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
Don Fortner