May 9 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"No one has ever seen God; the only begotten God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known" (John 1:18).

Devotional

We can form no just or definite conception of the spirituality of the Divine nature. All our ideas of it must necessarily be unintelligible, vague, and shadowy. Referring to this impossibility, and in terms of condescending adaptation to our empirical view of objects, Jesus says of his Father, "His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen" (John 5:37).

Ignorant of this inspired truth—and yet with a quenchless thirst that ever desires such a conception of an infinite spirit as would afford an object on which faith could rest and around which the affections could entwine—man has been beguiled into atheism and idolatry of the most debasing and fearful character. Framing his conceptions of spirit after his own low and depraved idea of matter, he has "exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things" (Rom. 1:23).

But God has revealed himself. He has stooped to our nature and in the person of his incarnate Son, he has embodied the spirituality of his being with all its divine and glorious attributes. All that we clearly, savingly know of God is just the measure of our acquaintance with this truth. Jesus brings God near. "You are near, O Lord" (Ps. 119:151).

Oh, how near! "They shall call his name Emmanuel, which means, God with us" (Matt. 1:23). The most stupendous, glorious truth which created mind ever grasped is involved in this wondrous declaration, "Emmanuel, God with us." With what glory it invests the Bible! What a foundation it lays for faith! What substance it imparts to salvation! And what a good hope it places before the believing soul!

God is with us in Jesus Christ—with us in the character of a reconciled Father; with us every step of our journey to heaven; with us to guide in perplexity, to soothe in sorrow, to comfort in bereavement, to rescue in danger, to shield in temptation, to provide in need, to support in death, and safely to conduct to glory.

My soul! Fall prostrate in the dust before the majesty of this amazing, this precious truth! Adore the wisdom that reveals it, and admire the grace that makes it yours!

O Lord, how shall I meet you,
how welcome you aright?
Your people long to greet you,
my hope, my heart's delight!
O kindle, Lord, most holy,
your lamp within my breast
to do in spirit lowly
all that may please you best.

Love caused your incarnation;,
love brought you down to me.
Your thirst for my salvation
procured my liberty.
O love beyond all telling,
that led you to embrace
in love, all love excelling,
our lost and fallen race!

Rejoice, then, you sad-hearted,
who sit in deepest gloom,
who mourn o'er joys departed
and tremble at your doom.
Despair not, he is near you—
yes, standing at the door—
who best can help and cheer you
and bids you weep no more.

Sin's debt, that fearful burden,
let not your soul distress;
your guilt the Lord will pardon
and cover by his grace.
He comes, for men procuring
the peace of sin forgiv'n,
for all God's sons securing
their heritage in heav'n.

(Paul Gerhardt, 1523, cento; tr. composite; mod. 1990)

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 2025.