Even where there was no deeper knowledge of sin nor even a surmise of doomworthiness because of guilt or of corruption, a general sense of homesickness after a happier state of things took hold of people, a longing to escape the decline of human power. And then there came law-givers and wise men, moral philosophers and judges, educators and leaders of spirits, who each contributed their invention, their remedy, their counsel.
This was called Wisdom, but a wisdom which every time again turned into folly.
Sin lay concealed too deep in the marrow of our soul, and no counsel that was not able to fathom that depth could survive.
But now see here this Babe, that comes to put all counsel to shame, and in which the altogether only counsel of salvation, the only saving counsel in the need of your soul, embodied lies before you.
Here is the Counsel, and that Counsel realized, that Counsel executed, and in that Counsel the prophecy of a salvation, which in no coming hour of need will leave you confused or ashamed, and which will prove itself to be Counsel to, and across death and grave, yea, to all eternity.
Thus here again the same antithesis.
As in the name Wonderful it is the almightiness of God’s help that comes down in the midst of the absolute helplessness of your human nature, here it is the Wisdom of God that glistens gloriously over against the infatuation of your human devising.
With you the desperation, from Him the Counsel that saves you.
And therefore there is no part for you in that Counsel, and by that Counsel for you no deliverance, save as you dare to lay your hand upon the mouth, and dare to despise the wisdom of the world, to glory in none other than in Him, Who of God is made unto us wisdom first, and only after that, and as such, justification, sanctification and perfect redemption. (1 Cor. 1:30.)
That Babe “Wonderful”, in which the Counsel of salvation became flesh, is called therefore in the third place: The Mighty God, for the device of counsel is not enough, that counsel must be carried out; and the struggle, incident to this, is dreadful.
And if on account of this, even after you have heard of this heavenly counsel, you should ask anxiously: “But who shall show us this good?” the Scripture anticipates you, and announces to you the third name of that Babe. He is the Mighty God, or better still, as it literally stands: God-hero.
Terrible are the powers, that press up against you; dreadful to see the powers that stand over against you. The thoughtless do not observe this, for the “gates of hell” are not visible to the naked eye. But he who received spiritual light, and by the shining of that light begins to discover, what on the background, in the dark distance, comes stealing towards us as evil ominous power, waylays us, aims at our ruin and eternal perdition, trembles at the thought. For you repeat them as hollow sounds: Satan, sin and world; but he who came to have dealings with them, knows well that these are no hollow sounds, but three tremendous, sneaking powers, which take you by the throat before you know it and poison your heart before you are aware of it.
Against these three soul-destroying powers the struggle has gone on as long as sorrow for sin on earth has troubled the heart, and home-sickness after freer, purer life has been known in the human heart.
Fought and struggled in lonesome hiddenness and in the market-place of life, by men and women, by Jews who knew Jehovah, and by heathen who sought God in their idol.
The masses at large yielded willingly to sin. But always and everywhere there has been a small number, there were always a few giant-figures in spiritual things, in whom common grace glorified itself in a special manner, and who rowed against the stream of wantonness and sensuality, that they might take hold again of the seriousness of life.
But it brought no lasting avail.
In the end the strongest had succumbed, and the bravest had been swallowed up in the stream.
Hero courage from our nature, strength from our human existence, could gain no lasting victory, because the ground itself on which one struggled sank away from under foot, and no broken human power could withstand strong Satan.
But now see this little Child! In that little Child hides the spiritual Nimrod, who shall be as a mighty hero before the Lord.
That little Child shall once fight as no child of man ever fought before. That little Child shall struggle with Satan as no sinner has ever struggled. And Him neither Satan, nor sin nor world shall be able to overcome, because He and He alone is not merely the man-hero, but the God-hero, Who shall cause every enemy of God and man to bend before His Divine superiority.
Wonderful, Counsellor, but also: Mighty God, and therefore your powerlessness to save yourself placed in clearest light by His ability to save unto the uttermost. (Heb. 7, 25.)
When I am weak, then He in me is strong.
And he alone who looking to this Mighty God refrains from every powerless effort of his own, is gloriously saved by this Mighty God.
“The everlasting Father” is Immanuel’s fourth name. A name which naturally does not indicate that eternity itself is of the Son. Scripture clearly teaches that all things are of the Father and through the Son.
This “Father of eternity” points to something altogether different. It stands over against the dreadful power of sin in Time.
Sin has not only nestled itself in our heart, but also in our past and in the past of our race. It has sought its support in the customs on which Time has put its stamp, in the morals which Time has confirmed, in the institutions which Time has called into life, in the opinions and ideas to which Time has given entrance.
