“THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH”
January 7, 1900 -
LUKE 2 : 1-16.
“Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their
sins.”-Matt. 1:21.
JESUS is the topic of
the International Sunday School Lesson course for the entire year 1900. It
should be a very profitable study, for the more in-timately we know our dear
Redeemer in the light of the Scriptures the more we shall appreciate him, love
him and seek to copy him. No other life than his could bear so continual and
close a scrutiny, yet always be full of fresh revelations of moral dignity and
character-any other life similarly studied and criticized would reveal its
seamy side of weakness, sin and ignobility.
Of the four records, only John’s attempts to trace our Lord’s genealogy to the
heavenly source, and to show us that before he was made flesh he was a
spirit being with the Father and a sharer of his glory-a god with the
God. But all of the Evangelists are clear in their statement that he was “was
made flesh”-not that he remained a spirit being, and assumed flesh as
clothing in which to appear to men, but, however ex-plainable, that the
life power of the spirit being, the Logos, became the life power of the human
being, born of a woman and under the Law, subject to all the con-ditions and
circumstances of the Jews. Matthew traces Joseph’s genealogy; for although the
statement is clear that Jesus was not the son of Joseph, nevertheless, be-ing
adopted by him as his son, he might, without im-propriety, inherit through
him. Luke shows the genealogy of Mary, by which our Lord was actually related,
according to the flesh, to our race and to the royal family of David through
the line of Nathan.*
The time of our Lord’s birth was an auspicious one in several respects, and
very evidently divine wis-dom had exercised itself in respect to the world’s
af-fairs by way of preparation for this important event: (1) The spirit
of world-conquering that began with Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom was favorable to
it, in the sense that it brought the various families or nations of mankind
into closer contact with each other, broad-ening their ideas. (2) This policy
had resulted in the transplanting of peoples from one land to another, and thus
had made them more cosmopolitan in their senti-ments. (3) Israel and Judah,
thus transplanted in their captivity to Babylon, became so attached to the new
con-ditions that comparatively few of them availed them-selves of the offer of
Cyrus to return to their own land, only about fifty thousand of all the tribes,
out of several millions. The Jews among the Gentiles were by no means lost and
had by no means abandoned all of their hopes in the Abrahamic Covenant nor all
of their faithfulness to the Mosaic Law-although they were lax in these matters
and too full of a love of gain and ease to cultivate the spirit of Israelites
indeed. Neverthe-less, they had their influence amongst all the nations with
whom they dwelt, and were witnesses to the hopes of Israel in the one God and
in a coming Messiah, the Son of God, to be the world’s Deliverer. (4) The
triumph for a time of the Greek Empire had brought to the civilized world a
highly developed literature--the Greek language had reached its zenith, and was
the literary language of the civilized world. (5) The Roman Empire had
conquered the world and was in the height of its power, and as a result there
was a time of universal peace, and hence a more favorable time than any before
for the announcement of the Gospel and for the safety of its representatives in
pass-ing from nation to nation. (6) Israel itself had reached probably its
highest development, intellectually, mor-ally and religiously, and additionally
we are told in the Scriptures that “All men were in expectation” of the
Messiah’s coming.-Luke 3:15.
It was just at this most appropriate time, as di-vinely arranged for, that
Caesar Augustus, the Roman Emperor, issued his decree respecting the taxing of
his worldwide empire. The decree was not merely an assessment of taxes, but
was rather a census, or en-rollment for taxation. But instead of sending
assessors to the people, according to the present custom, the arrangement then
was that every male citizen must report himself at the headquarters of his own
family line. This was the occasion for the coming of Joseph and his espoused
wife, Mary, the mother of Jesus, to Bethlehem, their native city or family
city, for they were both of the house of David (though through differ-ent
lines), and Bethlehem was “the city of David.” Thus in a providential manner
and by a decree over which they had no control whatever, Joseph and Mary were
brought to the very city in which most appropri-ately the great heir of David
should be born, as had been foretold by the prophet.-Micah 5:2.
