IGNORANT OF THIS MYSTERY.
By G. W. Reaser
Recently, while reciting from the Scriptures, to a lineal descendant of Abraham, the evidences which furnish infallible proof of the true Messiah, the writer was forcibly impressed with the truth that there is but One Individual in the universe who can accomplish the redemption of lost man, and that all of the qualifications which are essential to a complete Saviour are found in the Man of Calvary. The Israelite according to the flesh, above referred to, had serious, if not blasphemous, objection to the miraculous in connection with the birth of Christ, and to the mystery of the union of the divine and human in Him. But, as a matter of fact, a perfect man could not have met the requirements of a complete Saviour, even tho he might have conquered the world and subdued it to the Jewish nation, thus meeting their minds concerning a deliverer. Had such a man lived a sinless life and died for the transgressions of the people, not a single soul could have had eternal life through his merits. Had Gabriel, doubtless the highest angel in heaven, and who ranks next to Christ the Archangel (or chief of the angelic hosts), come to this world where sin reigns, and lived a blameless life, and finally yielded up that life upon a Roman cross, such a plan of salvation would have been powerless to save a single member of the human family. The One who could be the central figure in a complete scheme of redemption, must be both divine and human. He must at the same time possess a divine nature and be a member of the human family, sharing all things except sin in common with them. And “He [God] hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” The human nature of Christ was not essential from the standpoint of God’s knowledge of the needs, frailties, and temptations of fallen man. To say this would be to limit the Holy One of Israel and to deny His infinity. The Father and the Son have, by the eternal Spirit, always been in infinite sympathy and touch with the children of men in temptation and in suffering. But to make it possible for us to grasp this blessed thought, the Christ was adapted to our humanity, and by this mysterious adaptation became a member of the human family, “one of us,” our Elder Brother. “For verily He6took 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.” All this was planned in infinite wisdom before the miraculous birth of the Just One; for it is written, “Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign; behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel” (God with us), and “unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given.” After His birth Inspiration bears record that He was “made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” How could He be a perfect Saviour to me, unless He had accommodated Himself, in the plan of redemption, to my humanity, so that my faith might grasp the fulness of the blessed truth that He once occupied the same flesh and dwelt in the same sinful world in which I dwelt; that while here He suffered pain, sorrow, trials, even as I suffer all these; that He was subjected to temptations brought to bear upon Him by “the prince of the powers of darkness” in person, stronger than any that will ever be brought to bear upon me? As the common legacy of humanity is a hereditary tendency drawing them with almost resistless power toward sin, so He was “made in the likeness of sinful flesh;” but having overcome all temptation and sin, He thereby condemns sin in my flesh. If there was no promise beyond this condemnation, then discouragement might follow; but, praise the One who devised a complete plan of redemption, His name was not only Immanuel (God with us) back there, over 1800 years ago, but the mystery of the Gospel to-day is,—Christ in me and in you, dear reader, I trust, “the hope of glory,” and possessing the same power—ours to appropriate by faith—that He possessed over sin and Satan when He was here in person. I have access by faith to the never-failing Fountain-head of grace and strength, of which through faith and prayer our Saviour availed Himself. It was by “the power of the Spirit” that He overcame, and “went about doing good.” Hence it is that that same Spirit is sent in the name of Christ, instead of the Father,—for it is one and the self-same Spirit,—to help my humanity to grasp the glorious truth that all that was accomplished in the life of Christ as an overcomer and as manifesting the beauties and graces of the pure and undefiled religion to the world, God desires to accomplish in me and in you by the indwelling Christ. Thus do we become partakers of the divine nature. How could all this have been brought within reach of the human family, except in the very mystery of the miraculous conception of the Son of God and the Son of man? The direct agencies in the working of this mystery were the Holy Spirit of God, and a member of the human family, one of our own flesh and blood. The result, the grandest ever developed in the history of the world,—if not in the history of eternity,—a complete divine-human Saviour. All praise to the Father for a Saviour perfectly adapted to my humanity, who is touched with the feelings of my infirmities; “who was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin,” and who is able “to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him,” who can, with His divine arm, hold firmly to the throne of God, and with His human arm encircled about me, lift me above temptation, sin, and death, even to a place at His right hand in the highest heaven. Would that Jew and Gentile might accept this divine-human Saviour in all His fulness, whose Messiahship is attested by the minute fulfilment of more than 300 prophetic utterances, but whose present incarnation is best proved by the appearance of the “fruits of the Spirit” in our lives, as His witnesses; for “if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” G. W. REASER.