Selected from: Marcus Dods, On the Incarnation of the Eternal Word, London 1849.
The duty of Christ as our prophet is to reveal to us the Father, as he saith, “Neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him”; and again it is said, “No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” Now, how did Christ reveal to us the Father? Not by any set proofs of his existence, nor by any abstract discussions upon his nature or character, nor by didactic discourses, but by action; a mode of instruction as level to the comprehension of the meanest capacity, as to that of the loftiest; as intelligible to the peasant as to the philosopher.
He taught us, for example, that God is Holy. But how did he do this? Not by any set dissertations on his holiness, but by the unceasing and spotless holiness of his own conduct. Never were allurements more enticing than those by which he was sometimes solicited, and never were trials so severe as those to which he was commonly exposed, and [yet] never were testimonies so numerous, unequivocal, and decisive, as those by which it is proved that by no allurement was he ever enticed, by no trial was he ever pressed into a deviation, or into any thing approaching a wish to deviate from the path of duty. Not only could he himself challenge his bitterest foes to convince him of sin, but the testimony of his friends and foes alike concurs to assure us that he “did no sin,” and that in his mouth no guile was found.
In the same manner he teaches us that God is Good, not by regular proofs of this in his discourses, but by the constant exhibition of it in his practice. When the infirm and the distressed applied to him, the application was never made in vain. He never said to the applicant, you are of too abandoned a character for notice, and richly deserve all the miseries that you endure; or, your disease is of too desperate a nature, or of too long standing, to admit of relief. No, but his language was, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.”
Now, he who exhibited this unceasing holiness, and this unlimited goodness, was God with us, God manifest in the flesh. And such as he was in the world, even such is God. If we wish to know the character of God, we shall find it revealed there, where the life of Jesus is recorded. Hence the following most distinct language is used by our Lord himself on this subject: “If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? He that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?”
Hence, too, when we are called upon to combat the fears that take possession of the awakened soul, and the arguments which ignorance and unbelief raise up in the heart of the convinced sinner, against faith and hope, we find the record of our Saviour’s life one of the best and most efficient grounds on which they may be combated. We say with powerful effect to the sinner, under these circumstances, He, whose goodness was so unlimited, was God manifested in the flesh, and manifested there for this very purpose, that we might see with our own eyes, and have the most perfect knowledge of the gracious dispositions of God toward us. If you say that you admit the general proposition, that there is mercy with God for sinners, but dare not specifically apply the general proposition to your own individual case, and hope that there is mercy for you, then we say that you are negativing not only his manifold and gracious declarations, whereby he encourages the weary and heavy laden to come to him, that they may find peace and rest; but you are negativing the import of the lesson taught by the whole course of his conduct. For, [beginning] from that exercise of inconceivable goodness which he manifested when, leaving the glory which he had with the Father before the world began, he condescended to become obnoxious to every suffering which human nature knows, in that flesh which he took into personal union with himself, [and continuing] down to that other equally inconceivable exercise of goodness which he manifested, when he bowed his head and gave up the ghost, giving his own life for that of a lost world, what one act in the whole course of his earthly existence is not in most perfect accordance with the grace and the goodness, which distinguished alike its commencement and its close?
What wretch ever applied to him, and was sent away unrelieved? Whom did he ever ask, by what right, or on the ground of what merit, they laid claim to his interposition in their favour? Whom did he ever reproach with the guilt that had brought their miseries upon them? If he healed the sick, and raised the dead, if out of one he cast seven devils, and dispossessed another of a whole legion, it was for the very purpose of convincing you, that there is no limit either to his power or his willingness to heal your spiritual sickness, to quicken you from your death in sin. You have the same access to him now, that the miserable had when he was on earth. What he was then, he is now. He asks no questions as to the past. He asks not if you be laden with the sins of a few days, or with the sins of many years. He asks not if your crimes be few or many, slight or aggravated. They all lie equally within the compass of his power; and his only question is, “Wilt thou be made whole?” If, for a moment, he refused the woman of Syrophenicia, it was only to teach you the happy effect of persevering and importunate prayer. If he refused her for a moment, it was only the more emphatically to teach this truth, that he will never refuse,—that whosoever cometh unto him shall not be denied.
