A Sermon Delivered On Sunday Morning, December 26, 1875, By C. H. Spurgeon, At The Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington.
They shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, “God with us.” [Mt 1:23]
1. Those words, “being interpreted,” greet my ear with much sweetness. Why should the word “Emmanuel” in the Hebrew, be interpreted at all? Was it not to show that it has reference to us Gentiles, and therefore it must needs be interpreted into one of the chief languages of the then existing Gentile world, namely, the Greek. This “being interpreted” at Christ’s birth, and the three languages employed in the inscription upon the cross at his death, show that he is not the Saviour of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles. As I walked along the dock at Marseilles, and had seen the ships of all nations gathered in the port, I was very much interested by the inscriptions upon the shops and stores. The announcements of refreshments or of goods to be had within were not only printed in the French language, but in English, in Italian, in German, in Greek, sometimes in Russian and Swedish. Upon the shops of the sail makers, the boat builders, the hardware merchants, or the dealers in ship supplies, you read a multi-language announcement, describing the information for men of many lands. This was a clear indication that people of all nations were invited to come and purchase, that they were expected to come, and that provision was made for their particular needs. “Being interpreted” must mean that different nations are addressed. We have the text put first in the Hebrew “Emmanuel,” and afterwards it is translated into the Gentile tongue, “God with us”; “being interpreted,” that we may know that we are invited, that we are welcome, that God has seen our needs and has provided for us, and that now we may freely come, even we who were sinners of the Gentiles, and far off from God. Let us preserve with reverent love both forms of the precious name and await the happy day when our Hebrew brethren shall unite their “Emmanuel” with our “God with us.”
2. Our text speaks of a name of our Lord Jesus. It is said, “They shall call his name Emmanuel.” In these days we call children by names which have no particular meaning. They are the names, perhaps, of father or mother or some respected relative, but there is no special meaning as a general rule in our children’s names. It was not so in the olden times. Then names meant something. Scriptural names, as a general rule, contain teaching, and this is especially the case in every name ascribed to the Lord Jesus. With him names indicate things. “His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace,” because he really is all these. His name is called Jesus, but not without a reason. By any other name Jesus would not be so sweet, because no other name could accurately describe his great work of saving his people from their sins. When he is said to be called this or that, it means that he really is so. I am not aware that anywhere else in the New Testament our Lord is called Emmanuel. I do not find his apostles, or any of his disciples, calling him by that name literally; but we find them all doing so in effect, for they speak of him as “God revealed in the flesh,” and they say, “The word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” They do not use the actual word, but they again interpret and give us free and instructive renderings, while they proclaim the sense of the august title and inform us in various ways what is meant by God being with us in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a glorious fact, of the highest importance, that since Christ was born into the world God is with us.
3. You may divide the text, if
you please, into two portions: — “GOD,” and then “God
WITH US.” We must dwell with equal emphasis upon each
word. Never let us for a moment hesitate concerning the
Godhead of our Lord Jesus Christ, for his deity is a
fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith. It may be
we shall never understand fully how God and man could
unite in one person, for who can by searching comprehend
God. These great mysteries of godliness, these “deep
things of God,” are beyond our measurement: our little
skiff might be lost if we ventured so far out upon this
vast, this infinite ocean, as to lose sight of the shore
of plainly revealed truth. But let it remain as a matter
of faith that Jesus Christ, even he who lay in
Bethlehem’s manger, and was carried in a woman’s arms,
and lived a suffering life and died on a malefactor’s
cross, was, nevertheless, “God over all, blessed for
ever,” “upholding all things by the word of his power.”
