PCEA

The Advent

Our introductory article dealt with the preparation that was being made for the coming of Christ as Saviour. On the human side it was a scene of failure and despair. On God’s side it was the gradual unfolding of His purpose to send One who should meet man’s desperate need. The Old Testament throughout not only reiterated the promise that He would come, but provided a description of His life and character, of His mission, and of His triumph over all opposition. This portraiture of Christ, given in many parts, here a little, there a little, extended over thousands of years. But the entire portrait was complete enough to enable His expectant people to recognise Him when He came. Some of them did, immediately, like Simeon and Anna (Luke 1:37-42), and others more gradually, like Peter and John (John 1: 37-42).

The Advent of Christ can be studied from three aspects. It was a Birth, an Incarnation and a Humiliation.

A Birth

As foretold by the Old Testament, Christ was born into the world through a human mother (Isaiah 7:14). The event as predicted took place in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), and it took the edict of Caesar Augustus, the pagan Emperor of Rome, and the Jewish scruples of Herod the Great to set in motion the train of circumstances that led to the fulfilment of this prophecy. Augustus ordered a census of the Roman Empire, and Herod ordered that in Judea it should be done in the Jewish way, according to tribal lineage. This led Joseph and Mary to undertake the long journey from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem in Judea, to be registered in their ancestral city.

His birth meant that Christ was perfectly human, an infant born into the world, needing a mother’s nursing and care. It also meant that He was born into the fallen family of mankind, even when He Himself was free from the taint of their sin.

An Incarnation

Christ’s coming was also an incarnation, that is, it was a coming of God into human flesh. This was recognised by the jubilant hosannas of the angels (Luke 2:13-14). Its deeper implications are that since sin came into human life through a power from without, that of the Devil, it could be put away only by a power from without, that of God. In this light Paul sums it up: “when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law” (Gal. 4:4). Only God in the Person of His Son — the Second Person in the Trinity — could undertake this task and undo the ravages of sin in the world of men. That is why there had to be a miracle at the birth of Jesus, in that He was the Son of a human mother, but not of a human father. It would seem as if nature had to step aside to let God pass, and to ensure that He was born holy, harmless and undefiled.

A Humiliation

We cannot understand the distance from the Throne of Glory to the manger of Bethlehem, but we can recognise that it involved a tremendous humiliation for the Son of God to be clothed in human flesh, subject to suffering and sorrow, and even to death itself. At the same time, since man was made in the image of God, it cannot be regarded as involving an outrage on the nature of God that He should appear in the nature of true humanity, and remain true God. The extent of the humiliation it involved could be understood to some extent by the heavenly messengers who heralded the news to men. From our earthly viewpoint we could say: He was born; from theirs they would say: He humbled Himself.

Let us see the wisdom and love of God in this great provision, and why the Saviour had to be both Man and God. If a man’s sin was to be dealt with, it had to be done by one of the family which had sinned, one who was truly man and could identify Himself with the helpless and fallen children of men, and had the right to undertake for them. But if sin was to be put away, it had to be done by One who was Himself God, since only God could handle the great issues at stake. And though God Himself had to come into our nature to do this, and bear the humiliation of it, He had to remain God to have the power as well as the right to deliver us. Christ’s humiliation did not involve, therefore, abdicating His divine power, or setting aside His divine attributes. He could not be less than God and still be God. And thus it is that in the One “born of a woman” we see “God manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16), who “being found in human form, he humbled himself” (Phil. 2:8).