HH O w n O liriá tm ció 1ÍÍ/ ] í eáóaae Donald Grey Barnhouse*
O H, the delights of living in a . household where a baby is learning to talk! What music there is' in all that little prattling! How the fond parents and the older children hang on the sounds that are made, imitating them, correcting them, seeking to guide the learning tongue and' impress the growing mind. The baby Jesus was born into the world nineteen centuries ago. He was different from any other baby that has ever been born before or since th#t' day. All other children, born of human father and mother, have had nothing more than the nor mal development of a child of the human race. This baby Jesus had that and more. He had the nature of mankind, yet ’ not the fallen nature of sin. He was and He was not like other men. So He was and He was not like other babies. . ih e Bible tells us that “ Jesus in creased in wisdom and- in stature, and in favour with God and man” (Luke 2:52). So we may conclude
subject of the incarnation of our Lord which is to be found outside of the four Gospels. Throughout the Old Testament there are prophecies which apply to His coming to earth, and in the epistles there are statements made concerning the pur pose of His coming.
that those infant lips learned the human speech of His mother. But on the other hand, we must never forget that this baby was “ the Lord from heaven” (1 Cor. 15:47). At the moment that He was super- naturally conceived in the womb of the virgin, He was none other than the Second Person of the Godhead, the Lord Jehovah of Hosts. It is, of course, utterly wrong to call Mary the mother of God. She had nothing to do with His Godhead, although she is honored among all women and de serves the highest thought and re spect from every Christian heart. It was her privilege to feed that grow ing body which lay under her heart, and her very lifeblood ran through His veins, but she was not the mother of His Godhead. She called Him her own personal Saviour from sin. “My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Sav iour” (Luke 1:46, 47). Each year we read through the Christmas story and forget, at times, that there is much material on the
It is in the epistle to the Hebrews that we find recorded a tremendous event that took place at the time of the incarnation. We find the record of one of those great conversations between the Father and the Son. There are many of them to be found through out the Bible, these dialogues of God; but this one in the tenth chapter of Hebrews is of particular interest to us at this Christmas time because it records the words that the Lord Je sus Christ spoke to the Father at the time of His entrance into the world. Whether the words were spo ken at the moment when the Holy Spirit overshadowed the virgin and created that supernatural life within her, or whether these words were spoken on the day when Mary brought * Pastor of the Tenth Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia, Pa.
"And . . . came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth."
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