He was not an angel — that the apostle has abundantly
disproved in the first and second chapters of the
epistle to the Hebrews: he could not have been an angel,
for honours are ascribed to him which were never
bestowed on angels. He was no subordinate deity or being
elevated to the Godhead, as some have absurdly said —
all these things are dreams and falsehoods; he was as
surely God as God can be, one with the Father and the
ever blessed Spirit. If it were not so, not only would
the great strength of our hope be gone, but the
sweetness would have evaporated altogether from this
text. The very essence and glory of the incarnation is
that he was God who was veiled in human flesh: if it was
any other being who thus came to us in human flesh, I
see nothing very remarkable in it, certainly nothing
comforting. That an angel should become a man is a
matter of no great consequence to me: that some other
superior being should assume the nature of man brings no
joy to my heart, and opens no well of consolation for
me. But “God with us” is an exquisite delight. “GOD with
us”: all that “God” means, the Deity, the infinite
Jehovah with us; this, this is worthy of the burst of
midnight song, when angels startled the shepherds with
their carols, singing “Glory to God in the highest, and
on earth peace, good will to men.” This was worthy of
the foresight of seers and prophets, worthy of a new
star in the heavens, worthy of the care which
inspiration has revealed to preserve the record. This,
too, was worthy of the martyr deaths of apostles and
confessors who did not count their lives dear to them
for the sake of the incarnate God; and this, my
brethren, is worthy at this day of your most earnest
endeavours to spread the glad tidings, worthy of a holy
life to illustrate its blessed influences, and worthy of
a joyful death to prove its consoling power. Here is the
first truth of our holy faith — “Without controversy
great is the mystery of godliness, God was revealed in
the flesh.” He who was born at Bethlehem is God, and
“God with us.” God — there lies the majesty; “God with
us,” there lies the mercy. God — there lies the
glory; “God with us,” there lies the grace. God
alone might well strike us with terror; but “God with
us” inspires us with hope and confidence. Take my text
as a whole, and carry it in your hearts as a bundle of
sweet spices to perfume your hearts with peace and joy.
May the Holy Spirit open to you the truth, and the truth
to you. I would joyfully say to you in the words of one
of our poets —
Veil’d in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail the incarnate Deity!
Pleased as man with men to appear,
Jesus our Emmanuel here.
4. First, let us admire this truth; then let us consider it more at length; and after that let us endeavour personally to appropriate it.
5. I. LET US ADMIRE THIS TRUTH. “God with us.” Let us stand at a reverent distance from it as Moses when he saw God in the bush stood back a little, and took off his shoes from his feet, feeling that the place where he stood was holy ground. This is a wonderful fact, God the Infinite once dwelt in the frail body of a child, and tabernacled in the suffering form of a lowly man. “God was in Christ.” “He made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.”
6. Observe first, the wonder of condescension contained in this fact, that God who made all things should assume the nature of one of his own creatures, that the self-existent should be united with the dependent and derived, and the Almighty linked with the feeble and mortal. In the case before us the Lord descended to the very depths of humiliation, and entered into alliance with a nature which did not occupy the chief place in the scale of existence. It would have been great condescension for the infinite and incomprehensible Jehovah to have taken upon himself the nature of some noble spiritual being, such as a seraph or a cherub; the union of the divine with a created spirit would have been an unmeasurable stoop, for God to be one with man is far more. Remember that in the person of Christ manhood was not merely a quickening spirit, but also suffering, hungering, dying, flesh and blood. There was taken to himself by our Lord all that material which makes up a body, and a body is after all only the dust of the earth, a structure fashioned from the materials around us. There is nothing in our bodily frame except what is to be found in the substance of the earth where we live. We feed upon what grows out of the earth, and when we die we go back to the dust from where we were taken. Is this not a strange thing that this grosser part of creation, this baser part, this dust, should nevertheless be taken into union, with that pure, marvellous, incomprehensible, divine being of whom we know so little, and can comprehend nothing at all? Oh, the condescension of it! I leave it to the meditations of your quiet moments. Dwell on it with awe. I am persuaded that no man has any idea how wonderful a stoop it was for God to dwell in human flesh, and to be “God with us.”
7. Yet, to make it appear still more remarkable, remember that the creature whose nature Christ took was a being that had sinned. I can more readily conceive the Lord’s taking upon himself the nature of a race which had never fallen; but, lo, the race of man stood in rebellion against God, and yet Christ became a man so that he might deliver us from the consequences of our rebellion, and lift us up to something higher than our pristine purity. “God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, has condemned sin in the flesh.” “Oh, the depths,” is all that we can say, as we look on and marvel at this stoop of divine love.
