I. There is no such thing as an insignificant birth. All births are intense with meaning. Each has in it the splendour of immortal powers, and each of them is luminous with the unquenchable spark whose flames will burn with increasing brilliancy through the eternities. No birth is insignificant, but births differ in the quality and degree of their emphasis. There are births which are like the introduction of new forces and energies into human society, which pour the current of their power down through the ages with ever-widening and deepening volume.
II. Our commemoration today is of the birth of a man, not the promulgation of a system, or the inauguration of a faith in a mere religion. Religions there were before the Christ was born. Systems of truth there were, out of which governments and civilisations sprang. But up to the time that Christ was born, up to the time that Divinity became incarnate, and the amiable elements of the Divine disposition entered into and animated flesh and blood, the world had lacked a man perfect in holiness, distinguished in the wisdom which inherent righteousness can alone bring to human ability, and pre-eminent in those affections and amiable instincts which in themselves are a revelation of the fatherhood of God. Humanity did not need a new religion; it needed a Divine presence.
III. We must remember (1) that Christ was greater than any truth He ever uttered. We must study Him through His words and His deeds, if we would receive the glorious impression which his purity and virtue and goodness are calculated to make upon us. (2) That we celebrate the birth of a man with universal connections. His little family did not absorb Him. He was not the Son of Mary and Joseph, He was the Son of humanity.
IV. At the birth of Christ the world began to live a new life, because the saving grace of perfect conduct of a saintly spirit and of an atoning death had been given it. Religions were translated out of words into life, out of speech into spirit, out of books into manhood, out of the intellect into the untaught and the unteachable impulses of the soul.
W. H. Murray, The Fruits of the Spirit,p. 146.
The Incarnation and the secret of believing it.
I. Our nature shrinks from the imagination of Deity existing in solitude. Suppose that self-manifestation is a property of the Divine nature, as essential to its perfection as wisdom or love, then He in whom that manifestation is made, to whom God communicates His nature as the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, must be co-eternal with Him. From the beginning the Word was with God.
II. There is nothing absurd in the idea of such a union of two natures in the person of our Lord. Each of us also is possessed of two natures a corporeal and a spiritual. There is as much inexplicable mystery in the union of these two natures in the humblest human being, as there is in the union of a Divine and a human nature in the person of Christ.
III. Suppose that at some meeting of citizens, publicly convened for deliberation, an individual, abject in mien and poor in apparel, should present himself for our notice; and that, when he proceeded to address us in language of serious admonition, we resented what we reckoned his presumption, repressed him, and turned him out with abuse, our conduct would be not a little censurable, as a breach of the great law of the fraternity of all men, and a violation of the rights of citizenship. Well, we have expelled him from our assembly; but there he is back, with the crown of Britain on his head. How much more criminal it would be to treat him with indignity now. His flesh is now the flesh of a king; it is sacred: touch it not for harm; protect it with loyal care. The Divine nature of Christ was a crown to His human nature; not changing that human, so as to render it essentially different from ours, but giving it official preeminence royalising it. (1) What must sin be in the judgment of Heaven, that, when He who was crowned with the diadem of Godhead presented Himself on our behalf, His substitution was not refused as if it had been exorbitant to ask so much? (2) Does the kingly crown save the king from feeling like other men? The crown which Jesus wore saved Him no pain, no pang, by which His brethren are afflicted. He felt as keenly as we feel even more keenly; for in mental suffering, at least, the nature, being more refined, is necessarily more sensitive, in proportion as it is sinless.
W. Anderson, Discourses,p. 33.
I. We have here the great mystery of the Incarnation. "Unto us a Child is born; unto us a Son is given." "Unto us a Child is born" relates, we may safely say, to the humanity of Christ. "To us a Son is given" relates to the Divine nature of Christ. He was a Son when born, even the Eternal Son of God.
II. "The government shall be upon His shoulder." He is a King then; born for kingly office, and with kingly power. For one who shrinks from Christ, through dislike of the cross, there are hundreds who shrink from Him through dislike of the throne. The hard sentence to flesh and blood is not "The world's iniquity was laid upon His head," but "The world's government is laid upon His shoulder." Christ is King, and He reigns, whether to reward the loyal, or to punish the rebellious.
III. "Wonderful." This is the first title which the prophetic herald assigns to the newborn Prince. Wonderful in His actions, for look at His miracles; wonderful in His endurances, for contemplate His sufferings; wonderful in life, for who shall declare His generation? wonderful in death, for He saw no corruption; wonderful in His resurrection, for He raised Himself; wonderful in ascension, for He carried our fallen nature into heavenly places; wonderful in the love which moved Him to do and to suffer for sinful beings like ourselves.
