Matthew 1:23. Immanuel, God with us, is tantamount to “Christ in us, the Hope of Glory.” And if Christ be in us, and with us, in this world, it is an infallible earnest, and an invaluable pledge, of our being “With Christ in God” forever, in the world to come. Thus “the highest Heavens are the habitation of His Glory; and the humble heart hath the next honor, to be the habitation of His grace.” What ground, then for repining is here?
Believer, if thou hast the pledge, thou shalt have the portion. The faithfulness, the Love and the Omnipotence, of thine Immanuel, are engaged bestow it upon thee, and to bring thee to its eternal possession. What condescension, what infinite and unsearchable kindness, is here! It would be thought a point of vast humility and beneficence, if an Earthly King—a feeble frame like all others of dying clay—were to descend from his throne, and lift up a filthy beggar, to make him a partner of His throne. But the condescension of God is infinitely greater. “The Lord of Heaven and Earth, the Everlasting King of Kings”, not only quitted His throne, but became a man like thyself—a man of sorrows—a man despised and rejected—a man, who, in His own created world, “had not where to lay His head”—and finally a man to bleed and die, not for the safety of His friends, but for the salvation of Rebels and Enemies. He died for those who could never so much as have thanked Him for dying; did not He add to that wonderful Love the additional Gift of His Spirit and grace. Almost everyone would think himself bound in gratitude to pay a particular respect to a person who might have saved an Earthly life; but how low is the thankfulness—how poor the return of love is the most ardent affection for the children of God, to Him, who not only saved them to a life of grace, and to the possession of a thousand comforts, which the world cannot know, on earth, but hath also assured them, by this earnest of their Redemption, of a life Eternal with Him, in Heaven!
God with us should ever imply the Christian’s resignation to God. The will of God should be his will; and indeed he can never walk comfortably, nor even faithfully unless it is. To walk otherwise is not only to walk in sorrow, but in folly. It is a great matter to have our will in unison with God’s and indeed far above the power of flesh and blood. It is an easy thing to say “Thy will be done” but when that will is doing and it thwarts (as it usually does) the inclinations of the carnal mind, with its worldly selfish views, then to feel a resigned heart to the conduct of grace and providence is a demonstration that “God is in us of a truth.” None but the Almighty, who made Heaven and Earth, can bow the proud, stubborn mind of sinful man, to a subjection like this. A man may easily bend his knees in shows and forms of service; but none but God can bend the heart in a real submission to the Divine will. The light of free grace alone can make a man conscious of the worth of grace, and of his own dependence from moment to moment upon it. Then, “the soul, sensible of its own inability, surrenders up itself to the Almighty Redeemer, and subjects itself to the rules of His Dominion, as the clay to the hand of the potter; and so the soul in every nerve of it is loosed, and lies down at the will and disposal of the Lord, to do as it seemeth good unto Him; and by this means, the soul ceaseth from its own private interest, and submits itself to the merits, mercy, and laws of the Mediator, to be dieted, clothed, and employed by Him only, and lives no longer by the “life of its own hand.” He stretcheth forth his hands and another girds him and leads him whither his fleshly reason would not. He never knows a step of his way, but as the Word and Spirit guide him. Yet none can conceive, but those who have experienced a subjective resignation to the mind of Christ, what sweet complacency attends the soul in this almost solitary walk; and what fellowship subsists between Christ and it, in this path to heaven when thus “they are agreed” Resignation to Christ is never neglected by Him; and communion with Christ is its own reward. It was a just remark, which perhaps the experience of every believer may more or less confirm. “That the surest way of obtaining any mercy from God, is to be contented, if it be His pleasure to go without it.” No mercy can come from Him, but by His own will in His own way and in His own time. If a believer wishes to have it sooner, he may find the rod for his impatience, but he must wait for the blessing. This is to teach Him that humbling, hardest lesson of all vital experience—that as he renounces his self-righteousness in coming to God, he must renounce his self-will in walking with GOD.
Lastly God with us implies our being with GOD forever. The gifts and callings of GOD are without repentance. Whom he once loves, He loves to the end; and whom He blesses with His grace below, He will crown with Glory everlasting above. The Redeemed of the Lord shall behold the unutterable glories of their precious Immanuel. They shall see His transcendent excellence as GOD, and His amazing benignity and goodness as the GOD MAN.
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