8. Notice, next, as you view this marvel at a distance, what a miracle of power is before us. Have you ever thought of the power displayed in the Lord’s fashioning a body capable of union with the Godhead? Our Lord was incarnate in a body, which was truly a human body, but yet in some wondrous way was prepared to sustain the indwelling of Deity. Contact with God is terrible; “He looks on the earth and it trembles; he touches the hills and they smoke.” He puts his feet on Paran, and it melts, and Sinai dissolves in flames of fire. So strongly was this truth ingrained into the minds of the early saints, that they said, “No man can see God’s face and live”; and yet here was a manhood which did not merely see the face of God, but which was inhabited by Deity. What a human frame was this which could abide the presence of Jehovah! “You have prepared a body for me.” This was indeed a body curiously constructed, a holy thing, a special product of the Holy Spirit’s power. It was a body like our own, with nerves as sensitive, and muscles as readily strained, with every organisation as delicately fashioned as our own, and yet God was in it. It was a frail barque to bear such a freight. Oh, man Christ, how could you bear the Deity within you! We do not know how it was, but God knows. Let us adore this hiding of the Almighty in human weakness, this comprehending of the Incomprehensible, this revealing of the Invisible, this localisation of the Omnipresent. Alas, I can only babble! What are words when we deal with such an unutterable truth? Suffice it to say, that the divine power was wonderfully seen in the continued existence of the materials of Christ’s body, which otherwise would have been consumed by such a wondrous contact with divinity. Admire the power which dwelt in “God with us.”
9. Again, as you gaze upon the mystery, consider what a sign of good will this must be to the sons of men. When the Lord takes manhood into union with himself in this matchless way it must mean good to man. God cannot intend to destroy that race which he thus weds to himself. Such a marriage as this, between man and God, must mean peace; war and destruction are never thus predicted. God incarnate in Bethlehem, to be adored by shepherds, only augurs “peace on earth and mercy mild.” Oh you sinners who tremble at the thought of the divine wrath, as well you may, lift up your heads with joyful hope of mercy and favour, for God must be full of grace and mercy towards that race which he so distinguishes above all others by taking it into union with himself. Be of good cheer, oh men of women born, and expect untold blessings for “to us a child is born, to us a Son is given.” If you look at rivers you can often tell where they come from, and the soil over which they have flowed by their colour: those which flow from melting glaciers are known at once. There is a text concerning a heavenly river which you will understand if you look at it in this light: “He showed me a pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God, and of the Lamb.” Where the throne is occupied by Godhead, and the appointed Mediator, the incarnate God, the once bleeding Lamb, then the river must be pure as crystal, and be a river, not of molten lava of devouring wrath, but a river of the water of life. Look to “God with us” and you will see that the consequences of incarnation must be pleasant, profitable, saving, and ennobling to the sons of men.
10. I urge you to continue your admiring glance, and look upon God with us once more as a pledge of our deliverance. We are a fallen race, we are sunken in the mire, we are sold under sin, in bondage and in slavery to Satan; but if God comes to our race, and espouses its nature, why then we must recover from our fall, it cannot be possible for the gates of hell to keep those down who have God with them. Slaves under sin and bondsmen beneath the law, listen to the trump of jubilee, for one has come among you, born of a woman, made under the law, who is also mighty God, pledged to set you free. He is a Saviour, and a great one: able to save, for he is Almighty, and pledged to do it, for he has entered the fray and put on the harness for the battle. The champion of his people is one who will not fail nor be discouraged until the battle is fully fought and won. Jesus coming down from heaven is the pledge that he will take his people up to heaven, his taking our nature is the seal of our being lifted up to his throne. If it were an angel who had interposed, we might have some fears; if it were a mere man, we might go beyond fear, and sit down in despair; but if it is “God with us,” and God has actually taken manhood into union with himself, then let us “ring the bells of heaven” and be glad; there must be brighter and happier days, there must be salvation for man, there must be glory to God. Let us bask in the beams of the Sun of Righteousness, who now has risen upon us, a light to enlighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory of his people Israel.
