A Sermon by William Trail
1 Timothy 3:16. And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh.
A mystery is either something which lay concealed, perhaps for ages, and would probably never have been discovered unless it was revealed; or something which, even when revealed, the human mind cannot fully comprehend. While still hidden among the deep things of God, a mystery is not known to us, even as a bare fact. It might be likened to remotest stars which the telescope has not yet brought within the range of our vision; they are illuminating their distant regions, but we do not know of them. And when the mystery is made known, though it then becomes known to us as fact, still it may be shrouded in an obscurity which our feeble reason cannot pierce. It might be compared to one of those remotest stars which more powerful telescopes have now rendered visible to us as a mere point of light. All we know is that the star shines; for what its size may be, or its distance from us, we cannot find out. Its existence we know, but very little more.
Now, the incarnation is a mystery in this double sense, seeing that for long ages it was an unknown fact, and still cannot be fully understood. Until God revealed it, a deep darkness concealed it altogether; even yet clouds and shadows rest upon it. But whatever we really needed to know about this great mystery, in order to our salvation, has been made plain to us. There are dark shadows over the manger at Bethlehem. But if there are shadows, there is also sunlight. And this sunshine falls on the great practical question, How, through the Child who was born there, can a sinner be saved? Where knowledge is really necessary to us, there is no mystery, but revelation shines with unclouded clarity on our needs.
Are we then to quarrel because there is a measure of obscurity over what we do not need to understand, and what we probably could not be made to understand? Seeing God has so formed us, are we to refuse the clear revelation of His will about our salvation, because He has not also brought the incomprehensible mysteries of His infinite Godhead to the level of our finite understandings? Surely it is far more suitable for us to follow so far as the light which we can bear conducts us, than to complain presumptuously that we lack the light which we neither require or could endure.
Thus would we repel the infidel’s objections to the doctrine of the incarnation, because it is a mystery. But we glory in the fact that it contains
1Abridged from Trail’s Christian Graces. Trail (1819-74) was minister of the Tron Free Church in Glasgow when this sermon was preached, on a communion Sabbath.
mysteries. Turning round on the enemies of the Bible, we would ask them what they would have said if it contained no mystery and we could understand it completely. Then the infidel would assuredly have been the first to maintain that the book might have been written by man. And the infidel would have been right, for the mysteries in the Bible are among the surest indications of its inspiration. They are the secret marks which prove the writing was divine – the profound utterances which convince us that the oracle had been spoken by the omniscient One.
Yet the mysteries of revelation not only stamp the Bible to be from God, but they also make it a suitable book for man. His reason, having been blunted by sin, needs to be made alive; and what is so fitted to stimulate devout and sober questions as mysteries? His reason has also to be humbled: and when is the spirit of the worshipper prostrated in deepest reverence but when God’s footstool is seen to be shrouded in the solemn gloom of mysteries? Man has to be taught that he not only needs a revelation but also, now that he has a revelation, he still needs illumination from on high. And when will he look up for light from Him who is the Father of lights, but when he sits under the solemn shadows of His mysteries?
The mystery of the incarnation is presented in our text as a historical fact, not only as doctrine. Paul sums up its amazing history in six successive incidents, from when God the Son appeared in the flesh till He was received up into glory. It is a marvellously comprehensive narrative. But we have sometimes thought that we may regard it rather as presenting the great fact of the incarnation as if carried round through the various orders of intelligent beings, both in heaven and on earth, so that each in turn might express their opinion about it. First, it is presented to Jehovah Himself: “justified in the spirit”. Next it is presented to those exalted creatures who circle His throne: “seen of angels”. Then it is brought down to men on earth – first to God’s favoured people; for when it is said, “preached unto the Gentiles”, what we think of most is how this amazing fact would affect the Jews. Then it is presented to the other nations of the earth: “believed on in the world”. What, however, we have to do with at present is the great fact of the incarnation: “God was manifest in the flesh”.
1. It was God – the living, personal Jehovah who was thus manifested. God’s perfections, or attributes, had already been manifested in the works of creation. His purposes, or thoughts, were expressed in His providence. And the voice of God was heard, not only in what He said Himself and in the inspired words of His prophets. But now more – greatly more – than this was made manifest. God Himself, not merely His perfections, or His voice; or the thoughts and intentions of His heart; but God Himself, His very essence,
became incarnate – was revealed in the flesh. For He who assumed our nature, who in that nature tabernacled among men, was the Son of God. He was, in glory and perfections, the equal of the Father. So, when He spoke, it was God speaking; when He worked, it was God working.
