Philippians 2:5-7
Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): This is the season of the year when, whether we wish it or not, we are compelled to think of the birth of Christ. I hold it to be one of the greatest absurdities under heaven to think that there is any religion in keeping Christmas day. There are no probabilities whatever that our Saviour Jesus Christ was born on that day, and the observance of it is purely of Popish origin; doubtless those who are Catholics have a right to hallow it, but I do not see how consistent Protestants can account it in the least sacred. However, I wish there were ten or a dozen Christmas-days in the year; for there is work enough in the world, and a little more rest would not hurt labouring people. Christmas-day is really a boon to us; particularly as it enables us to assemble round the family hearth and meet our friends once more. Still, although we do not fall exactly in the track of other people, I see no harm in thinking of the incarnation and birth of the Lord Jesus.
WILLIAM BEVERIDGE (1637-1708): When our Lord took our nature upon him, He became man as well as God; but the two natures were not made one but remained unconfounded. The two natures, therefore, being in themselves distinct, were yet united so as to constitute one person.
C. H. SPURGEON: Yet the two are perfectly blended in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ the Saviour of the lost. “God was manifest in the flesh,” I Timothy 3:16; truly God, not God humanized, but God as God. He was manifest in real flesh; not in manhood deified, and made superhuman, but in actual flesh…Incarnate Deity is a thought that was never invented by a poet’s mind, nor reasoned out by a philosopher’s skill.
MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): Doubtless there is great mystery in these things.
C. H. SPURGEON: This is a great mystery, is it not? A mystery, certainly, but great in every way―That “God was manifest in the flesh,” is one of the most extraordinary doctrines that was ever declared in human hearing. Were it not so well attested, it would be absolutely incredible that the infinite God, who filleth all things, who was, and is, and is to come, the Omnipotent, the Omniscient, and the Omnipresent, actually condescended to veil Himself in the garments of our inferior clay. He made us, yet He deigned to take the flesh of His creatures into union with Himself; the Eternal was blended with mortality…It must ever remain to us the mystery of mysteries that God Himself was manifest in the flesh. God the invisible was manifest; God the spiritual dwelt in mortal flesh; God the infinite, uncontained, boundless, was manifest in the flesh.
CHARLES WESLEY (1707-1788):Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, Hail the incarnate Deity!
Pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel.
JAMES DURHAM (1622-1658): When the Son of God became incarnate He came here in “the form of a servant;” nevertheless, [even] in the manger He was “Christ the Lord,” Luke 2:11.
AUGUSTINE (354-430): Filling the world He lies in a manger!
CHARLES WESLEY: Mild He lays His glory by, Born that man no more may die,
Born to raise the sons of earth, Born to give them second birth.
JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564): The Son of God became the Son of Man that the sons of men might become the sons of God.
A. W. PINK (1886-1952): In becoming Man, Christ took upon Him a nature that was capable of dying. This the angels were not; and in this respect He was, for a season, made a little lower than the angels…There is only one way of finding peace, and that is through faith in the shed blood of God’s Lamb.
JAMES HARRINGTON EVANS (1785-1849): The only plank between the believer and destruction is the blood of the Incarnate God.
MATTHEW POOLE: The blood of Christ, called truly the blood of God (Acts 20:28), there being in Christ two natures in one person, and a communion of properties of each nature. If Christ had not been man, He could have had no blood to shed: had He not been God, the blood which He shed could not have been a sufficient price of redemption. Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, who found out such a ransom; and the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of the love of Christ, who paid this ransom for us!
WILLIAM BEVERIDGE: Man can suffer but he cannot satisfy; God can satisfy but He cannot suffer; Christ, being God and man, can suffer and satisfy too; and so is perfectly fit both to suffer for man, and to make satisfaction unto God, to reconcile God to man, and man to God.
CHARLES WESLEY: Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled!
MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): This is Christianity. Paul has put it once and for ever in 2 Corinthians 4:6: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” That is Christianity. That is the whole meaning of everything that is recorded in the New Testament. That is the whole meaning of the incarnation, and everything that has followed it. It is God revealing His glory in the face of Jesus Christ.
C. H. SPURGEON: If we desire to see God, we must see Him in Christ Jesus.
J. C. RYLE (1816-1900): Unless our Lord Jesus is very God of very God, there is an end of His mediation, His atonement, His advocacy, His priesthood, His whole work of redemption.
MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546): If Christ is divested of His deity, there remains no help against God’s wrath and no rescue from His judgment.
C. H. SPURGEON: The Lord Jesus Christ is God and man in one Person.
CHARLES WESLEY: Hark! The herald angels sing, Glory to the newborn King!