11. Thus we have admired at a distance.
12. II. And, now, in the second place, let us come nearer and CONSIDER THE SUBJECT MORE CLOSELY. What is this? What does this mean, “God with us?” I do not expect this morning to be able explain all the meaning of this short text, “God with us,” for indeed, it seems to me to contain the whole history of redemption. It hints at man’s being without God, and God’s having left man on account of sin. It seems to tell me of man’s spiritual life, by Christ’s coming to him, and being formed in him the hope of glory. God communes with man, and man returns to God, and receives again the divine image as at the first. Yes, heaven itself is “God with us.” This text might serve for a hundred sermons without any straining; yes, one might continue to expound upon its various meanings for ever. I can only at this time give mere hints of lines of thought which you can pursue at your leisure, the Holy Spirit enabling you.
13. This glorious word Emmanuel
means, first, that God in Christ is with us in very
close association. The Greek particle here used is
very forcible, and expresses the strongest form of “with.”
It is not merely “in company with us” as another Greek
word would indicate, but “with,” “together with,” and
“sharing with.” This preposition is a close rivet, a
firm bond, implying, if not declaring, close fellowship.
God is particularly and closely “with us.” Now, think
for a while, and you will see that God has in very deed
come near to us in very close association. He must have
done so, for he has taken upon himself our nature,
literally our nature, — flesh, blood, bone, everything
that made a body; mind, heart, soul, memory,
imagination, judgment, everything that makes a rational
man. Christ Jesus was the man of men, the second Adam,
the model representative man. Do not think of him as
a deified man any more than you would dare to regard him
as a humanized God, or demigod. Do not confound the
natures nor divide the Person: he is only one person,
yet very man as he is also very God. Think of this
truth then, and say, “He who sits on the throne is such
as I am, sin alone excepted.” No, it is too much for
speech, I will not speak of it; it is a theme which
masters me, and I fear to utter rash expressions. Turn
the truth over and over, and see if it is not sweeter
than honey and the honeycomb.
Oh joy! there sitteth in our flesh,
Upon a throne of light,
One of a human mother born,
In perfect Godhead bright!
14. Being with us in our
nature, God was with us in all our life’s pilgrimage.
Scarcely can you find a halting place in the march of
life at which Jesus has not paused, or a weary league
which he has not traversed. From the gate of entrance
even to the door which closes life’s way the footprints
of Jesus may be traced. Were you in the cradle? He was
there. Were you a child under parental authority? Christ
was also a boy in the home at Nazareth. Have you entered
upon life’s battle? Your Lord and Master did the same;
and though he did not live to old age, yet through
incessant toil and suffering he bore the marred visage
which attends a battered old age. Are you alone? So was
he, in the wilderness, and on the mountain’s side, and
in the garden’s gloom. Do you mix in public society? So
did he labour in the thickest crowd. Where can you find
yourself, on the hilltop, or in the valley, on the land
or on the sea, in the daylight or in darkness, — where,
I say, can you be without discovering that Jesus has
been there before you? What the world has said of her
great poet we might with far more truth say of our
Redeemer —
A man so various that he seemed to be
Not one, but all mankind’s epitome.
He was one harmonious man, and yet all saintly lives seem to be condensed in his. Two believers may be very unlike each other, and yet both will find that Christ’s life has in it points of likeness to their own. One shall be rich and another shall be poor, one actively laborious and another patiently suffering, and yet each man in studying the history of the Saviour shall be able to say — his pathway ran close by my own. He was made in all points like his brethren. How charming is the fact that our Lord is “God with us,” not here and there, and now and then, but for evermore.
15. Especially this comes out with sweetness in his being “God with us” in our sorrows. There is no pang that rends the heart, I might almost say not one which disturbs the body, but what Jesus Christ has been with us in it all. Do you feel the sorrows of poverty? He “had nowhere to lay his head.” Do you endure the griefs of bereavement? Jesus “wept” at the tomb of Lazarus. Have you been slandered for righteousness’ sake, and has it vexed your spirit? He said “Reproach has broken my heart.” Have you been betrayed? Do not forget that he too had his familiar friend, who sold him for the price of a slave. On what stormy seas have you been tossed which have not also roared around his boat? There never was a glen of adversity so dark, so deep, apparently so pathless, that in stooping down you may discover the footprints of the Crucified One. In the fires and in the rivers, in the cold night and under the burning sun, he cries, “I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am both your companion and your God.”
