beloved, is our Lord Jesus as "bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh." Think of His perfect humanity, a humanity free from sin, and therefore capable of dying for the ungodly, a humanity laden with sorrow, and therefore capable of sympathizing with the afflicted. Precious to our hearts as God, precious as Man, precious as both united in one, inconceivably and eternally precious is He, whose name is "Wonderful," to His believing saints. Tell, oh tell, how precious is that humanity of the Son of God that partook, by actual participation, and still bears, by the most perfect sympathy, all the sinless weaknesses, infirmities, temptations, and sorrows of His people. Precious humanity! to which, when other human friendships are changed, and other human love is chilled, and other human sympathy is exhausted, you may repair, and find it an evergreen, a perennial stream, a gushing fountain of unchanged affection, tenderness, and sympathy, meeting and satisfying, to their utmost capacity, your hearts' deep pantings! Precious humanity! that dries each tear, that bears each burden, that is touched with each infirmity, that soothes each sorrow, and that succours each temptation of His people. "In all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of His people. For in that He himself has suffered being tempted, He is able to succor those who are tempted."
Oh, love the Lord, then, all you His saints; laud Him, all you His people; and, in all your deep griefs, your lonely sorrows, your sore trials, your fiery temptations, your pressing needs, your daily infirmities, repair to the succourings, and the sympathies, and the intercessions of His humanity, and learn how precious Jesus can be to the hearts of His suffering and sorrowing ones. Upon this rock of Christ's complex person God has built His Church, and the gates of hell cannot prevail against it.»
