“Both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren.” Heb. ii. 11.
1 Our Saviour’s birth in the flesh is an earnest, and, as it were, beginning of our birth in the Spirit. It is a figure, promise, or pledge of our new birth, and it effects what it promises. As He was born, so are we born also; and since He was born, therefore we too are born. As He is the Son of God by nature, so are we sons of God by grace; and it is He who has made us such. This is what the text says; He is the “Sanctifier,” we the “sanctified.” Moreover, He and we, says the text, “are all of one.” God sanctifies the Angels, but there the Creator and the creature are not of one. But the Son of God and we are of one; He has become “the firstborn of every creature;” He has taken our nature, and in and through it He sanctifies us. He is our brother by virtue of His incarnation, and, as the text says, “He is not ashamed to call us brethren;” and, having sanctified our nature in Himself, He communicates it to us.
1. This is the wonderful economy of grace, or mystery of godliness, which should be before our minds at all times, but especially at this season, when the Most Holy took upon Him our flesh of “a pure Virgin,” “by the operation of the Holy Ghost, without spot of sin, to make us clean from all sin.” God “dwelleth in the Light which no man can approach unto;” He “is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all.” “His garment,” as described in the Prophet’s Vision, is “white as snow, and the hair of His head like the pure wool; His throne the fiery flame, and His wheels burning fire.” And in like manner the Son of God, because He is the Son, is light also. He is “the True Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” On His transfiguration “His face did shine as the sun,” and “His raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow,” “white and glistering.” And when He appeared to St. John, “His head and His hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and His eyes were as a flame of fire: and His feet like unto fine brass, as if they burnt in a furnace; and His countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.” [1 Tim. vi. 16. 1 John i. 5. Dan. vii. 9. John i. 9. Matt. xvii. 2. Mark ix. 3. Luke xi. 29. Rev. i. 14-16.] Such was our Lord’s holiness because He was the Son of God from eternity. There was always the Father, always the Son: always the Father, therefore always the Son, for the Name of Father implies the Son, and never was there a time when the Father Almighty was not, and in the Father the Son also. He it is who is spoken of in the beginning of St. John’s Gospel, when it is said, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Soon after, the same Apostle speaks of Him as “in the bosom of the Father.” And He speaks Himself of “the glory which He had with the Father before the world was.” And St. Paul calls Him “the Brightness of God’s glory, and the express Image of His Person.” And elsewhere, “the Image of the Invisible God.” Thus what our Lord is, that none other can be; He is the Only-begotten Son; He has the Divine nature, and is of one substance with the Father, which cannot be said of any creature. He is one with God, and His nature is secret and incommunicable. Hence St. Paul contrasts His dignity with that of Angels, the highest of all creatures, with a view of showing the infinite superiority of the Son. “Unto which of the Angels said He at any time, Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee?” Again, “When He bringeth in the first-begotten into the world, He saith, And let all the Angels of God worship Him.” And again, “To which of the Angels saith He at any time, Sit on My right hand until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool?” Of the Angels we are told, “He putteth no trust in His saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in His sight;” but our Lord is His “beloved Son, in whom He is well pleased.” [John i. 1; xvii. 5. Heb. i. 5, et seq. Col. i. 15. Job xv. 15. Matt. iii. 17.]
He it was who created the worlds; He it was who interposed of old time in the affairs of the world, and showed Himself to be a living and observant God, whether men thought of Him or not. Yet this great God condescended to come down on earth from His heavenly throne, and to be born into His own world; showing Himself as the Son of God in a new and second sense, in a created nature, as well as in His eternal substance. Such is the first reflection which the birth of Christ suggests.
2. And next, observe, that since He was the All-holy Son of God, though He condescended to be born into the world, He necessarily came into it in a way suitable to the All-holy, and different from that of other men. He took our nature upon Him, but not our sin; taking our nature in a way above nature. Did He then come from heaven in the clouds? did He frame a body for Himself out of the dust of the earth? No; He was, as other men, “made of a woman,” as St. Paul speaks, that He might take on Him, not another nature, but the nature of man. It had been prophesied from the beginning, that the Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head. “I will put enmity,” said Almighty God to the serpent at the fall, “between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her Seed; It shall bruise thy head.” [Gen. iii 15.] In consequence of this promise, pious women, we are told, were in the old time ever looking out in hope that in their own instance per-adventure the promise might find its accomplishment. One after another hoped in turn that she herself might be mother of the promised King; and therefore marriage was in repute, and virginity in disesteem, as if then only they had a prospect of being the Mother of Christ, if they waited for the blessing according to the course of nature, and amid the generations of men. Pious women they were, but little comprehending the real condition of mankind. It was ordained, indeed, that the Eternal Word should come into the world by the ministration of a woman; but born in the way of the flesh He could not be. Mankind is a fallen race; ever since the Fall there has been a “fault and corruption of the nature of every man that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam; … so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit, and therefore in every person born into this world it deserveth God’s wrath and damnation.” And “the Apostle doth confess that concupiscence and lust hath of itself the nature of sin.” “That which is born of the flesh, is flesh.” “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” “How can he be clean that is born of a woman?” Or as holy David cries out, “Behold, I was shapen in wickedness, and in sin hath my mother conceived me.” [John iii. 6. Job xiv. 4; xxv. 4. Ps. li. 5.] No one is born into the world without sin; or can rid himself of the sin of his birth except by a second birth through the Spirit. How then could the Son of God have come as a Holy Saviour, had He come as other men? How could He have atoned for our sins, who Himself had guilt? or cleansed our hearts, who was impure Himself? or raised up our heads, who was Himself the son of shame? Surely any such messenger had needed a Saviour for his own disease, and to such a one would apply the proverb, “Physician, heal thyself.” Priests among men are they who have to offer “first for their own sins, and then for the people’s;” [Heb. vii. 27.] but He, coming as the immaculate Lamb of God, and the all-prevailing Priest, could not come in the way which those fond persons anticipated. He came by a new and living way, by which He alone has come, and which alone became Him. The Prophet Isaiah had been the first to announce it: “The Lord Himself shall give you a sign,” he says, “Behold, a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His Name Immanuel.” And accordingly St. Matthew after quoting this text, declares its fulfilment in the instance of the Blessed Mary. “All this,” he says, “was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet.” And further, two separate Angels, one to Mary, one to Joseph, declare who the adorable Agent was, by whom this miracle was wrought. “Joseph, thou son of David,” an Angel said to him, “fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost;” and what followed from this? He proceeds, “And she shall bring forth a Son, and thou shalt call His Name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.” Because He was “incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary,” therefore He was “Jesus,” a “Saviour from sin.” Again, the Angel Gabriel had already said to Mary, “Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.” And then he proceeds to declare, that her Son should be called Jesus; that He “should be great, and should be called the Son of the Highest;” and that “of His Kingdom there shall be no end.” And he concludes by announcing, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore that Holy Thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” [Matt. i. 20, 21. Luke i. 28-35.] Because God the Holy Ghost wrought miraculously, therefore was her Son a “Holy Thing,” “the Son of God,” and “Jesus,” and the heir of an everlasting kingdom.