“The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14).

 

We must notice that it is the same Person Who was in the beginning, Who was God, and Who made all things, Who is here said to have become flesh.  The Jesus of the gospel story is the God of eternity, the Jehovah of the Old Testament.  The reason for the incarnation was the salvation of man.  The Good Shepherd came to seek and to save His sheep which were lost.  He came in human form that he might get nearer to the sinner.

 

A Moravian missionary went to preach the gospel to the slaves in the West Indies.  Failing as a free man to reach them, he became a slave himself, and went with them to their toils in the field and into all their hardships and sufferings, thus getting close to them. Then they listened to him.  This illustrates Christ’s condescension to save the world.  We could not understand God in His invisible glory; and Immanuel came, and in human form lived out the Divine life, showing us God’s thoughts, character, and feelings, especially God’s grace and His love for sinners.  This was one object of the incarnation, - it revealed in a way which men could understand the invisible things of God.

 

Then Christ became man also that He might learn life by actual experience, and thus be fitted to be our Savior, and to sympathize with us in all our experiences of temptation, struggle, sorrow.  We are sure now, when we come to Christ in any need, that He understands our condition and knows how to help us.  We have a High Priest (Jesus Christ) in heaven Who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, because He was tried in all points of temptation as we are.  Christ became man also that He might taste death for every man, thus abolishing death for His people.  He remembers what He suffered being tempted; and when He sees His people in their struggles, He remembers when He endured the same, and is ready to sympathize with and help them.