God incarnate, the end of fear

‘And the angel said unto them, Fear not.’ Luke 2:10

Suggested Further Reading: Isaiah 9:2–7

Observe the angel’s word, ‘Unto you is born.’ Our Lord Jesus Christ is in some senses more man than Adam. Adam was not born; Adam never had to struggle through the risks and weaknesses of infancy; he knew not the littleness of childhood; he was full grown at once. Father Adam could not sympathise with me as a babe and a child. But how man-like is Jesus! He is cradled with us in the manger; he does not begin with us in mid-life, as Adam, but he accompanies us in the pains and feebleness and infirmities of infancy, and he continues with us even to the grave. Beloved, this is such sweet comfort. He that is God this day was once an infant: so that if my cares are little and even trivial and comparatively infantile, I may go to him, for he was once a child. Though the great ones of the earth may sneer at the child of poverty, and say, ‘You are too mean, and your trouble is too slight for pity,’ I recollect with humble joy, that the King of heaven did hang upon a woman’s breast, and was wrapped in swaddling bands, and therefore I tell him all my griefs. How wonderful that he should have been an infant, and yet should be God over all, blessed for ever! I am not afraid of God now; this blessed link between me and God, the holy child Jesus, has taken all fear away. Observe, the angel told them somewhat of his office, as well as of his birth. ‘Unto you is born this day a Saviour.’ The very object for which he was born and came into this world was that he might deliver us from sin. What was it that made us afraid? Were we not afraid of God because we felt that we were lost through sin? Well then, here is joy upon joy.

For meditation: Adam was created, but never born; he identifies with us only as a creature and a sinner (Romans 5:12). Christ, the second Adam (Romans 5:14), was never created, but his birth was an important part of his identification with us, so that believers could be identified with him as sons of God (Galatians 4:4–5).

Sermon no. 727
23 December (1866)