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Pacific Press Publishing Company · New York · June 7, 1894

But the Scripture does not stop even yet with the statement of this all-important truth. It says further: “For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted.” “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” Heb. 4:15. Being made in his human nature, in all things like as we are, he could be, and was, tempted in all points like as we are.

As in his human nature he is one with us, and as “himself took our infirmities” (Matt. 8: 17), so he could be “touched with the feeling of our infirmities.” He felt just as we feel and knows all about it, and so can help and save to the uttermost all who will receive him. As in his flesh, and as in himself in the flesh, he was as weak as we are, and of himself could “do nothing” (John 5: 31), when he “bore our griefs and carried our sorrows” (Isa. 53: 4), and was tempted as we are, feeling as we feel, by his divine faith he conquered all by the power of God which that faith brought to him and which in our flesh he has brought to us.

And thus “what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh” did. The law could not bring us to God, nor could it find in the flesh the righteousness which it must have, because the flesh had fallen away from God and could not reach him again. But though the sinful flesh could not reach God, yet God in his eternal power and infinite mercy could reach sinful flesh. And so “the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth.” “God was manifest in the flesh,” even “sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Rom. 8: 3, 4.

Oh! His name is called Immanuel, which is “God with us.” Not God with him only, but God with us. God was with him in eternity, and could have been with him even though he had not given himself for us. But man through sin became without God, and God wanted to be again with us. Therefore Jesus became us, that God with him might be God with us. And that is his name because that is what he is.

Therefore and finally, as certainly as in his human nature, Jesus Christ is one with us, and as certainly as God with him is God with us, so certainly the nature of the Virgin Mary was just like that of all the rest of us, and so certainly the dogma of the immaculate conception is an absolute fraud.