16. It is mysteriously true that when you and I shall come to the last, the closing scene, we shall find that Emmanuel has been there. He felt the pangs and throes of death, he endured the bloody sweat of agony and the parching thirst of fever. He knew the separation of the tortured spirit from the poor fainting flesh, and cried, as we shall, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Indeed, and he knew the grave, for there he slept, and left the sepulchre perfumed and furnished to be a couch of rest, and not a grave of corruption. That new tomb in the garden makes him God with us until the resurrection shall call us from our beds of clay to find him God with us in newness of life. We shall be raised up in his likeness, and the first sight our opening eyes shall see shall be the incarnate God. “I know that my Redeemer lives, and after my skin is destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God.” “God with us.” I in my flesh shall see him as the man, the God. And so for all eternity he will maintain the most intimate association with us. As long as ages roll he shall be “God with us.” Has he not said, “Because I live you shall live also?” Both his human and divine life will last on for ever, and so shall our life endure. He shall dwell among and lead us to living fountains of waters, and so we shall be for ever with the Lord.
17. Now, my brethren, if you will review these thoughts, you shall find a good supply of food; in fact, a feast even under that one point. God, in Christ is with us in the closest possible association.
18. But, secondly, God in
Christ is with us in the fullest reconciliation.
This, of course, is true, if the former is true. There
was a time when we were separated from God; we were
without God, being alienated from him by wicked works,
and God also was removed from us by reason of the
natural righteousness of character which thrusts
iniquity far from him. He is of purer eyes than to
behold iniquity, neither can evil dwell with him. That
strict justice with which he rules the world requires
that he should hide his face from a sinful generation.
The God who looks with complacency upon guilty men is
not the God of the Bible, who is in numerous places
described as burning with indignation against the
wicked. “His soul hates the wicked and him who loves
violence.” But, now the sin which separated us from God
has been put away by the blessed sacrifice of Christ
upon the tree, and the righteousness, the absence of
which must have caused a gulf between unrighteous man
and righteous God, that righteousness, I say, has been
found, for Jesus has brought in everlasting
righteousness. So that now in Jesus God is with us,
reconciled to us, the sin which caused his wrath being
put away for ever from his people. There are some who
object to this view of the case, and I, for one, will
not yield one jot to their objections. I do not wonder
that they object to certain unwise statements, which I
like no better than they do; but, nevertheless, if they
oppose the atonement as making a payment to injured
justice, their objections shall have no force with me.
It is most true that God is always love, but his stern
justice is not opposed to it. It is also most certainly
true that towards his people he always was, in the
highest sense, love, and the atonement is the result and
not the cause of divine love; yet, still viewed in his
righteous character, as a judge and lawgiver, God is
“angry with the wicked every day,” and apart from the
reconciling sacrifice of Christ, his own people were
“heirs of wrath even as others.” There was anger in the
heart of God, as a righteous judge, against those who
have broken his holy law, and the reconciliation has a
bearing upon the position of the judge of all the earth
as well as upon man. I for one shall never cease to say,
“Oh Lord, I will praise you, for though you were angry
with me, your anger is turned away, and you comfort me.”
God can now be with man, and embrace sinners as his
children, as he could not have righteously done had
Jesus not died. In this sense, and in this sense only,
did Dr. Watts write some of his hymns which have been so
fiercely condemned. I take leave to quote two verses,
and to commend them as illustrating a great truth if the
Lord is viewed as a judge, and represented as the
awakened conscience of man rightly perceives him. Our
poet says of the throne of God:
Once ’twas the seat of dreadful wrath,
And shot devouring flame;
Our God appeared, consuming fire,
And vengeance was his name.
Rich were the drops of Jesus’ blood,
Which calmed his frowning face,
Which sprinkled o’er the burning throne,
And turn’d the wrath to grace.
So that now Jehovah is not God against us, but “God with us,” he has “reconciled us to himself by the death of his Son.”
