25th December
“Great is the mystery of godliness; God was manifest in the flesh.”
1 Timothy 3:16
A mystery indeed it is, a great, a deep, an unfathomable mystery; for who can rightly understand how the divine Word, the eternal Son of God, was made flesh, and dwelt among us? “Who shall declare his generation?” (Isa. 53:8;) either that eternal generation whereby he is the only-begotten Son of God, or the generation of his sacred humanity in the womb of the Virgin, when the Holy Ghost came upon her, and the power of the Highest overshadowed her? These are the things “which the angels desire to look into;” which they cannot understand, but reverently adore. And well may we imitate their adoring admiration, not attempting to understand, but believe, love, and revere; for well has it been said, “Where reason fails, with all her powers, There faith believes, and love adores.”
Nor, if rightly taught and spiritually led, shall we find this a barren, dry, or unprofitable subject. It is “the great mystery of godliness;” therefore all godliness is contained in it, and flows out of it. The whole of God’s grace, mercy, and truth is laid up in, is revealed through, is manifested by, the Son of his love; for “it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;” and this as Immanuel, God with us. Thus his sacred humanity, in union with his divine Person, is the channel of communication through which all the love and mercy of God flow down to poor guilty, miserable sinners, who believe in the name of the only- begotten Son of God.
If blessed, then, with faith in living exercise, we may draw near and behold the great mystery of godliness. To tread by faith upon this holy ground is to come “unto Mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel” (Heb. 12:22-24); for every blessing of the new covenant, if we are but favoured with a living faith in an incarnate God, is then experimentally as well as eternally ours.
J. C. Philpot 1802-1869