Charles H. Spurgeon

The opposition of the world is often a very great blessing to the Church. If it be met by holy boldness, it is sure to yield a glorious triumph to the servants of God. Sanctified by the Holy Ghost, out of the eater cometh forth honey, for it becomes an incentive to greater zeal. Now that the foeman is determined to conquer, the Church will be resolved to hold its own. Pressure from without drives the members of the Church together, and so promotes holy love, and when love and zeal come together, then there is such a blessed unity of action, and such a power in every effort that great success must follow. Woe unto the world when it persecutes the Church, for it kicks with its naked foot against the pricks; it stirs up a nest of hornets about its own ears; yea, it provokes the Lion of the tribe of Judah to spring upon his enemies.

Our text is a portion of an apostolic song, which celebrated the release of Peter and John and the confusion of the priests and scribes. Every persecution shall yield psalms of victory to the people of God. There is one sweet result which always flows from the opposition of the world, namely, that it draws true disciples nearer to their Master. You will perceive that they sing concerning the birth, and death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ; the Lord is the theme of their grateful song. The title by which they salute him, “Thy holy child, Jesus,” is most appropriate to their case. The history of the Church is Christ’s life written out in length. Our Lord enters upon the world a holy child: when the Church begins her history, she is as a holy child too, and therefore rejoices in the childhood of her gracious Lord. How precious is it to see Jesus as made in all points like unto his people, and how rapturous for his people to see their Redeemer’s features drawn by the pencil of fellowship in themselves. Trial is often sanctified to this noble end. Let the world oppress the Church; let the members of that Church be thoroughly weaned from any other ground of comfort; let the Lord Jesus be their only rock and refuge, and they will soon perceive analogies in the history of Christ beautifully explaining their own — analogies which they never would have discovered except in the glare of the furnace. In the chapter before us, the apostles are thrown back upon the person of Jesus for comfort, and they revel in the thought of his being a child, because they discover in this his likeness to the Church, which, in its infancy, the enemy sought to destroy, even as Herod sought to slay the new-born King of the Jews.

Brethren, whenever we endure adversities, or tribulations, or distresses, be it ours to turn to Christ, and consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession; for we may rest assured that the black finger of our distresses will often point out beauties in the person of Immanuel hitherto unseen. There is a certain spot from which alone each glorious trait in the Savior’s character can be seen, and many of our most painful positions are ordained for us in order that we may from their vantage ground behold the Lamb of God.

Our subject, this morning, may perhaps be suitable to the experience of some; the Lord make it useful to all. Taking the text as we find it, we shall, first of all, meditate upon the humanity of Christ as here declared; secondly, we shall view it as here described — “A holy child;” and thirdly, we shall then behold it in the glory which surrounds it — signs and wonders are wrought by the name of the holy child, Jesus.

I. First, then, dear friends, may our hearts be enlightened to see, as the apostles did, the beauty and excellence of THE REAL HUMANITY OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST.

While we always contend that Christ is God, very God of very God, let us never lose the firm conviction he is most certainly and truly a man. He is not a God humanized, nor yet a human being deified; but, as to his Godhead, pure Godhead, equal and co-eternal with the Father; as to his manhood, perfect manhood; made in all respects like unto the rest of mankind, sin alone excepted. His humanity was real, for he was born. He lay hidden in the virgin’s womb, and in due time was born into a world of suffering. The gate by which we enter upon the first life, he passed through also; he was not created, nor transformed, but his humanity was begotten and born. As he was born, so in the circumstances of his birth, he is completely human; he is as weak and feeble as any other babe. He is not even royal, but human. Those who were born in marble halls of old were wrapped in purple garments, and were thought by the vulgar to be a superior race; but this babe is wrapped in swaddling clothes and hath a manger for his cradle, that the true humanness of his being may come out. More a man than he is a Prince of the House of David, he knows the woes of a peasant’s child. As he grows up, the very growth shows how completely human he is. He does not spring into full manhood at once, but he grows in stature, and in favor both with God and man. When he reaches man’s estate, he gets the common stamp of manhood upon his brow. “In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat bread “is the common heritage of us all, and he receives no better. The carpenter’s shop must witness to the toils of a Savior and when he becomes the preacher and the prophet, still we read such significant words as these — “Jesus, being weary, sat thus on the well.” We find him needing to betake himself to rest in sleep, he slumbers at the stern of the vessel when it is tossed in the midst of the tempest.