The noting of these little incidentals by which divine
providence prepared for our Savior’s birth and for the sending forth of the
Gospel message, are strengthening to the faith
of the Lord’s people. Real-izing God’s care in the past over even the little
things, gives a foundation for confidence in his wisdom and provision for the
features of his plan which are yet future-the fulfillment of all the exceeding
great and precious promises which centered in him who was born in Bethlehem.
And so also a realization of the divine providence in the larger affairs of the
divine plan stim-ulates faith also in the Lord’s providences as respects the
personal and more private affairs of His people. Let us more and more
realize that, as even the small-est incidents connected with the birth of our
Savior were ordered of the Lord, so also he is both able and willing to order
all of the affairs of his spiritual chil-dren. Let us reason with the Apostle
that, if God loved us while we were yet sinners, so as to make such careful
provision for our redemption, much more now that we are no longer rebels,
aliens, strangers, for-eigners, but have become his sons, fellow-heirs with
Christ and all the saints, we may have confidence in his love and in his
providential care, that according to his promise all things shall work together
for good to them that love him-to the called ones according to his
pur-pose.-Rom. 5:8-10; 8:28.
The same decree that brought Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem brought many others
of the numerous family of David, and as the inns or hotels of that time were
comparatively limited in numbers and in capaci-ty, it is not surprising that
the inn proper was full of guests when Joseph and Mary arrived. Indeed, it was
rather the custom for many travelers to carry with them their own lodging
outfit, and to provide for their own conveniences in the courtyard connected
with the inns. And hence the experiences of Joseph and Mary were by no means
exceptional. When therefore the Babe Jesus was born, a manger became his most
con-venient cradle.
The city of Bethlehem still exists, and probably is not so dissimilar to what
it was in that day, for in that land customs seem to have changed but little in
centuries. A certain grotto is claimed to be the one which nineteen hundred
years ago was the stable of the inn, and a certain stone manger is shown which,
it is claimed, was the one in which the Babe Jesus was laid. Over this has
been erected a Catholic church, and various ceremonies are continually
performed in and about and connected with “the sacred manger.” With such
ceremonies we can feel little sympathy, be-lieving them to be rather of the
nature of idolatries. To us the center of interest is not the holy ground on
which our Savior trod, nor the holy manger in which he lay as a babe, nor his
holy mother; yea, though we reverence his flesh, and are deeply interested in
all that pertains thereto, especially in all its experiences, from the time of
its consecration to death, at baptism; nevertheless, our still greater interest
is in our risen Lord, the new creature perfected, the spiritual One, far above
manhood, far above angels, principalities and powers and every name that is
named-next to the Father, and exalted to his right hand of power. The Apostle
voices this sentiment well, saying, “Though we have known Christ after the
flesh, yet now hence-forth know we him [so] no more”-our knowledge of him as
the risen and glorified Lord and Savior thoroughly outshines all of our
interest in his earthly life. (2 Cor. 5:16.) And yet his earthly life is
interest-ing and profitable to us, as we have seen and shall see.
Had the people assembled at Bethlehem realized who this was that had come
to their city-that he was from the heavenly courts, that he was the Logos made
flesh, that he had come to “save his people from their sins”-how gladly they
would have welcomed him into the inn and have given to his use and comfort its
choicest apartments! But they knew him not, and hence lost this great privilege
of ministering to him. Similarly, in every city and town where the Lord’s
people are (his true saints), there are many who would make them welcome and
give them the best at their disposal, did they but recognize them as the
messen-gers of Jesus and of the Heavenly Father; but as the Apostle says, “The
world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.” ( 1 John 3:1. ) The disciple
must not expect to be above his Lord, and hence, even when going upon missions
of mercy and benevolence and as ambassadors for God, we should expect that the
Lord’s providence would furnish for us, not the most palatial conditions, but
more probably very humble conditions. And when we find it thus we should
rejoice that to some extent at least we have experiences which har-monize with
those of our Lord. The Lord’s people will obtain a blessing in proportion as
they are pre-pared to receive all opportunities for God’s service as divine
favors and to appreciate them, no matter how humble the conditions: and it is
noteworthy that neither Joseph, nor Mary, nor Jesus, nor the disciples, nor the
Evangelist who recorded the incident, offers the slightest complaint or
suggestion of dissatisfaction with the arrangement provided by divine
providence. In proportion as they would have felt dissatisfied with the arrangements
provided, in that proportion the di-vine plans would not have worked for their
good.
