the mystery of the incarnation.

 1. Let none be offended at the mystery of the incarnation. If we cannot comprehend, let us adore. No fact is more plainly asserted or more amply proved. Let us receive and rest upon it. He who has no heart to praise the incarnate mystery, has none of the spirit of heaven. What a shame it is that the song of angels announcing Christ’s birth “has never been answered by a general shout of gratitude from earth. Only a few faint voices from the low places of the earth have responded to the loud concert of angels.” O that must be a bad heart which loves not the Saviour. Many hear of his love with hearts colder than marble. Such hearts cannot be right in the sight of God. No heart is good that loves not goodness incarnate. If Christ’s incarnation has its mysteriousness, it yet is the only doctrine that enables us to unlock every text of Scripture relating to his person. It admits that, as God, he made the worlds; as a child, he grew in stature; as a man, he was sorrowful; as Mediator and in a low condition, he said, “The Father is greater than I;” and as God-man, he stands between Jehovah and us. Let us humbly and piously receive this doctrine; for as the Athanasian Creed says, “It is necessary to everlasting salvation, that we believe rightly the incarnation of Jesus Christ.” 2. Salvation is clearly and wholly of the Lord. The devising of the scheme is as clearly divine as the execution and application. Human wit, and wisdom, and strength, and merit are nothing in such a work. “Boasting is excluded by the law of faith.” We are nothing; we can do nothing; we deserve nothing. Our Lord has won the crown, and he shall wear it. It is his of right; it shall be his in fact. 3. Let us give God his own time. He knows what is best. He took four thousand years to prepare the way for the coming of the Redeemer. With the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. We are no judges of what is best or wisest. There is as much wisdom in saying, “When thou wilt,” as in saying, “What thou wilt,” or “How thou wilt.” 4. If any ask, Are we bound to celebrate the birth of Christ on any given day of the year? the answer is, God has given no such command, and he is sole Lawgiver in his church. There is no proof that for centuries the primitive church had any such observance. When such a day was at length observed, many churches fixed on the sixth day of January. Many learned men contend that Christ was born in October. Some think he was born in May. It seems certain that the Roman emperor would not require women as well as men to take long journeys in the depths of winter, and that shepherds would not then be watching their flocks in the open air. (Compare Matthew 24:20 and Mark 13:18). But if any man observe a day in honour of our Lord’s nativity, let him keep it unto the Lord. “One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.” (Romans 14:5). It is, however, a significant fact, that God has concealed from us any positive knowledge of the day, the month, and even the year of our Saviour’s birth.W S Plumer