Brethren, if sorrow be the mark of real manhood, and “man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward,” certainly Jesus Christ has the truest evidence of being a man. If to hunger and to thirst be signs that he was no shadow, and his manhood no fiction you have these. If to associate with his fellow men, and eat and drink as they did, will be proof to your mind that he was none other than a man, you see him sitting at a feast one day, at another time he graces a marriage supper, and on another occasion he is hungry, and “hath not where to lay his head.” Since the day when the prince of the power of the air obtained dominion in this world, men are tempted, and he, though he is born pure and holy, must not be delivered from temptation.

“The desert his temptation knew His conflict and his victory too.”

The garden marked the bloody sweat, as it started from every pore while he endured the agony of conflict with the prince of this world. If, since we have fallen and must endure temptation, we have need to pray, so had he—

“Cold mountains and the midnight air Witnessed the fervor of his prayer.”

Strong crying and tears go up to heaven mingled with his pleas and entreaties, and what clearer proof could we have of his being man of the substance of his mother, and man like ourselves, than this, that he was heard in that he feared. There appeared unto him an angel strengthening him; to whom but men are angels ministering spirits? Brethren, we have never discovered the weakness of our manhood more than when God has deserted us. When the spiritual consolations which comforted us have been withdrawn, and the light of God’s face has been hidden from us, then we have said, “I am a worm and no man,” and out of the dust and ashes of human weakness have we cried unto the most high God. Let “Eloi! Eloi! lama sabachthani” assure you that Christ has felt the same. Follow man wherever you will and you find the footprint of the Son of Mary. Go after man where you will, into scenes of sorrow of every hue, and you shall find traces of Jesus’ pilgrimage there. You shall find in whatever struggle and conflict of which man is capable, the Captain of our salvation has had a share. Leave out sin, and Christ is the perfect picture of humanity. Simple as the truth is, and lying as it does at the very basis of our Christianity, yet let us not despise it, but try to get a personal grip of it if we can. Jesus, my mediator, is a man, “Immanuel, God with us.”

He is a child born, he is better than that, for “unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.” He is to us a brother; he is bone of our bone to-day. As a man leaves his father and mother and cleaveth unto his wife, and they twain become one flesh, so hath he left the glory of his Father’s house and become one flesh with his people. Flesh, and bone, and blood, and heart, that may ache and suffer, and be broken and be bruised, yea, and may die, such is Jesus; for herein he completes the picture. As the whole human race must yield its neck to the great iron-crowned monarch, so must Christ himself say, “Into thy hands I commend my spirit, Father,” and he, too, must yield up the ghost. Oh, Christian, see your nearness to him and be glad this morning! Oh, sinner, see his nearness to you! Come to him with confidence, for in body and soul he is completely human.

Having thus insisted upon the humanity of Christ, let us gather a few reflections from it. There are a thousand things which it indicates, but as the garden is too full of flowers for us to bring them all, we have gathered but a handful.

As the first meditation, let us marvel at his condescension. It is the greatest miracle that was ever heard or read of, that “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” Cyprian well said, “I do not wonder at any miracle, but I do marvel at this, which is a miracle among miracles, that God should become man.” That God should make a creature out of nothing is certainly a marvellous manifestation of power, but that God should enter into that creature, and should take it into intimate union with his own nature — this is the strangest of all acts of condescending love.

