A Child Born - A Son Given          

Isaiah 9:6

 

     Someone once said, "God could not suffer and man could not satisfy. But the God-man both suffered and satisfied." That points out the necessity of our Lord's incarnation. Our Savior, the One who redeemed us from sin, and death, and hell, had to be both God and man in one glorious Person. He must be a man, capable of suffering and death. Yet, he must also be God of infinite merit and value. Here the Prophet Isaiah, by Divine Inspiration, describes the real humanity and perfect deity of the Lord Jesus Christ hundreds of years before he came into the world.

     "UNTO US A CHILD IS BORN" - Hard as it is for us to imagine, the Son of God, our Savior, became a real man. He did not simply assume a human form. He asumed our nature. He assumed a real human body, mind, and soul. He is as much man as though he were not God. It is true, he had no sin. He was born the Son of the virgin, without an earthly father, the woman's Seed by the immaculate conception of the Holy Spirit. But he was a man, touched with the feeling of our infirmities, subject to all the sinless passions, emotions, pains, and feelings of humanity. He was tempted in all points as a man. And though he had no sin of his own, he was even made to be sin for us! Because the Son of God came to redeem us, he took not on him the nature of angels, but took on him the seed of Abraham. He assumed the nature of his elect, that he might die in our place, to satisfy the justice of God for us. "Unto us a child is born!"

     "UNTO US A SON IS GIVEN." Mary is not the "mother of God!" The Son of God was not born of the virgin. He was given through the virgin's womb. But even when he was in Mary's womb, he was Mary's God. Though our Lord became one of us, he never ceased to be God. He is as much God as though he were not man. He is the Son of God given, the gift of the Father's love (John 3:16; I John 4:9-10), to redeem and save his people. God the Father gave his Son IN THE COVENANT OF GRACE before the world began to be our Surety (Isa. 49:8). He gave his Son IN THE INCARNATION (Lk. 1:78). God gave his Son INTO THE HANDS OF JUSTICE to die as our Substitute upon the cursed tree (Acts 2:23). He gives his Son IN REGENERATION to every believer (Col. 1:27). And God will give his Son IN HEAVEN'S GLORY to be the everlasting portion and joy of his elect (Rev. 22:3).

 

Don Fortner