He is the eternal, invisible, infinite One; He who dwells in light that is inaccessible; whom seraphim and cherubim approach with veiled faces; the great Jehovah who, in most august majesty, sits on the throne of the whole universe, and before whom the nations of the earth are as grasshoppers. He is the omnipresent One, whom the heavens of heavens cannot contain; the Incomprehensible and the Almighty, whom by searching no one can find out unto perfection. Is it not an amazing thought that He, God Himself, should have drawn nigh, not in the passing shadows of His glory, but in a human body – living, moving, working, speaking, and mingling among people?
Assuredly there is mystery here. But how sublime the mystery is! Do you say there is lowness and smallness in that manger in Bethlehem? I do not see it in the sublime thought that there lies the Son of God. To my eyes that infant is incarnate Deity. Those infant lips are far more glorious than those of the wisest man, for before long they shall speak as never man spake. Yes, this Child will yet startle the world with wondrous words and mighty deeds. He will not lay aside His humble, human form; yet when in His presence, men shall be made to feel that they are in God’s presence. He shall speak to the wild waves of ocean, and they shall obey; to the dead, and they shall hear. Stony hearts shall soften at His touch; iniquity, while raging for His blood, shall blush and sink its head before His frown.
Yes, there is mystery here, but what precious truth is wrapped up within that mystery! How my human soul clings to the thought of Godhead revealed in humanity! God is a Spirit; to Him therefore belong none of the properties of my bodily nature. To what then shall I liken Him, or to what similitude compare him? A pure Spirit, He has no shape or form. How then is my human soul to conceive of Him as a personal being – as without eyes yet seeing, as without ears yet hearing, as without hands yet working? Angels can behold Him and rejoice in Him. What is this to me, for they are spirits; whereas I am a creature of sense, to whom knowledge and even emotion can only enter through the senses? But how can right thoughts of God enter my soul through these?
Sometimes, when I try to think of Him who is a Spirit – a pure, infinite, eternal, omnipresent Spirit – I feel as if my reason is flung back upon me, exhausted by the vain attempt. At other times I start back, rebuked for having clothed Him with bodily forms and attributes, which I know cannot belong to Him. How gladly and gratefully then do I take hold of the doctrine of the
divine incarnated in the human – the eternal, invisible Spirit manifested in humanity. For here in the God-man, as well as the divine, is also a nature of which I can form truer conceptions, with which I can have closer sympathy. It is in this nature that I can now behold my God.
In the God-man, I can now think of God as coming near to me, as speaking to me, as revealing Himself to me, as admitting me to participate in His own unspeakable blessedness, and to be a fellow-worker with Him in His divine works. Beholding God in the face of Christ, I am not now looking on the unclouded blaze of glory which would dazzle and consume me; I am not now approaching a Being whose spiritual immensity seems only to mock my weak efforts to comprehend Him; I am not now listening to the awful utterances which would only confound and silence me. But I am gazing through the human, as through a veil which softens the divine, but does not obscure it. And in the well-known accents of my own humanity, I hear the very voice of the Eternal. And I feel that I can now cast myself, as a repentant child, on the very bosom of God my Father.
2. Here God as manifested may be perceived, not by the understanding only, but even by the senses. “God was manifest in the flesh”, or did plainly and openly show Himself – did make Himself conspicuous to the very eyes of men. Suppose (to use a well-known illustration) I strike my foot against a watch; I am ignorant who made it, but I feel certain that it must have had a maker, and just as certain that he must have been a skilled worker who could contrive so ingenious a measurer of time. In a sense I may be said to see the maker of the watch – that is, he rises up before my mind’s eye as someone who has the knowledge and skill needed to make the watch.
Even so, from the traces of wisdom, power, greatness and benevolence which we find in the world, we infer that its Maker must be a wise, powerful, great and benevolent Being. We did not see the world made, but we are sure it must have had a Maker, and just as sure that He must have sufficient wisdom, power and skill to create. Thus, through nature, we rise up to nature’s God. Though He Himself is invisible, yet we may be said in a sense to see Him – that is, He stands before our mind’s eye as a Being who is infinitely wise, great and good.
In this way God had already manifested Himself to His intelligent creatures. He has never left Himself without a witness. And the invisible things of Him were, from the creation, to be seen clearly – even His eternal power and Godhead. Not that He could be seen by the bodily eye; yet, as reflected by His works, He was visible to the eye of reason. So those who were not morally depraved must see Him, by their inward vision, as wonderful in counsel and excellent in working. And if the world by wisdom knew Him
not, this was not because He had hid Himself from its view, but because its foolish mind was darkened.