Indeed, so marvellous is it, that in all the heathen mythologies — strange freaks though imagination has there played, theology we do find instances of the gods appearing in the likeness of men — yet never do we find anything like the hypostatical union of the two natures in the person of Christ. Human wisdom in its most happy moments has never risen to anything like the thought of deity espousing manhood, that man might be redeemed. To you and to me the marvel lieth in the motive which prompted the incarnation. What could it have been that brought Immanuel to such a stoop as this? What unrivalled, indescribable, unutterable love was this that made him leave his Father’s glory, the adoration of angels and all the hallowed joy of heaven, that he might be made a man like ourselves, to suffer, to bleed, to die? “He was seen of angels,” saith the apostle, and this was a great wonder, for the angels had worshipped at his throne, but their created eyes could not bear to look upon the brightness of his person. They veiled their faces with their wings when they cried “Holy! Holy! Holy!” But angels saw the Son of God lying in a manger! The Lord of all wrestling with a fallen spirit in the wilderness! The Prince of Peace hanging upon the tree on Calvary! “Seen of angels” was one of the wonders concerning the incarnation of Christ; but that he should be seen of men — nay that he should be the associate of the worst of men, that he should be called the friend of publicans and sinners, so perfectly incarnating himself, and condescending so low that he comes to the very lowest state of humanity — all this, my brethren, is condescension concerning which words fail me to speak. A prince who puts aside his crown, and clothes himself with beggar’s rags to investigate the miseries of his country, is but a worm condescending to his fellow worm. An angel that should lay aside his beauty, and become decrepit and lame, and walk the streets in pain and poverty to bless the race of man, were nothing, for this were but a creature humbling himself to creatures a little lower than himself; but here is the Creator taking the creature into union with himself, the Immortal becoming mortal, the Infinite an infant, the Omnipotent taking weakness, even human weakness into union with his own person. We may truly say of Jesus, that he was weak as the dust, and yet as mighty as the Eternal God; liable to suffer, and yet God over all blessed for ever. O the depth of the love of Jesus!

Let us reflect upon another theme. See the fitness of Christ for his work! He is a perfect man — he could not be a priest if he were not. But now, “He can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, seeing he was tempted in all points like as we are.” Being not ashamed to call us brethren, he can compassionate the ignorant and those who are out of the way. O brethren, if he were no man, he could not have been our substitute; man sinned, and man must pay the penalty: he must be perfect man to make atonement. If he were not man, his righteousness would not have availed us, for while we want a righteousness divine to cover the infiniteness of God’s demands, we want a righteousness which is human, for it is that which the law requires. O soul, if thou art in sadness and sickness to-day, let thine arms embrace the man Christ Jesus. Feel in the fact that he is thy brother, how suitable is such a Savior to thy poverty, thy weakness, and thy sin.

Let us think, too, of another thought. Behold, inasmuch as Christ is man, his near relationship and union to his people. He is no stranger of whom we speak — he is our Brother, nay, more than that, he has become our Head. Not a head of gold, and feet of clay, or limbs of baser metal; but as we are, so was he, that as he is so might we be. It is manhood which is at the head of the Church, as it is manhood which constitutes the members. Union to Jesus is, methinks, the sweetest doctrine in revelation. There are other doctrines which possess a more transcendant grandeur, but the doctrine of union is the quintessence of all delights. What is heaven but union to Christ realized; and what shall be the foretaste of heaven but union to Christ believed? As thou seest him then completely, such as thou art, know, Christian, how near, how dear, how intimately one with him thou art, and be thou glad this day.

Let me give thee another flower. See the glory of manhood now, restored! Man was but a little lower than the angels, and had dominion over the fowl of the air, and over the fish of the sea. That royalty he lost; the crown was taken from his head by the hand of sin, and the beauty of the image of God was dashed by his rebellion. But all this is given back to us. We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor; and at this day all things are put under him, waiting, as he does, and expecting the time when all his enemies shall be beneath his feet, and the last enemy, Death, shall be destroyed by man — by the very man whom he boasted that he had destroyed. It is our nature, brethren, Jesus in our manhood, who is now Lord of providence; it is our nature which has hanging at its girdle the sovereign keys of heaven, and earth, and hell; it is our nature which sits upon the throne of God at this very day. No angel ever sat upon God’s throne, but a man has done it, and is doing it now. Of no angel was it ever said, “Thou shalt be King of kings and Lord of lords, they that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before thee, and thine enemies shall lick the dust—“but this is said of a man. It is a man who shall judge the world in righteousness; a man who shall distribute crowns of reward—a man who shall denounce, “Depart, ye cursed;” a man, the thunder of whose words shall make hell shrink with affright. Oh, how glorious is renovated manhood! What an honor is it, my brethren, to be man, not of the fallen first Adam, but man made in the image in the second Adam? Let us with all our weakness, and infirmity, and imperfection, yet bless and praise God, who made us what we are by his grace, for man, in the person of Christ, is second only to God — nay, is in such union with God, that he cannot be nearer to him.