IV. Next He is called "Counsellor." Not our Counsellor, as though the office were one limited to the children of men, but Counsellor in the abstract; denoting, it may be, His intimate union in the Divine essence, as a Person in the Godhead, and as such concerned in all the counsels of eternity.
V. "The Everlasting Father." The Septuagint Version renders this title, "The Father of the world to come." "The world to come" was an expression, under the old dispensation, for the new dispensation that was promised and expected. We may consider this title as indicating in Christ the Source or Author of those eternal blessings, which are now proffered to and provided for the believing.
VI. "The Prince of Peace." "On earth peace, goodwill toward men" was the chorus with which the hosts of heaven rang in the birthday morn. Christ came to give peace to troubled consciences. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."
H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit,No. 2282.
I. Consider, first, who is the Son given, and what is His purpose. It is our Lord Jesus Christ. The verse begins with His humanity; and, mounting upwards, it rises to the height of His divinity. The prophet conducts us to Bethlehem and its stable, to the desert and its hunger, to the well and its thirst, to the workshop and its daily toil, to the sea and its midnight storm, to Gethsemane and its bloody sweat, to Calvary and its ignominious death, and all along that thorny path that stretched from the manger to the cross; for in announcing the birth and coming of this Son and Child, he included in that announcement the noble purposes for which He was born His work, His sufferings, His life, His death, all the grand ends for which the Son was given and the Child was born.
II. By whom was this Son given? By His Father. Man has his remedies, but they are always behindhand. The disease antedates the cure. But before the occasion came God was ready. Redemption was planned in the councils of eternity, and Satan's defeat secured before his first victory was won. The Son gave Himself, but the Father gave Him; and there is no greater mistake than to regard God as looking on at redemption as a mere spectator, to approve the sacrifice and applaud the actor. God's love was the root, Christ's death the fruit.
III. To whom was He given? He was given to us. " Unto usa Child is born, unto us a Son is given." "God commendeth His love to us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us."
T. Guthrie, Penny Pulpit,No. 174.
I. Look first at some of the characteristics of Christ's wonderfulness. (1) It must be evident that this wonderfulness is essential to His being and continuing the centre of interest for men. If He is to be the great world-power, He must be always the unquestionable world-wonder. He must arrest and compel attention. Whatever novelties appear He must eclipse them. He must always make the freshest appeal to the heart and soul of man. For wonder is that which rouses men. It is the token in us of the boundlessness of the universe and the infinitude of God. Wonder is the presage of endless progress and its stimulus. It throws a glory and freshness over existence. It makes all things new. Therefore He who is to dominate the world, save it, and fill it with heavenly life through all the ages must be the enduring unapproachable wonder. (2) No one can at all appreciate the wonderfulness of Christ who does not consider its freedom from the merely marvellous. It has a meaning and a power prior to that and above it. It is not simply this notable absence that impresses us, but the positive atmosphere of soberness. There is everywhere an air of sagacity, prudence, balance, insight, common sense. (3) The different wonders of Christ's nature and work form together a unity. Each fits into the others, and the very things which, taken apart, give rise to the greatest perplexity, are found to be the main uniting elements. We accept each because of the all, and the all because of each, and cry out, My Lord and my God.
II. The wonderfulness of Christ in its bearing on the wonderfulness of man and of God. (1) The wonderfulness of man. Man viewed in his nature and present condition is a transcendent and most painful wonder. The great objection that many in our time have to Christ is, that He is toowonderful. To this mood we present the marvel, the perplexing, terrible marvel, of man. Christ exactly meets this terrible marvel of man's condition. The one wonder stands over against the other, and fits into it. (2) The wonderfulness of God. It is the wonderfulness of Christ which alone answers to the wonderfulness of God. God is infinite in all His attributes, power, justice, wisdom, holiness. Christ is the splendour of love that irradiates all. His wonderfulness vindicates God and wins man.
J. Leckie, Sermons Preached at Ibrox,p. 229.
References: Isaiah 9:6. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. iv., Nos. 214, 215, vol. v., No. 258, vol. vi., No. 291, vol. xii., No. 724; Clergyman's Magazine,vol. ix., p. 279; Preacher's Monthly,vol. iv., pp. 275, 373; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons,p. 71; J. Keble, Sermons from Christmas to Epiphany,pp. 49, 79; Bishop Moorhouse, The Expectation of the Christ,p. 49; J. Edmond, Christian World Pulpit,vol. ix., p. 145; W. Anderson, Ibid.,vol. x., p. 392; A. Mursell, Ibid.,vol. xxii., p. 299; D. Davies, Ibid.,vol. xxvi., p. 273; H. P. Liddon, Old Testament Outlines,p. 174; Bishop Walsham How, Plain Words,2nd series, p. 20.