17 DECEMBER
Perfectly Man and perfectly God
‘Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.’ Isaiah 7:14
SUGGESTED FURTHER READING: Romans 5:12–21
This passage expressly and exclusively refers to the Messiah and is directly applied, as accomplished in him, by the evangelists Luke and Matthew. If sinners are to be saved without injury to his government and the honour of his law (and otherwise they must perish), two things are necessary: firstly, A virgin shall conceive and bring forth a son [for second point see 4/6]. The Mediator, the Surety, must be a man. Those whom he came to redeem were partakers of flesh and blood. He therefore took part of the same. Had not the Messiah engaged for us, a case would have occurred which I think we may justly deem incongruous to the divine wisdom—that while fire and hail, snow and vapour and the stormy wind fulfil the will of God—while the whole brute creation are faithful to the instincts planted in them by their Maker—a whole species of intelligent beings would have fallen short of the original law and design of their creation, and indeed have acted in direct and continual opposition to it. For the duty of man to live, serve and trust God with all his heart and mind, and to love his neighbour as himself, is founded in the very nature and constitution of things, and necessarily results from his relation to God and his absolute dependence on him as a creature. Such a disposition was doubtless as natural to man, before the Fall, as it is for a bird to fly, or a fish to swim. But sin degraded and disabled him, detached him from his proper centre, if I may so speak, and rendered both his obedience and happiness impossible. Neither Adam after his Fall, nor any of his posterity, have kept this law; but the Messiah fulfilled it exactly as a man, and the principles of it are renewed in all who believe in him. Though the best fall short, his obedience is accepted on their behalf, and he will at length perfectly restore them to the primitive order and honour of their creation. When they shall see him as he is, they shall be like him.
FOR MEDITATION: ‘The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven’ (1 Corinthians 15:47, 49, NIV).
SERMON SERIES: MESSIAH, NO. 5 [2/6], ISAIAH 7:14
Milo 