When we think of the true and proper manhood of Christ, ought we not to rejoice that a blessed channel is opened by which God’s mercy can come to us? “How can God reach man? “was once the question; but now, brethren, there is another question. “How can God refuse to bless those men who are in Christ? “The everlasting Father must bless his only begotten Son, and in blessing him he has blessed a man, and that man having all the elect in his loins, they are necessarily all blessed in him. Look upon the person of Christ as that of a representative individual. Whatever Christ is, all his elect are, just as whatever Adam was all men who were in him became. If Adam fell, all manhood fell; if Christ stands and is honored and glorified, then all who are in Christ, that is the goodly fellowship of his elect, are all blessed in him. Now, it is utterly impossible but that God should bless Jesus Christ, for Jesus Christ is for ever one with God, and his manhood is also one with Godhead. As an old writer observes, “The nearest union that we know of is the union between the humanity and the divinity in the person of Christ. That of the three persons in the Trinity may rather be called a unity than a union — but this is the closest union we know of — the union between humanity and deity in Christ.” So complete is it, that you cannot think of Christ aright as a man apart from God, nor as God apart from man. The very idea of Christ hath in it the two natures, and it is a clear impossibility that the Godhead should not impart of its blessedness to the manhood, and that manhood being thus blessed, every elect soul is necessarily blessed also. O see what a channel is thus opened; a channel through which the stream cannot but flow; a golden pipe through which grace cannot but come. The laws of nature might be reversed, but not the laws of God’s nature, and it is a law of God’s nature that in the person of Christ the deity must bless the manhood, and that manhood being blessed, it is another law that elect manhood must be blessed, since that elect manhood is for ever indissolubly bound up with the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. See what a river deep and broad is here opened for us, and what a fullness there is in that river, for all the fullness of the deity dwells in Christ, and the fullness of that deity thus flows to man.

See again, beloved, what a door of access is thus opened between us and God! I am a man; Christ is a man. I come to the man Christ Jesus — no I have not even to do that — I am in the man Christ. If I am a believer, I am a portion of him. Well, being a portion of the man Christ, and God being united with him, I am very near unto God. I have such nearness of access then to God, that whatever may be my desires and my prayers, I have no need to climb to heaven nor to descend into the depth in order to obtain my desire, for God’s ear must be near to me inasmuch as God is in Christ, and my soul being in Christ I am very, very near to God. Christ’s body is the veil that hangs before the majesty of God, that veil was rent; and whoever by a living faith knows how to come through the rent body of the man, Christ, comes at once into the presence of God. Such communion, such sacred commerce, such blessed interchanges between mankind and God could never have taken place on any other plan. That ladder which Jacob saw was but a faint and dreamy picture of this. This is no ladder, but the access is such as though God, who was at the top of Jacob’s ladder, had come down to Jacob as he lay sleeping there. There is no ladder wanted now, the person of Christ brings God to man, brings man to God in closer contact than the ladder can ever picture. Brethren, let us come boldly unto the throne of the heavenly grace, to obtain grace to help in every time of need.

Another thing I cannot leave out, is this — beloved, do see it, do see it — how safe we are! Our soul’s estate was once put in the hands of Adam: he was a fallible man; how unsafe our salvation was then! The salvation of every believer now is in the hand of a man; it is the man Christ Jesus! But what a man! Can he fail? Can he sin? Can he fall? O no, beloved, for the deity is in intimate union with the manhood, and the man Christ Jesus, since he can never sin, can never fall, and is therefore a sure foundation for the perpetual salvation of all the elect. When the angels were all in heaven, before the fall of Satan, methinks they could never be perfectly happy, because they knew that if they sinned they would perish, and this surely would mar their bliss, because there was a fear of their losing all their glory; but, beloved, our salvation does not rest with ourselves, we may have all the joy of perfect security, because it rests in the hand of one who cannot by any possibility sin, who cannot err, cannot fail, but who standeth fast for ever, from everlasting to everlasting, God.

See then, the comfort and security of God’s people, but indeed there are so many sheaves in this field of incarnation that I cannot possibly unbind them all for you. You must come and pluck an ear or two for yourselves, and rub them in your hands on this Sabbath day, that your hunger may be relieved.

Beloved, do you not see that here is your adoption? You become sons of God, because Christ becomes a son of man. Do you not perceive that here is your acceptance? The man, Christ, is accepted, and you, since he stands for you, are accepted in him. Nay, there is not a mercy in the covenant, there is not a single stream of blessing which flows to the believer, that does not spring from the fact that Christ is to be called the “holy child Jesus,” being most certainly and properly a man. Thus much, then, upon the first point.

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Sermon no. 545 – Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Vol. 9.

Courtesy of Chapel Library