So from Time a sinful power has sprung up in tradition, a power that presses down as with the weight of lead, and from which no man can wrest himself away entirely otherwise than by falling a victim to overwrought madness.
This terrible power of the past works its aftermath in your conscience, in the evil report that is perpetuated, in bodily strength that is broken, in good that is lost.
Yea, even in your person, in your soul and body this evil power of the past has established itself, in hereditary diseases, in hereditary sinful character-traits, in original sin and hereditary ruin.
If as by one act you could shake off from yourself that past, everything that lies back of you, and works out in you its aftermath even from far distant generations, you would at once feel yourself free and redeemed.
But this you can not do.
As with copper chains that past is bound to your feet, and you can take no step on the way without dragging it along with you.
But now see the little Child of Bethlehem. Over that little Child Immanuel Time has no power. No, He rules Time with the majesty of the Divine life which bears eternity in itself.
He goes back of Time and back of the beginning of the dust-particles of earth; and when once Time shall be no more, and at last every time-piece be run down, He shall still be eternally Himself.
And therefore there is help with Him against the evil power of Time, against the terrible oppression of the past, and equally so against anxiety for the future.
As “Father of eternity” He encloses Time from beginning to end, and he who may know that little Child, and possess Him, is redeemed from the tyranny of heredity, from the yoke of tradition, from the plagues of the past, from the dominion of the latest moments.
Finally, that little Child is called the Prince of peace, the antithesis of Solomon as prince of peace over against David as fighting hero.
The prince who wages wars, for war’s sake, consumes the goods and the blood of his people, and wades through streams of blood and tears to fame and glory.
In the days of David the people were hard pressed and spent their vital forces in constant wars.
But it was altogether different during Solomon’s reign, when all the people were at rest, and lived on their spoils, and sat under their own vine and figtree.
Then it was no longer the prince, who spent the treasures of his people, but the king full of majesty, who gave out portions from his own rich treasures to those who were in need, and was able to bless unto length of days all the people belonging to his realm.
And such also is the case with this wondrous little Child.
For Immanuel also there is conflict, but one in which not the people pour out their blood for Him, but He pours out His heart’s blood for His people, and so He too is our Solomon, Who possesses all the booty, has obtained all the treasure of His suffering, and now lives as Prince of peace to bless us, to enrich us with His treasures, and to make us enjoy wealth of soul from the spoils which He captured from Satan.
For us the indication, that not we must try to bring Him anything, but that He brings everything to us, and that even our best works, can never enrich His spoils, but that from His immeasurable treasures they have been taken for us and have been apportioned to us.
Thus these five glorious names, Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Father of eternity, Prince of peace are nothing but the bundle of rays, in which shines forth the richness of Immanuel’s inner being and the fruit of His work.
To know these five glorious names, both from the experience of one’s own soul, and from the fulness of His glory is: To know Him and the power of His resurrection.
It is, standing at the Crib of Bethlehem, to understand the significance of “that little Child that is given unto us”.
And in this the child of God of himself is daily engaged. Of that infinite fulness of Immanuel he understands as yet but so small a part, especially so small a part with empirical experience of soul, that it is his daily prayer, that he might every time learn something more of that treasure which is hid in his Savior.
He who only when Christmas is near, loses himself in that world of heavenly thoughts, may have heard “the sound of the King” from afar, doorkeeper at the palace of that King he as yet has not become.
But Christmas intends, to gather again the thoughts of the Lord’s people, and direct them again more strongly to Immanuel. Christmas reproaches you with healing, while shaming, power, that at other times you dwelt so lamentably little with your soul and senses near to Immanuel. It compels you, by concentration of your inner life at the sight of the little Child that is born, to make good at least something of former neglect. And it also exhorts you when presently Christmas is once more gone, not to wander again so for away from Him with your heart.
And Christmas does not reach this end, when you are drawn merely to the manger and look upon the swaddling-clothes. That glorious power only goes out to you, when with the searching eye of your soul you enter into the richness, the all else excelling significance of that little Child, and not rehearse His virtues from memory, but repeat them from what you have experienced regarding them in your own heart.
In so large a sense Christ is deserted by the people whom He once blessed. He is so lamentably forgotten by thousands and tens of thousands, whom He has baptized with His baptism.
O, let then at least among His people that still know Him and confess Him, something awaken again of the first love for Immanuel.
Sinner’s love from the reconciled heart is the only offering that can please Him.
For that holy fragrance let the incense and the myrrh from your inner life be placed upon His altar.
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