Glad Tidings

Oh, may the Lord guide my pen and grant a little light to write something about the right and true meaning of the illustrious event which we now commemorate. We read in James 1:17, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” This gift cannot be expressed in words. By the grace of God, we have been favored for many years to say something about it. Yea, we feel so very low at times. The feeling is very different from what we anticipate. Oh, when we talk about God and divine things, about the mysteries of the gospel, then we become aware of how poor, how ignorant, and how foolish we are. If God did not at times give us something, it would have come to an end many years ago. He that glories, let him glory in the Lord.

If it may be true, then we are only at the beginning, and then we must still start. The miracle of the incarnation of the Son is incomprehensible, yea, infinite. The greatest divines in the world who really have been taught by God must acknowledge that the half has not been told. No, not half; no, not a millionth part do I know of it. We have not a doctrine to be understood but only to be believed. God is great and we know Him not. In our days many tell us that they do not believe what they cannot comprehend. Such a language is terribly blasphemous and God-dishonoring.

God’s poor people may at times rejoice that they believe in a God who is incomprehensible, an adorable Supreme Being. This God is our salvation. We shall never finish praising Him. It was God’s eternal decree and plan, as a fruit and manifestation of God’s infinite love, to send His Son into the world. It never came up in the heart of any man, but it was God’s eternal will and good pleasure. God had from eternity thoughts of peace and not of evil. Because God loves Himself, it pleased Him to elect His Son to be Surety, Mediator, and Head of His elect. God wanted to glorify Himself, to restore His image, and to glorify His attributes in the saving of sinners. He would execute His counsel and exalt His name through the depth of our Fall so that His honor shall be retained, and He forever shall receive the honor from those who are called according to His eternal purpose.

God has wrought everything for His own sake and for His own glory. This can never be comprehended by insignificant dust and ashes as we are, but it may be admired by all those who are partakers of the divine nature and who, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, have become interested in that glorification which becomes not only their chief aim but also the delight of their life. The angels sang, “Glory to God in the highest,” and the shepherds returned glorifying God for all that they had heard and seen. Yea, in Isaiah 43:21 we read, “This people have I formed for Myself; they shall show forth My praise.” God’s people are vouchsafed here initially, and by and by perfectly, to end in God with that Gift.

It goes without saying that our life shall be something different from an intellectual contemplation and a historical knowledge. In our days there are thousands and tens of thousands (let me write it as it is) that thank an unknown God for something which they have never received. There are a great many people whose mouths are filled with a dear Lord Jesus, but who never had the faintest notion of who He is or what He is. Oh, what foolishness and blindness there is among so many who have never been quickened from death to life, and who have never been in contact with God, who had never a broken heart and a contrite spirit, who never stood in need of God, who never realized what it is to sin against God, and never felt what it means to be without God. Oh, what a sad condition! The Bible tells us that the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness unto Him, neither can He know them.

In another place we read the testimony of the Lord Jesus Himself that it is hidden from the wise and the prudent but has been revealed unto babes. Truly, by nature, there is no person as concealed from us as the Lord Jesus Christ. Shall we ever know Him personally, then a personal revelation of Him must be given unto us. See Matthew 16:17 and Galatians 1:15&16. Even John the Baptist acknowledged it twice, “And I knew Him not.” Also to him, He had to be revealed from heaven by the inward enlightenment of the Holy Spirit. Think of the Samaritan woman in John 4:26, also the one that was born blind in John 9:36: “He answered and said, Who is He Lord, that I might believe on Him?” and Saul on the way to Damascus, “Who art Thou, Lord?” (Acts 9:5).

Moreover, neither is there a person who is less desired than the One given and sent by the Father. “He came unto His own, and His own received Him not” (John 1:11), and in Isaiah 53:2b&3 we read: “He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised…and we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.” The gospel which has Christ as its contents is a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks, but unto them which are called, it is a power of God unto salvation (1 Corinthians 1:23&24). Shall it be well with us on the way to eternity, then we must by the enlightening and uncovering ministration of God the Holy Spirit learn to know that Jew and that Greek in our own heart, to the humiliation and grief of our soul, because of the depth of our Fall and the darkness of our understanding. We know nothing except we are called by God.

In his embarrassment Pilate said, “What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ?” Thus, it is with man by nature. Among the religious people there are many that cry much about the Lord Jesus, but how few there are that cry for Him and who really need Him. Oh, it cannot be stressed enough in the days in which we are living that man must first be quickened from death unto life. We must be convinced by God’s Spirit of sin, righteousness, and judgment, that the Law is a schoolmaster to Christ, and that the Spirit of judgment and of learning must be given unto us shall there ever be room in our heart for the Person of the mediator, and for the ministration of the Surety of the Covenant. It is only the precious Holy Spirit who glorifies Christ in the hearts of the elect and who brings us to that blessed knowledge. It is not a fruit from our own field to give ourselves that knowledge. The Lord is free and sovereign in His dealings. Some are brought to that knowledge in a short time while others must wander for years and years, to whom it is applicable, “but Him they saw not.”

Let us not deceive ourselves for eternity. How terrible it shall be if we must appear before God with a lie in our hand; then Christ shall tell us, “I never knew you: depart from Me.” Something supernatural must be known which is divine and wonderful. If we have never been called out of death unto life, never learned to know that we have sinned against God, that we have transgressed God’s Law, that we have sinned ourselves outside of God, then there can be no desire after Christ. God does not waste His grace. Grace is glorified only in guilty, damnworthy, and lost sinners. If we have obtained no knowledge of Adam, and we have never experienced personally in our life, “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them,” then Christ has no significance for us. Lost in Adam, cursed by Moses—then we shall learn, “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ” (John 1:17).

We read in Psalm 65:9: “Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it: Thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, which is full of water: Thou preparest them corn, when Thou hast so provided for it.” In a very simple manner, but at the same time full of majesty and glory, all this has been fulfilled and confirmed in the birth of the Lord Jesus. Galatians 4:4 says, “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law,” and in Luke 2:6&7a we read, “And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son.”

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