Child.
I. We remember that God came to us in that child. “God with us.” This should remove all dread of God.
II. That God can come to us in -the smallest things.
III. That the whole of life is sacred, and should be consecrated to God.
IV. That great endings have little beginnings. (B. Preece.)
Emmanuel.
Emmanuel
I. Christ came as god with man.
1. To live with man.
2. With man, to die for him.
3. With man, to rise from the dead for him.
4. With man, to ascend and intercede for him.
II. God is with his people.
1. He is with them in their lives.
2. In their labours.
3. In their trials and afflictions.
4. In their worship. In death and in glory. (C. H. Wetherbe.)
The birth of Christ
1. The importance of the event to which Isaiah looks forward, and which the evangelist describes as fulfilled.
1. The occurrence was of a preternatural character. To raise us from degradation Christ Himself must be sinless. Evil had descended. How was this fatal entail to be cut off? The virgin birth was the answer.
2. Christ’s birth marked the entrance into the sphere of sense and time of One who had existed from eternity.
3. No other birth has ever involved such important consequences to the human race.
II. The contrast between the real and the apparent importance of Christ’s birth. The kingdom of God had entered into history without observation. Caesar’s palace seemed to be more important to the world than the manger. The apparent is not always the real.
III. What is the practical meaning of this birth to us, and what relation have we to Him who, for the love of us, was born of the virgin? (Canon Liddon.)
Jesus Christ the centre of history
I. The world expected an Emmanuel.
II. God was preparing the world for the coming of Emmanuel.
III. The world could not produce the Emmanuel.
IV. As the Emmanuel was the goal of ancient, so He is the starting-point of modern history. (J. C. Jones)
At an earlier age the Incarnation would have been meaningless
The mariner’s compass has been known in China for thousands of years; nevertheless, for the most part of that time it was but little better than a toy-the Chinese mind was not educated enough to estimate its value. Only a few centuries ago the compass became a blessing to mankind, because only a few centuries ago we attained the intellectual state requisite to apprehend its usefulness. And did the Incarnation take place in the days of Abraham, or of Moses, or of David, it would have been an idle, purposeless miracle, so far as its human aspect is concerned, and Christ would have died in vain. (J. C. Jones.)
The Man Christ Jesus
1. Humanity needed a Saviour.
2. The Mediator was to come in the purity and the power of sinless human character.
3. We, as a part of the human world, must join in this longing of human hearts for a Christ.
4. When this yearning of mankind was taken up into the guidance and inspiration of God it became prophecy.
5. These things are a declaration of the one fact which lies, central and life-giving, at the heart of all our Christian thoughts and hopes.
6. We come short of the full grandeur of the gospel when we take the clause, “God with us,” as signifying only one among us-a Deity moving among individuals, outside of them all, and, however friendly and gracious, still an external Person, saving them only by a work wrought all above them.
7. Then, too, it will begin to appear what Christ’s own people may be, acknowledging their membership, confirmed and alive in His body. (Bishop Huntingdon,.)
Let Him be one of us, that we may be one in Him. (J. C. Jones.)
Emmanuel, God with us
I. We know, in consequence of the revelations made by Christ, that God is so with us, so near to us, that our very existence is every moment upheld by him. We exist not by chance, etc.; but whatever subordinate causes may be employed, they all derive their efficacy from Him.
II. We know, too, from the incarnation and doctrine of Christ, that God is with us, not as individuals merely, but with our world, and that also in the way of special grace. He is in the world, not to exhibit His power merely, but that the world of men may be redeemed, etc.
III. In Christ we see that God was with us, in our very nature, to accomplish our redemption.
IV. Though ascended into heaven, he is still “god with us,” by the invisible but mighty influence which He exerts.
V. God is with us, in condescension and special grace, during the whole course of discipline to which He subjects us. Is Christ our Emmanuel? (R. Watson.)
Influence gained by oneness of condition
A Moravian missionary once went to the West Indies, to preach to the slaves. He found it impossible for him to carry out his design so long as he bore to them the relation of a mere missionary. They were driven into the field very early in the morning, and returned late at night with scarcely strength to roll themselves into their cabins, and in no condition to be profited by instruction. They were savage toward all of the race and rank of their masters. He determined to reach the slaves by becoming himself a slave. He was sold, that he might have the privilege of working by their side, and preaching to them as he worked with them. Do you suppose the master or the pastor could have touched the hearts of those miserable slaves as did that man who placed himself in their condition, and went among them, and lived as they lived, suffered as they suffered, toiled as they toiled, that he might carry the gospel to them? This missionary was but following the example of the Lord Jesus Christ, who took on Him the nature of men, came among them, and lived as they lived, that He might save them from their sins. (Beecher.)
In what sense is Christ God with us? In His incarnation united to our nature-God with man-God in man. He is God with us to comfort, enlighten, protect, and defend us in time of temptation and trial, and in the hour of death, and God with us, and in us, and we with and in Him to all eternity. (A. Clarke. LL. D.)
Behold at once the deepest mystery and the richest mercy. By the light of nature we see the eternal as a God above us: by the light of the law we see Him as a God against us; but, by the light of the gospel, we see Him as a God with us, reconciled to us, at peace with us, interested for us, interceding in our behalf. Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift! (Dr. Hughes.)