The vicinity of Bethlehem is a pastoral country, and today is covered with
flocks. It was the custom at that time for the shepherds to remain with their
flocks by night as a guard against thieves as well as against wild beasts. It
was in this vicinity that David (afterward king), when a shepherd-boy
protecting his flocks, slew on one occasion a lion and at another time a bear.
The shepherds as a class were not particular-ly well educated people as
respects schools, and yet many of them were thoughtful and thus secured, in
their leisure time while watching their flocks, by re-flection and by
conversation, considerable knowledge, so that they might be termed an intellectual
and thinking class of people-their minds being turned more to re-flection on
large subjects than are the minds of some who are constantly immersed in trade
and mechanics. The shepherd whom God honored in making him king of his typical
kingdom, was a great poet, and evident-ly much of his time while shepherding
was given to the muse, and one of his most beautiful poems (Psalm 23)
represents Jehovah himself as the Shepherd of his people,-his flock, for which
he cares. It was to men of this thoughtful class, and no doubt men familiar
with David’s Psalms, and with the Messianic hopes therein set forth, that the
Lord sent the first message respecting his Son made flesh.
The description of the appearance of an angel, and of the fear which the
brightness of his countenance engendered, is both simple and natural. All
mankind more or less feels instinctively a fear of the supernat-ural, a
trepidation at the very thought of being in the presence of the holy angels.
And this is proper as well as natural, for all realize their own imperfections
through the fall, fearing more or less that the results to themselves would be
unfavorable if divine justice were laid to the line and to the plummet in
respect to their affairs. All seem instinctively to realize their need of
mercy at the hands of him with whom we have to do. And so it was with these
shepherds; they were affrighted as they beheld the heavenly visitor in their
midst; but his message was not one of justice nor in any sense of condemnation,
but of divine mercy. He soothed them with the words, “Be not afraid; for
be-hold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be unto all people.”
Can we wonder that joy took the place of fear in their hearts as they heard the
gra-cious words? Surely not. And so it is with all who from that day to the
present time have heard this true Gospel message, not merely with the outward
ears, but truly, with the ears of their understanding-com-prehending it.
How false and how sad has been the understand-ing of this message by many of
God’s people as it has echoed to them down the ages! How few have heard it
gladly, appreciatively! How remarkable that nearly all of the different
churches and their thousands of ministers and hundreds of thousands of Sunday
School teachers should unite in a complete contradiction of this message
of the angels-a contradiction which not only wounds their own sentiments and
grieves their own hearts, but which robs our dear Savior’s mission of
nine-tenths of its majesty, and thoroughly dishonors and maligns the name of
our gracious Heavenly Father by its misrepresentation of the salvation which he
has provided in Christ Jesus.
Some perhaps may be surprised, and even shocked, at such an arraignment
of the message which they and other well-meaning but blinded Christians are
deliver-ing in the name of the gospel-for the word “gospel” is derived from the
words “good tidings.” We are quite ready to believe that the vast majority of
those who promulgate the bad tidings of eternal misery, as being the divine
message and sentence to the vast ma-jority of mankind, are wholly unaware of
how serious-ly they misrepresent the divine character and govern-ment in the
message which they carry to men;-they misstate the Gospel, not of intention,
but of blindness, the very blindness mentioned by the Apostle as origin-ating
with the great Adversary-the blindness by which he blinds the minds of the vast
majority, to hinder them from realizing the glorious light of God’s goodness
re-vealed in Jesus Christ our Lord.-2 Cor. 4:4.