19. A third meaning of the text “God with us” is this, God in Christ is with us in blessed communication. That is to say, now he has come so near to us as to enter into communion with us, and this he does in part by hallowed conversation. Now he speaks to us and in us. He has in these last days spoken to us by his Son and by the Divine Spirit with the still small voice of warning, consolation, instruction, and direction. Are you not conscious of this? Since your souls have come to know Christ, have you not also enjoyed communion with the Most High? Now, like Enoch, you “walk with God,” and, like Abraham, you talk with him as a man talks with his friend. What are those prayers and praises of yours except the speech which you are permitted to have with the Most High; and he replies to you when his Spirit seals home the promise or applies the precept, when with fresh light he leads you into the doctrine or bestows brighter confidence concerning good things to come. Oh yes, God is with us now, so that when he cries, “Seek my face” our heart says to him, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.” These Sunday gatherings, what do they mean to many of us except “God with us.” That communion table, what does it mean except “God with us?” Oh, how often in the breaking of bread and the pouring out of the wine in the memory of his atoning death have we enjoyed his real presence, not in a superstitious, but in a spiritual sense, and found the Lord Jesus to be “God with us.” Yes, in every holy ordinance, in every sacred act of worship, we now find that there is a door opened in heaven and a new and living way by which we may come to the throne of grace. Is this not a joy better than all the riches of earth could buy?
20. And it is not merely in speech that the Lord is with us, but God is with us now by powerful acts as well as words. “God with us,” why it is the inscription upon our royal standard which strikes terror to the heart of the foe, and cheers the sacramental host of God’s elect. Is this not our war cry, “The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge.” Concerning our foes within, God is with us to overcome our corruptions and frailties; and concerning the adversaries of truth without, God is with his church, and Christ has promised that he will always be with her “even to the end of the world.” We do not have merely God’s word and promises, but we have seen his acts of grace on our behalf, both in Providence and in the working of his blessed Spirit. “The Lord has made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the people.” “In Judah God is known: his name is great in Israel. His tabernacle is also in Salem, and his dwelling place in Zion. There he broke the arrows of the bow, the shield, and the sword, and the battle.” “God with us” — oh, my brethren, it makes our hearts leap for joy, it fills us with dauntless courage. How can we be dismayed when the Lord of hosts is on our side?
21. Nor is it merely that God is with us in acts of power on our behalf, but in emanations of his own life into our nature by which we are at first born anew, and afterwards sustained in spiritual life. This is even more wonderful. By the Holy Spirit the divine seed which “lives and abides for ever” is sown in our souls, and from day to day we are strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man.
22. Nor is this all, for as the masterpiece of grace, the Lord, by his Spirit, even dwells in his people. God is not incarnate in us as in Christ Jesus, but only second in wonder to the incarnation is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in believers. Now it is “God with us” indeed, for God dwells in us. “Do you not know,” says the apostle, “that your bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit?” “As it is written, ‘I will dwell in them, and I will walk in them.’ ” Oh, the heights and depths then comprehended in those few words, “God with us.”
23. I had many more things to say to you, but time compels me to sum them up in brief. The Lord becomes “God with us” by the restoration of his image in us. “God with us” was seen in Adam when he was perfectly pure, but Adam died when he sinned, and God is not the God of the dead but of the living. Now we, in receiving back the new life and being reconciled to God in Christ Jesus, receive also the restored image of God, and are renewed in knowledge and true holiness. “God with us” means sanctification, the image of Jesus Christ imprinted upon all his brethren.
24. God is with us, too, let us remember, and leave the point, in deepest sympathy. Brethren, are you in sorrow? God is in Christ sympathetic to your grief. Brethren, do you have a grand goal? I know what it is, it is God’s glory; in it also you are sympathetic with God, and God with you. What, let me enquire, is your greatest joy? Have you not learned to rejoice in the Lord? Do you not rejoice in God by Jesus Christ? Then God also rejoices in you. He rests in his love, and rejoices over you with singing, so that there is God with us in a very wonderful respect, inasmuch as through Christ our aims and desires are like those of God. We desire the same thing, press forward with the same aim, and rejoice in the same objects of delight. When the Lord says, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” our heart answers, “Indeed, and in him we are well pleased too.” The pleasure of the Father is the pleasure of his own chosen children, for we also rejoice in Christ; our very soul exalts at the sound of his name.
