June 24 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people" (Heb. 2:16–17).

Devotional

Who are the people upon whom Jesus has set his heart? They are not angels. And yet he loves angels because they are elect and holy. He loves them as the creatures of his power, and as the ministers of his will. But God does not love angels as he loves man. The Lord Jesus does not bear the same affection towards those unfallen and pure spirits as he does towards a poor sinner hiding in his wounded side, washing in his blood, and enfolding himself within the robe of his righteousness. He never took part in the nature of angels, nor wept over angels, nor bled for angels—but he did do all this for man!

It is his church, then, which is the object of his love—his own people, the gift of his Father, the creatures of his choice, the subjects of his grace, the treasure of his heart.

Do you ask how has he loved them? You might rather ask how he has not loved them!

Look at his taking on of their nature! What a mighty stoop was this!—the Infinite to the finite. If it was possible for me to save the life of an insect by taking the form of that insect, then if I did so, that would show great benevolence. But behold the love of our Incarnate God! His heart was bent, his whole soul was set, upon saving man. But he could save man only by becoming man. He could not raise our nature except as he stooped down and assumed that nature. He must not only look upon it, and pity it, and weep over it, but he must take it into the closest and most indissoluble union with himself. Nor was it the mere exchange or blending together of natures so as to form one new nature. It was not the absorption of the Infinite into the finite, for he did not cease to be God when he became man. He only veiled, he did not extinguish, the glory of his Deity. In this consisted the greatness of the stoop. I see no humiliation in the Savior's life except that which springs from this one fact—his condescension in taking up into union with his own Divine our human nature. This was the first and greatest step in the path that led him to the cross. All the acts of abasement and ignominy which follow were engrafted on this.

And, oh, what humiliation! Look at your nature! Contemplate it in some of its most severe forms of degradation, wretchedness, and woe. Are you not often constrained to blush that it is your own? Do you not at times turn from it with loathing and abhorrence, ashamed to confess that you are a man? Above all, what self-loathing, what self-abhorrence, when the Holy Spirit opens the chambers of iniquity in your own heart, and makes you acquainted with the abominations that are there! And yet the Son of God stooped to our nature. "A body have you prepared me" (Heb. 10:5). But it was unfallen, sinless humanity that he took into union with his Godhead. Where, then, is his condescension? In stooping to an inferior nature, though in that stoop he received no taint from us. He was made a sin-offering, yet he was "without sin" (Heb. 4:15).

O dear reader, if this truth has no glory to your eye, nor sweetness to your soul, then what is your Christianity? This is the very foundation of Christianity! It is the essence of the gospel! It is the hope of the soul! It is the truth that takes every ruffle from the pillow of death!

And is this not the very truth you need as one who is suffering and tried? When do you extract the sweetest honey from this valley of bitterness? Is it not when your humanity is wounded, oppressed, and cast down? When do you most value and love the humiliation of the Incarnate God? Is it not when you are driven to it by suffering, then to learn the tenderness and the sympathy that are in Christ? Oh blessed affliction, sweet sorrow, friendly chastisement, that brings your soul into the deeper experience of what God is in your nature!

Hark! the herald angels sing,
"Glory to the newborn King:
peace on earth, and mercy mild,
God and sinners reconciled!"
Joyful, all ye nations, rise,
join the triumph of the skies;
with th'angelic host proclaim,
"Christ is born in Bethlehem!"
Hark! the herald angels sing,
"Glory to the newborn King."

Christ, by highest heav'n adored,
Christ, the everlasting Lord!
Late in time behold him come,
offspring of the Virgin's womb.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
hail th'incarnate Deity,
pleased as man with men to dwell,
Jesus, our Emmanuel.

Hail, the heav'n-born Prince of Peace!
Hail, the Sun of Righteousness!
Light and life to all he brings,
ris'n with healing in his wings.
Mild he lays his glory by,
born that man no more may die,
born to raise the sons of earth,
born to give them second birth.

(Charles Wesley, 1789, alt.)

Be sure to read the Preface by Octavius Winslow and A Note from the Editor by Larry E. Wilson.

Larry Wilson is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In addition to having served as the General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education of the OPC (2000–2004) and having written a number of articles and booklets (such as God's Words for Worship and Why Does the OPC Baptize Infants) for New Horizons and elsewhere, he has pastored OPC churches in Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio. We are grateful to him for his editing of Morning Thoughts, the OPC Daily Devotional for 2011.