O, if we could only get all true Christians to study this tenth verse of
our lesson, and to see the depths of its significance, it would quickly
revolutionize the teachings of Christendom! But as our Lord declared, some of
the deep things of the divine plan are hidden from many of the wise and prudent
according to the course of this world, and are revealed only to the humble-the
babes. Nevertheless, the testimony of God standeth sure, and all whose
understandings have been opened and who have been enabled to compre-hend some
of the lengths and the breadths, and the heights and the depths of God’s love,
may rejoice that the ignorance of the world in general on this subject and the
opposition of the great Adversary who is blinding them, cannot continue
forever, but must soon give place, when the Lord’s due time shall come;-when he
who died on Calvary for the world’s redemption shall begin his glorious reign
by binding that old serpent, the devil, Satan, that he should deceive the
nations no more for the thousand years of the Millen-nial reign. Then all
shall see out of obscurity; then all shall discern what at present is the
privilege of only the favored few to see, respecting the divine character and
plan-that the message of the angel was true, every word of it-that the grand
results to flow from the birth of the Savior in Bethlehem justified the
mes-sage sent by the great Jehovah,-a good message of great joy which
eventually shall be to all people -whose enlightenment and blessing shall have
no hin-drance, no restriction, and as a result all shall come to a knowledge of
the truth and to an opportunity of availing themselves of the grace, mercy and
peace provided for all in the great salvation secured by the
ransom-sacrifice of our Lord Jesus.
The angel further explained his great Gospel mes-sage, showing its basis, and
declaring that all the good things mentioned should come to pass because the
Savior, Messiah, had been born-the one so long looked for in Israel, the
promised seed of Abraham in whom not only Israel should be blessed and exalted
to honor, dignity and cooperation, but in whom also “all the families of the
earth should be blessed.” And let us here remark that the order of presentation
used by the heavenly messenger, and evidently divinely ordered, is the proper
presentation of this subject which should be adopted by all who seek to be used
of the Lord as his ambassadors in the calling of the elect Church. First,
there is the grand pronouncement of divine favor and blessing, that it is a cause
for joy, and that ultimately it shall extend to every creature; secondly, there
is the specific explanation of how all this is to be accomplished-through a
Savior, a Deliv-erer, who, as stated in our Golden Text, in order to deliver
his people from the wages of sin, death, into eternal life and blessing, must
first of all save them from their sins. And we see from other
Scriptures that this salvation from our sins signifies not only the
payment on our behalf of the penalty for Adamic sin, but also, subsequently,
man’s instruction in righteous-ness and lifting out of sin; in which uplift
each one is required to cooperate to the extent of his will and of his ability.
So all teaching of the grace that is to come to mankind should be coupled
with the philosophy of the salvation-the Savior made flesh and the flesh
de-voted or sacrificed for our sins, and the Savior glori-fied, that in
due time after the selection of his Church he might, with her, according to the
divine plan, es-tablish his Kingdom of righteousness for the uplifting of the
world of mankind out of ignorance, superstition and general degradation into
which the great Adversary has gotten them through the fall and through his
subsequent blinding and misleading. In this connection it is well to remember
that our Lord’s name, Jesus, signifies Savior, and that all who
would be of the elect Church must have the spirit of the Bridegroom (as well as
by faith be covered with the garment of his imputed righteousness): and that
his spirit is one of opposition to sin to the extent of self-sacrifice. We
also are to “resist unto blood [death] striving against sin.”-Heb. 12 :
4.
