December, 1933
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
416
"If Christ to His throne had not bidden farewell, Sad indeed were the tolling of life’s passing bell; If Christ on the cross had not suffered and died, Dari; indeed were the passage of death's somber tide. If Christ from the grave had in triumph not risen, Bleak, indeed were the dungeons of that dreadful prison; If Christ were not living and pleading on high, Death indeed were our doom , death that never may die.
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B y H. A. IRONSIDE* Chicago, Illinois
C/j-fciS i n
true human body, the earthly vessel in which the heavenly One took up His abode, in order that He might be slain for our sins. All this is involved in the fact o f incarnation. But though a true Man, He was a sinless Man, and not only sinless in thought and act, but impec cable; because, being as truly God as Man, it is unthinkable that He could in His humanity do that, under any circumstances, which was repugnant to His Godhead, and God cannot sin. Thus He ful filled the types of o ld ; He was the unblemished, spotless Lamb; like the unyoked heifer, He never came under the yoke of sin. He was as pure within as He was without, thus answering to the burnt, offering which had to be laid open and examined in every part, and could only be presented to God if found inwardly perfect. In order that this might be so, He could not come into the world through the process o f natural generation, for this would have made Him heir to all the fearful entailment o f sin and infirmity, which characterized the human race as proceeding from fallen Adam. He was conceived of the Holy Spirit, a. distinct creation in the womb of the vir gin, and thus He entered this world through the portals of birth, but as the Second Man, the Lord from heaven. Herein lies the importance of the doc trine o f the virgin birth, which some today insist has no real bearing upon the question o f His saviour- hood. But His incarnation must be sinless and im peccable, or He could not be the Saviour o f sinjf' ners. If there were within Him the least evil or tendency to evil, He must needs have a Saviour for Himself, and He could not stand in the breach for us. We speak of His sinless incarnation. On the other hand, it is quite inaccurate to apply the term “ the immaculate conception” to this wondrous mystery. This latter term is used very loosely by many Protestants who fail to realize, or forget if they ever knew, that it is the name given by the Roman Catholic church to the Romish doctrine of the sinless, yet natural conception o f the blessed virgin Mary. No such term is ever used in the Bible, nor does such a term belong in Protestant theology in connection with the sinless incarna tion o f our Lord Jesus Christ.
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he above lines were written by a poor un fortunate, a drug addict, who stumbled into a Sal vation Army hall years ago and came to Christ. It is evident that the Spirit o f God gave him a very vivid appreciation o f four aspects o f the work of our Lord Jesus Christ, upon which Scripture bases four great truths. Upon these I desire to meditate a little at this holiday season, hoping that both writer and readers may thus enter more fully into the completeness of the divine scheme o f re demption. Incarnation _ > Think, first, o f incarnation. The word itself implies a supernatural Being linking Himself with humanity, and this o f course is what actually took place when the eternal Son of God became Man in the fullness of time. Incarnation means more than the mere assumption of a human body. In Scrip ture, we are told, “ The Word became flesh and dwelt [tabernacled] among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as o f the only begotten o f the Father), full of grace and truth” (John 1:14, R .V .). The two changes from the Authorized .Version, which are embodied in the Revised, are, as every student of the original knows, fully war ranted. He was not “ made” anything. He “ be came flesh.” It was a voluntary act on His part. He who subsisted from all eternity in the form of God, who thought it not robbery to be equal with God, emptied Himself o f the outward semblance o f deity, and took upon Him the form of a bond- man ; having come in the likeness o f men, and be ing thus habited as a Man, He humbled Himself still lower, becoming obedient unto death, and such a death—-that of the cross. In doing this, He linked deity with humanity in such a way that He did not cease in any sense to be God, while He became, nevertheless, in the fullest possible sense, Man. He had a true human spirit. “ He groaned in the spirit, and was troubled,” we are told, and on the cross He exclaimed, “ Father, into thy hands I com mend my spirit.” W e hear Him saying, “ Now is my soul troubled,” and we read that He “ poured out his soul unto death.” His body was in no sense a phantom, as some taught in early days, but a *Pastor, Moody Memorial Church shown above.
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