25. III. I must leave this delightful theme when I have said two or three things about OUR PERSONAL APPROPRIATION of the truth before us.
26. “God with us.” Then, if Jesus Christ is “God with us,” let us come to God without any question or hesitancy. Whoever you may be you need no priest or intercessor to introduce you to God, for God has introduced himself to you. Are you children? Then come to God in the child Jesus, who slept in Bethlehem’s manger. Oh, you grey heads you need not stay back, but like Simeon come and take him in your arms, and say, “Lord, now let your servant depart in peace according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation.” God sends an ambassador who inspires no fear: not with helmet and coat of mail, bearing lance, does heaven’s herald approach us, but the white flag is held in the hand of a child, in the hand of one chosen out of the people, in the hand of one who died, in the hand of one who though he sits in glory still wears the nail print. Oh man, God comes to you as one like yourself. Do not be afraid to come to the gentle Jesus. Do not imagine that you need to be prepared for an audience with him, or that you need the intercession of a saint, or the intervention of a priest or minister. Anyone could have come to the babe in Bethlehem. The horned oxen, I think, ate from the hay on which he slept and had no fear. Jesus is the friend of each one of us, sinful and unworthy though we are. You, poor ones, you need not fear to come, for, see, he is born in a stable, and he is cradled in a manger. You have no worse accommodation than his, you are not poorer than he. Come and welcome to the poor man’s Prince, to the peasants’ Saviour. Do not stay back through fear of your unfitness; the shepherds came to him in all their dishevelment. I do not read that they waited to put on their best clothes, but in the clothes in which they wrapped themselves that cold midnight they hurried just as they were to the young child’s presence. God does not look at clothes, but at hearts, and accepts men when they come to him with willing spirits, whether they are rich or poor. Come, then; come, and welcome, for God indeed is “God with us.”
27. But, oh, let there be no delay about it. It did seem to me, as I thought this subject over yesterday, that for any man to say, “I will not come to God,” after God has come to man in such a form as this, would be an unpardonable act of treason. Perhaps, you did not know God’s love when you sinned, as you did; perhaps, though you persecuted his saints, you did it ignorantly in unbelief; but, behold your God extends the olive branch of peace to you, extends it in a wondrous way, for he himself comes here to be born of a woman, so that he may meet with you who were born of women too, and save you from your sin. Will you not listen now that he speaks by his Son? I can understand that you ask to hear no more of his words when he speaks with the sound of a trumpet, waxing exceedingly loud and long, from amidst the flaming crags of Sinai; I do not wonder that you are afraid to draw near when the earth rocks and reels before his awful presence; but now he restrains himself and veils the splendour of his face, and comes to you as a child of humble demeanour, a carpenter’s son. Oh, if he comes like that, will you turn your backs upon him? Can you spurn him? What better ambassador could you desire? This embassy of peace is so tenderly, so gently, so kindly, so touchingly put, that surely you cannot have the heart to resist it. No, do not turn away, do not let your ears refuse the language of his grace, but say, “If God is with us, we will be with him.” Say it, sinner, say, “I will arise and go to my Father and will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned.’ ”
28. And as for you who have given up all hope, you who think yourselves so degraded and fallen that there can be no future for you, — there is hope for you yet, for you are a man, and the next being to God is a man. He who is God is also man, and there is something about that fact which ought to make you say, “Yes, I may still discover, maybe, brotherhood to the Son of man who is the Son of God, I, even I, may yet be lifted up to be set among princes, even the princes of his people, by virtue of my regenerated manhood which brings me into relationship with the manhood of Christ, and so into relationship with the Godhead.” Do not fling yourself away, oh man, you are something too hopeful after all to be food for the worm that never dies, and fuel for the fire that never can be quenched. Turn to your God with full purpose of heart, and you shall find a grand destiny in store for you.