But let me now suppose that, while we are examining the watch, someone professing to be its maker were to show himself to us – that he takes the watch to pieces, and then puts piece to piece again precisely as before. In this case we could have little hesitation in concluding that this is really the maker of the watch. Not only does his work speak for him, but he is here also to speak for himself. Even so was it with God when He was manifest in the flesh. The Maker of the world presented Himself to people who were on it. He who could lay His finger on some parts of nature’s mechanism, and at His will could arrest or restore its movements, must be the One who planned and made that mechanism. Who had made the eyes of a man but He who by a touch could give back vision to blind eyeballs? Who was the Author of life but He who could restore life to the dead? And who was the great Food-giver that was causing, by His rain, dew and sunshine, the grains dropped from the sower’s hand to spring up into plentiful harvests, but He who could multiply a few loaves and fishes to feed the five thousand?
Here then was the Maker of the world manifested to the very senses of men. He stood forth now, not merely as He did before to the eyes of their reason, but to their bodily eyes. And why did He do this? Was it merely to prove to men that He was the Maker of the world? Or was it to claim back to Himself the praises of creation, which the heathen nations had lavished on their dumb idols? Not so, but because God had a greater work to accomplish. God thus openly showed Himself as the Creator and Preserver of the world, so that He might reveal Himself as the Saviour of the world. But why did He first reveal Himself as the Creator and then as the Redeemer? It was in order that men might know, by the very evidence of their eyes, that they were to owe their deliverance from sin and misery to that self-same Being to whom they already owed their existence and preservation – to that very Being against whom, as their Creator, they had so impiously rebelled, and whom for so long they had provoked by their sins.
How great must the work be that the Creator came in person to accomplish! To finish His first works, He had but to speak the word, and it was done. He commanded, and the heavens and the earth were made, with all the hosts of creatures. When the world had to be created, a word was enough – the word of power spoken by the Creator seated on His throne. But when that world is to be redeemed, though its Creator is the Redeemer, a word is not enough. The Redeemer must come down to the scene of His labours; the Son of the Highest must appear in the lowly form of a servant. The Redeemer has not only to speak, but His voice, that called the universe into existence, must be
heard pleading, praying, weeping and uttering plaintive cries. To make the tree on which Jesus hung at Calvary, He had but to speak the word, and from a little seed or tiny sapling, its branches stretched towards the sun; but when He would redeem fallen man, He must be nailed to that tree, and on it He must hang as a spectacle to men and angels – thirsting, groaning, bleeding, suffering – till He dies.
3. Here was a real incarnation: “God was manifest in the flesh”; or as another apostle expresses it, “The Word was made flesh”. You have to consider both the medium and the manner of this divine manifestation.
First, the medium: it was the flesh; in other words, an actual human body, in all respects save one, identical with our own. Take away that one attribute of sin, which invariably attaches to the flesh in man, and in all other attributes, Christ’s body did not differ from that of other men. It was truly flesh – composed of the same elements, nourished by the same food, and subject to the same infirmities. It was the same flesh – being born of a woman, and thus drawing its descent from the same fountain, and having the same original ancestry as our own.
There were those, however, even in Paul’s day, who denied that Jesus had come in the flesh. Carried away by certain ideas about matter – that it is inherently imperfect and impure – they would not accept that the sinless Son of God would assume an actual material body, since this, in their view, would have been to clothe His divine purity with a polluted garment. But this idea is decidedly erroneous. Matter is not inherently impure; nor is it an unfit covering for a sinless being. Adam, in his state of innocence, wore it; and so also might the Second Adam, though He is the Holy One.
Further, this idea of Christ having assumed only the semblance of a body struck at the foundation of the scheme of redemption. Hence the reason why the Apostle John so strenuously opposed it: “He that denieth that Jesus is the Christ . . . is antichrist”. It was only if He had a real body that Christ, as the substitute, could suffer for sinners. It was not a phantom body that could hunger and thirst and undergo fatigue for them. It was not simulated lips that could groan in the last agonies of a cruel death for them. It was not the mere image of a corpse that could lie in the grave for them. No, there had to be a real body, whose limbs could truly feel weariness, whose lips could truly suffer thirst, and whose flesh could truly bleed. Therefore it was a real body that Jesus assumed, a body of bones, flesh and nerves, like our own bodies.
