Jesus Christ was, in the fullest sense of the word, the spotless Lamb of God. He never did any sin, neither was guile found in His mouth. It was love which brought Him down from heaven for the very purpose of becoming our substitute.
The prophets of old were preachers of righteousness, especially in times of indifference. They held up the demands of God’s Law. They denounced sin. They pictured in fiery eloquence God’s wrath against it, and pressed home in telling terms the consequences of sin unrepented of, and unpardoned. And then they came with God’s offer of forgiveness for all the truly penitent. They told of His desire for reconciliation, of the loving favor with which He would receive every one who came with penitence, confession, and faith. Turn ye, turn ye, from your wicked way, why will ye die? As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. This was the burden of the old prophets’ message.
For a man to be able to say that Jesus Christ is his Lord means not only that He is recognized to be truly the Son of God as well as the Son of man; but it means also the unreserved acceptance, in true faith, of Jesus Christ as his deliverer from sin and death and devil. In the sense of this article Jesus Christ is not the Lord of any person who is trusting for salvation in anything save Christ alone. The work-righteous man, who is trusting in his own goodness, in his own efforts, for salvation, cannot truly say — Jesus Christ is “my Lord.” It is simply not true. He is trying to be his own lord.
In our day these clauses, “conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary,” are seriously called into question. There are those who not only want them left out of the creed, but declare that it is a grievous wrong to retain them and insist on their acceptance as an article of faith. This controversy is known in the Church as the one concerning the Virgin Birth of Jesus. Of this I purpose speaking today.
Man is subject to the law, but cannot fulfill it. He can suffer the penalties of outraged law, but it would never suffice to pay his own debt, much less the moral debts of all men. God is the law-giver, and cannot be subject to it. He has the worth to pay man’s debt of sin, but as God alone He cannot suffer and die, which was the price of payment. By the union of God and man in Jesus Christ, in such manner that the properties of the one nature became the properties of the other, and the attributes of the one nature the attributes of the other, the requirements were met on all sides. God in Christ could endure for man’s sins, and the humanity of Christ had the merit fully to cancel the debt.
The humanity of Jesus is the best possible lesson on what true human nature is. By contrasting ourselves with Him we may learn how poor and frail we are. By studying His life we may learn what we may become. It is good that we have such an inspiring ideal at which to look.
As we rejoice in the pardon we have for the guilt of sin; as we hope to be more and more liberated from the power of sin in our lives; as we value the peace of heart which comes from assured fellowship with God in and through Christ; as we rejoice in the continually brightening hope of a richer, fuller, finally perfect life in the fellowship of the saints around the throne of glory, let us not be robbed of our confidence in the truth that Jesus is the very Son of God. This is the ultimate foundation of everything in the Christian life. This is the truth in the true, full appropriation of which alone there can be real life, peace, joy.
I believe in Jesus Christ. If we can truthfully, reverently say these words, into what a glorious fellowship they bring us. They bring us into the company of the sainted prophets whose eyes were anointed to see afar off the rising of the Day-star out of Jacob, and the coming of the Sun of Righteousness with healing in His wings. They make us brothers of the fearless Baptist, who bore witness that “this is the Son of God.” They open the way into that inner circle where dwelt that other John, who wrote to the end that we “might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing we might have life through His name.”
God is not only infinitely wise and great, He is also infinitely good. He is boundless in His mercy and patience toward the children of men. In His loving kindness God watches over us, and cares for us with a solicitude which never grows wearied or impatient. Assuredly we owe Him something for all this. We can make Him no adequate, no material, return. We can never pay God the debt we owe Him. But there is something He wants, something we can give Him. It is our purpose to consider today what it is that God requires of us in return for His goodness toward us. In other words, man’s obligation to God.
The root of the secret of God’s care for us is found in one word of the First Article of the Creed, — the word Father. We here confess that God is not only a creator, not only a governor; He is not only a being before whose wisdom and power we are called to prostrate ourselves: God is a father, our Father, in the full, rich, sweet meaning of the word.
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