THE INCARNATION

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given." The human body of our Lord Jesus Christ was miraculously and mysteriously conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the virgin Mary. His human nature had its beginning in time. As a real man, the Lord Jesus Christ was born some two thousand years ago at Bethlehem. And the virgin Mary was the mother of that humanity, just as any other mother is the mother of her child - "Unto us a child is born."

But the idolatrous blasphemies of papacy cannot be endured by the people of God. Mary is not "the mother of God", as the papists assert! As God the eternal Son the Lord Jesus Christ is without beginning and without end. He is the eternal "I AM". His Divine nature, his essential Godhead, was not born at Bethlehem. As the Son of God, that One who eternally comes forth from the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ was given, not born - "Unto us a Son is given".

Our Savior's name is Immanuel, "God with us". He is God in our nature. In the incarnation God the Son assumed our nature to redeem us. Our sin-atoning Mediator is the God-man, Christ Jesus. He is as truly God as though he were not man, and as truly man as though he were not God. God could not suffer; and man could not satisfy. But as the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ is able both to suffer the penalty of God's holy law and to satisfy the claim's of Divine justice against us, as the sinner's Substitute. And this he has done!