But there was more than a body, for the other idea is not less erroneous, which would represent the Son of God as having taken to Himself a true body but not a rational soul. While admitting the reality of the incarnation, this denies its completeness. With a body that was flesh of our flesh and
bone of our bone, Christ would not have been a complete man, if He had been without a human soul. But it was necessary for Him to be fully a man – in His soul as well as in His body. Suppose He had only offered up a body in sacrifice for us, this would only have been to repeat, in a slightly altered form, the old sacrifices under the law? These were mere bodies – irrational animals without reasonable souls. And if the blood of calves and of bulls did not take away sin, neither could the blood of a man, not even of the man Christ Jesus – if all He had to offer was a body without a soul.
No, flesh alone, though it was human flesh, could never have been an equivalent sacrifice for man, who has a soul. Hence the explicitness with which the prophet foretold of Him: “When Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand”. Hence too the emphasis with which Christ, as if He had His eye on this very prediction, exclaimed, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death”.
Here then was not a partial but a complete incarnation. Having to redeem human bodies from the power of death and the grave, Christ took to Himself a human body, which He might offer as a ransom for them. Having also to redeem human souls from the curse of the law, he likewise took to Himself a human soul, that He might have a full equivalent to give to justice instead of them. Thus He could present a true and full atonement.
Second, the manner of this manifestation: it was “in the flesh”. As early as the creation of the first man, God was manifest by the flesh; but now He is made manifest in the flesh. Man was made in God’s image, in his intellectual and moral resemblance to his Maker. But this divine image was short-lived. Even the body, as we might say, was broken by the Fall, while the inner and true likeness in the soul was entirely defaced – by sin. Could then this image be restored? Yes, and more than restored.
First, we see it restored in the Second Adam, for in His body, miraculously conceived, free from sinful taint, fair in its form and perfect in all its members. And in Christ’s human soul, with its faculties and its emotions all in purest harmony, we behold once again a specimen of a perfect man. The old image is in Him repeated. In Him humanity was recast, so to speak, in the original mould. Thus the lost likeness is restored.
Second, we have here more than a mere restoration. There is in Christ a new image. In the first Adam, God wrought upon the substance, whether material or mental, which was to manifest His likeness, even as the sculptor works on the marble. But in Christ there was the likeness of God, which did not have to be impressed on Him, but was inherent. Here was not a mere impress of the divine glory, but the glory itself. Not the image, but the very
substance was here. Not its similitude merely, but Godhead’s self was here, shining brightly not upon the flesh but in it.
I wish, if possible, to raise your thoughts to a clear conception of what is implied by the difference between God being manifested in the flesh and by the flesh. When we say that God shines in Christ, and that in Him the image of the Father is to be seen, the light is not material, nor is the likeness ideal, nor is either of them merely external. For it is the very glory itself that is shining through, not given back in mere reflections, but coming forth in its very self, an unborrowed, a self-luminous, an uncreated glory.
When I reflect on the humble origin of our humanity: how, though man’s body was an exquisite piece of workmanship, it sprang from the dust. And when I think what man has made of that humanity, and to what vile uses he put it, I sometimes feel as if it is not worth being redeemed. But when I see how God could restore it, and to what uses He could put it in the Person of Christ, I cease to wonder that He should have thought it worthy of being redeemed. But that He should have redeemed it at such a cost – here I am lost in mystery. But I bless God with my whole soul for such a mystery. For it is the mystery of His love to my fallen race – a love so lofty that when I look up, I lose it in its eternal source, in God’s eternal heart; and when I look down, I lose it in the depths of that misery and guilt to which it descended. Lose it, did I say? Rather let me say that there I find it, for I lay in these depths by nature and, by grace, I would now rest my pardoned soul in that heart.
Now in conclusion: the God whom I proclaim to you this day is God manifest in the flesh; the God of nature, yet more than nature’s God; the God of creation, yet more than creation’s God; the God of providence, yet more than the God of providence; the God of Sinai, yet more than Sinai’s God. For the God of grace and of redemption is here. The God is here whom you need as sinners. The God who is rich in mercy, who has found out a ransom, who is ready to receive you to His forgiving arms, if you will but come. If you have already come and been received by Him, He will never leave you nor forsake you. He is the God and Father of Christ, and therefore your God and Father, if you are in Christ. This God is here. And it is this God, fellow-sinners and fellow-saints, whom I have proclaimed to you this day.
May those of us then who are about to sit at the Lord’s table behold, by the eye of faith, through the veil of the symbols of the bread and wine, the glory of Christ. May we behold Him who, that He might redeem us from the curse, assumed our nature, and that He may bestow on us the blessings of redemption, still wears our nature on the throne. May we see Him as He was on earth and as He now is in heaven – then and now and evermore – God manifest in the flesh.