29. And now, my brethren, the
last word to you is, let us be with God since God is
with us. I give you for a watchword through the year to
come, “Emmanuel, God with us.” You, the saints redeemed
by blood, have a right to all this in its fullest sense,
drink it up and be filled with courage. Do not say, “We
can do nothing.” Who are you who can do nothing? God is
with you. Do not say “The church is feeble and fallen
upon evil times,” — no, “God is with us.” We need the
courage of those ancient soldiers who were accustomed to
regard difficulties only as whetstones upon which to
sharpen their swords. I like Alexander’s talk — when
they said there were so many thousands, so many millions
perhaps of Persians. “Very well,” he says, “it is good
reaping where the grain is thick. One butcher is not
afraid of a thousand sheep.” I like even the talk of the
old Gascon, who said when they asked him, “Can you and
your troops get into that fortress? it is impregnable.”
“Can the sun enter it?” he said. “Yes.” “Well, where the
sun can go we can enter.” Whatever is possible or
whatever is impossible, Christians can do at God’s
command, for God is with us. Do you not see that the
word, “God with us,” puts impossibility out of all
existence? Hearts that never could otherwise be broken
will be broken if God is with us. Errors which could
never otherwise be refuted can be overthrown by “God
with us.” Things impossible with men are possible with
God. John Wesley died with that upon his tongue, and let
us live with it upon our hearts. — “The best of all is
God with us.” Blessed Son of God, we thank you that you
have brought us that word. Amen.
[Portion Of Scripture Read Before Sermon — Heb 1; 2]
[See Spurgeon_Hymnal “Jesus Christ, Deity and
Incarnation — Deity And Humanity Of Our Lord” 249]
[See Spurgeon_Hymnal “Jesus Christ, Deity and
Incarnation — The Angels’ Song” 256]
[See Spurgeon_Hymnal “Jesus Christ, Deity and
Incarnation — Jesus The Son Of Man” 260]
Jesus Christ, Deity and Incarnation
249 — Deity And Humanity Of Our Lord
1 Ere the blue heavens were stretch’d abroad,
From everlasting was the Word:
With God he was; the Word was God,
And must divinely be adored.
2 By his own power were all things made;
By him supported all things stand;
He is the whole creation’s head,
And angels fly at his command.
3 Ere sin was born, or Satan fell,
He led the host of morning stars;
(Thy generation who can tell,
Or count the number of thy years?)
4 But lo! he leaved those heavenly forms,
The Word descends and dwells in clay,
That he may hold converse with worms,
Dress’d in such feeble flesh as they.
5 Mortals with joy beheld his face,
Th’ eternal Father’s only Son;
How full of truth! how full of grace!
When through his eyes the Godhead shone!
6 Archangels leave their high abode
To learn new mysteries here, and tell
The love of our descending God,
The glories of Immanuel.
Isaac Watts, 1709.
Jesus Christ, Deity and Incarnation
256 — The Angels’ Song <7S. />
1 Hark, the herald angels sing,
Glory to the new born King,
“Peace on earth, and mercy mild;
God and sinners reconciled.”
2 Joyful, all ye nations rise,
Join the triumph of the skies;
Hail the Heaven born Prince of Peace
Hail the Sun of Righteousness!
3 Veil’d in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail the incarnate Deity!
Pleased as man with men to appear,
Jesus our Immanuel here.
4 Mild he lays his glory by;
Born, that men no more might die;
Born to raise the sons of earth;
Born, to give them second birth.
5 Come, Desire of Nations, come!
Fix in us thy humble home;
Rise, the woman’s promised Seed,
Bruise in us the serpent’s head.
6 Glory to the new born King!
Let us all the anthem sing,
“Peace on earth, and mercy mild;
God and sinners reconciled.”
Charles Wesley, 1739.
Jesus Christ, Deity and Incarnation
260 — Jesus The Son Of Man
1 It is my sweetest comfort, Lord,
And will for ever be,
To muse upon the gracious truth
Of thy humanity.
2 Oh joy! there sitteth in our flesh,
Upon a throne of light,
One of a human mother born,
In perfect Godhead bright!
3 Though earth’s foundations should be moved,
Down to their lowest deep;
Though all the trembling universe
Into destruction sweep;
4 For ever God, for ever man,
My Jesus shall endure;
And fix’d on him, my hope remains
Eternally secure.
Edward Caswall, 1858.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2013/09/11/god-with-us