Then the angel gave the shepherds an intimation of the humble conditions under
which this great King of earth was born into the world-as a babe, wrapped in
swaddling bands and lying in a manger. This was necessary, not only to their
identification of Jesus, but necessary also to bring down their thoughts from
the great and grand results to its humble beginnings, lest they
should be misled in their expectations. And as it is with every part of the
divine plan, so also it should be in respect to all of our proclamations of the
same. We are not only to tell of the future glory and greatness and grandeur,
but we are to tell also of the present humiliation-not only of our Savior who
hum-bled himself to take a low estate amongst men, and to die for our sins, but
also to point out that the “elect” are called to walk in his footsteps, under
similarly hu-miliating circumstances-to suffer with him, if they would reign
with him; to die with him, if they would live with him. And thus also the
prophets spoke not only of the glory that should follow, but also of the
sufferings of Christ (head and body) which must pre-cede the glory. ( 1 Pet. 1:11.
) The lesson to every one who has ears to hear it is, “No cross, no crown.” Let
us, then, humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, and rejoice in every
step of the humilia-tion, that he may exalt us in due time to share the glories
of his Son our Lord, and to share with him the grand work of blessing all the
families of the earth.
It was a fitting climax that, after the one angel had told the surprised
shepherds of the good tidings of great joy for all people and was ready to
depart, he should be joined by an angelic host, singing, “Glory to God in the
highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.” This was but a reiteration
of the Gos-pel message already delivered. It declared that the work which
should be accomplished by the babe just born, should redound to the highest
glory and honor of Jehovah God, his Father. It declared also that through this
work to be accomplished by Jesus should come to earth divine good will and
consequently peace,-and all that these would imply in the way of bless-ings of
restitution and privilege of attaining everlasting life. But how much in
conflict with all this are the er-roneous theories which have gained credence
in Christendom, which teach that, notwithstanding the ransom which our Lord
Jesus gave, and notwithstanding the turning aside of the original sentence upon
our race as the result of the propitiation for our sins accepted by the Father,
the vast majority of the human family will nevertheless, to all eternity, be in
rebellion against God, and in torture will continually blaspheme his
name;-and that without ever having had a full, rea-sonable opportunity to know
the Savior or to accept his salvation. How strange that any should
think that such a plan would be glory to God in the highest!
How strange that any should refuse to see the very plain statement of
the Scripture that God has provided through Christ that every member of the
human fam-ily shall have a full opportunity of coming to a knowl-edge of the
truth, and then of relinquishing sin and of accepting new life of righteousness
under the New Covenant-and that then whoever still refuses and will not submit
himself to this righteous arrangement shall be utterly destroyed from amongst
the people -in the Second Death,-that none will be suffered to live in sin
and opposition to God to blemish any part of God’s dominions, but that
all the incorrigible shall be as though they had not been. In no other way can
we possibly imagine that the time will ever come when there will be full peace
among men. “There is no peace for the wicked, saith my God.”
The only solution which God offers respecting the establishment of peace
is in connection with the estab-lishment of his Kingdom, for which our dear
Redeemer taught us to pray, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it
is done in heaven.” That will mean peace in its fullest and most
absolute sense. The Scriptural proposition does not include the violation of
any man’s will, but merely the offering through Christ of an opportunity for
his everlasting blessing and peace, or his cutting off in the Second
Death if he fails to appreciate the divine offer.
The shepherds having heard of God’s grace mani-fested their interest by
visiting and paying their hom-age to the Savior: and so each one who has heard
of the grace of God with an appreciative heart can do nothing less than seek
the Lord and do him rever-ence and serve his cause by proclaiming the
gracious message with which he has been favored. Let us each do so, and thus
more and more increase in our hearts the joys of the Lord and our appreciation
of his grand gospel.
Respecting the date of Jesus’ birth, we hold that it was about Sept. 25th
to Oct. 1st BC. 1, and that the annunciation (Luke 1:28) was nine months
earlier, namely Dec. 25th BC. 2. The evidences re this
position are given in detail in MILLENNIAL, DAWN, VOL. II, pages 54 - 62.