Matthew 1:18-23
Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put her away privily. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.
Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
MATTHEW POOLE (1624-1679): Doubtless there is great mystery in these things.
C. H. SPURGEON (1834-1892): “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory,” 1 Timothy 3:16. This is a great mystery, is it not? “God was manifest in the flesh,” is one of the most extraordinary doctrines 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.
CHRISTMAS EVANS (1766-1838): With the greatest astonishment, Solomon asked the important question, “Will God in very deed dwell with men on earth?” (2 Chronicles 6:18). The question is now answered in the affirmative by men and angels. Though we cannot form any idea of the infinite distance between God and man, yet that vacuum is filled up in the incarnation of the Messiah, so that He is called the true God, and the man Christ Jesus―Though it was impossible for the divine nature to become human, or the human nature to become divine, yet the two natures, mysteriously united in Christ, make but one glorious person.
MATTHEW POOLE: How an infinite nature could be personally united to a finite nature, so as to make one person, is a mystery, and a great mystery.
C. H. SPURGEON: Since this matchless truth is “without controversy,” let us not enter into any controversy about it, but let us reverently meditate upon it. What a miracle of condescension is here, that God should manifest Himself in flesh! This is not so much a theme for the tongue or the pen, as something that is to be pondered in the heart. It needs that we sit down in quietness, and consider how He, who made us, became like us; how He, who is our God, became our Brother man; how He, who is adored of angels, once lay in a manger; how He, who feeds all living things, hungered and was athirst; how He, who oversees all worlds as God, was, as a man, made to sleep, to suffer, and to die like ourselves. This is a statement not easily to be believed. If He had not been beheld by many witnesses, so that men handled Him, looked upon Him, and heard Him speak, it would have been a matter not readily to be accepted that so Divine a Person should ever have been manifest in flesh.
ADAM CLARKE (1760-1832): “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word with God, and the Word was God…and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth,” John 1:1,14―that very person who was in the beginning―who was with God―and who was God, in the fullness of time became flesh―became incarnated by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the virgin. Allowing this apostle to have written by Divine inspiration, is not this verse, taken in connection with John 1:1, an absolute and incontestable proof of the proper and eternal Godhead of Christ Jesus?
ROBERT HAWKER (1753-1827): When you hear these very plain words of God the Holy Ghost, concerning the person and coming of the Son of God, in substance of our flesh, and behold the whole body of scripture in both Testaments bearing testimony to the same; perhaps you are astonished how it is, that such men should arise, who deny Christ’s Godhead.
MATTHEW HENRY (1662-1714): Jesus Christ is to be confessed as the Son of God, the eternal life and Word, that was with the Father from the beginning; as the Son of God that came into, and came in, our human mortal nature, and therein suffered and died at Jerusalem―on the contrary, “Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God,” 1 John 4:3.
C. H. SPURGEON: Consider, again, the incarnation of Christ, and you will rightly say, that His name deserveth to be called “Wonderful.” Oh! what is that I see? Oh! world of wonders, what is that I see? The Eternal of ages, whose hair is white like wool, as white as snow, becomes an infant. Can it be? Ye angels, are ye not astonished? He becomes an infant, hangs at a virgin’s breast, draws his nourishment from the breast of woman. Oh wonder of wonders!
AUGUSTINE (354-430): Man’s maker was made man, that He, Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother’s breast.
THOMAS WATSON (1620-1686): Behold here a sacred riddle or paradox—“God manifest in the flesh.” That man should be made in God’s image was a wonder, but that God should be made in man’s image is a greater wonder. That the Ancient of Days should be born, that He who thunders in the heavens should cry in the cradle; that He who rules the stars should suck the breast; that a virgin should conceive; that Christ should be made of a woman, and of that woman which He Himself made; that the branch should bear the vine; that the mother should be younger than the child she bare, and the child in the womb bigger than the mother; that the human nature should not be God, yet one with God—Christ taking flesh is a mystery we shall never fully understand till we come to heaven.
C. H. SPURGEON: 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—if we desire to see God, we must see Him in Christ Jesus.
AUGUSTINE: The only Son of God became the Son of man, that He might make us sons of God.
THOMAS WATSON: He was born of a virgin that we might be born of God. He took our flesh, that He might give us His Spirit. He lay in the manger, that we may lie in paradise. He came down from heaven, that He might bring us to heaven.
C. H. SPURGEON: Man may go up to God, now that God has come down to man.
MARTYN LLOYD-JONES (1899-1981): This is the meaning of Christmas. Oh, the glory and the wonder of it all!