And if the life of Christ was in reality a living manifestation of all the perfections of God, and if we know God, because God has verily dwelt in the flesh amongst us, then it is obvious, not merely that the Son, who became our Prophet to reveal unto us the Father, must of necessity become flesh, since in no other way that we know could he make that revelation; but it is not less obviously necessary, that the flesh which he took should be perfectly holy, else it is not conceivable how his life could afford us any exhibition of the holiness of God. He might have showed to us the holiness of a man, such as Abraham or Moses, carried to a higher degree of perfection, even to the extent of avoiding all actual transgression of the law of God. But if his flesh was really sinful, if it ever felt the slightest propensity or inclination to sin,—an inclination which required to be repressed, in order to prevent it from proceeding to actual guilt [i.e., the guilt of actual as opposed to original sin], then this propensity was itself criminal,—it was just that carnal concupiscence, that lusting of the flesh against the Spirit, which we derive from the fall, and which effectually disqualified him in whom it dwelt from giving any practical revelation of the divine holiness in his life. [In that case,] he was exactly in the situation of other fallen men; he might be a very bright monument of divine grace; but the revealer of God,—the author of the grace of illumination, he could no more be, than any other fallen and regenerated man. Of that grace he might have received a richer abundance than any other fallen man ever received; but he stood in exactly the same predicament as they did, and, therefore, though perhaps we cannot reasonably hope to receive quite as large a measure of that wisdom which maketh wise unto salvation, from Abraham, “the friend of God,” or from Aaron, the “saint of the Lord,” or from Paul, “the apostle of the Gentiles,” as from him in whom the work of regeneration had a more perfect operation than it had in them; yet assuredly the same principle that authorizes us to expect that grace from one fallen and regenerated man, authorizes us to expect the same grace, though perhaps in a somewhat inferior degree, from any other fallen and regenerated man.
And this is not the only point on which the doctrine of our Lord’s [supposedly] fallen humanity gives the most direct and decisive sanction to the worship of the Saints: the sanction becomes still stronger and more decisive, when we reflect, that though we may probably expect a more abundant measure of wisdom from Christ, than from any other fallen and regenerated man, yet we may unquestionably expect the highest measure of that wisdom, when we seek it both from him, and also from all other fallen and regenerated men. In him, indeed, that concupiscence of the flesh, which characterizes fallen man, might be kept as “a spring shut up, and a fountain sealed,” from which no emanation of actual guilt was ever permitted to proceed. The motions of sin in the flesh might in him be so powerfully and successfully repressed, that it might be truly said of him in whom these motions wrought, that he “did no sin.” But with what truth it could be said of him,—whose whole life was [allegedly] an unceasing, however successful, struggle against the will of the flesh, compelling “the flesh against its will,” into however perfect a harmony with the will of God,—that he “knew no sin,” is to me altogether incomprehensible. If the concupiscence of the flesh existed in him at all, however successfully subdued, it existed as the germ of all actual transgression,—as containing in it the elements of all human guilt,—as the object of just wrath, and deserved punishment,—as that which can be rendered fit for communion with God, only through that shedding of blood, without which there can be no remission, and, consequently, totally depriving him in whom it existed of all claim to the title, and of all power to accomplish the purposes, of a “Lamb without blemish, and without spot.”
But in order to see all the fulness with which he discharged the duties resulting from his prophetic character, and learn from his discharge of them all the knowledge which it is fitted and intended to convey, we must look, not merely to his life, but still more especially to his death. He was a Prophet on the cross, as well as “a Priest on the throne,” and not the less a King on both. And whatever knowledge of the character of God we derive from the life of Christ is both carried out to a greater extent, and taught with a more impressive emphasis, by his death. By his life we are taught that God is good, and the sinner is powerfully encouraged to come to him for pardon and for peace. But it was on the cross that he gave the highest exhibition of the Divine goodness.
To all his creatures the goodness of God was known, but to none of them was the infinite and inconceivable extent of that goodness known till Christ died on the cross. When man fell, had God freely forgiven the rebel, and by a word restored him to perfect purity, and placed him in a state of impeccable stability, this would have been an act of unexampled goodness.
But when they heard of the Incarnation, when they heard that the Eternal Word, who spoke the world into being, was himself to be made flesh, and in the weakness of flesh was to go forth into that world of which Satan had become the god, and to meet him in his own domain, and to contend with him and all his powers on his own ground, and by his own deeds and his own sufferings to take away the captives of the mighty, and to redeem the prey of the terrible,—and when they saw all this actually accomplished, then had they a view of the goodness of God, far beyond aught that they could possibly have had before. When they saw God willing to redeem from their captivity, and to ransom from destruction, creatures whose utter and final perdition could not have affected, in the slightest degree, his happiness or glory, [and] with no less a price than the blood of his own well-beloved Son, it is no matter of surprise that they, delighted to be thus assured, not only that God is good, but that his goodness is absolutely infinite, should, as well as the redeemed from among men, celebrate the death of Christ in the most exalted strains of gratitude and adoration, as we are assured by John in the Revelation that they do.
And well might the same writer, when contemplating the goodness of God, as it is set forth in the unspeakable value of the price by which he purchased our safety, thus speak of it, “In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” 1 John 4:9–10. The love of God is indeed thus manifested to be something, the extent of which no language may describe, and no heart may conceive: and the redeemed of the Lord, while throughout eternity his love flows forth to them, in an ever-increasing weight of glory and blessedness, will feel no misgivings, lest he who thus blesseth them should grow weary in the exercise of his love, and should come to a limit beyond which they shall not go in its enjoyment. For they can ever look back to the cross of Christ, where the death of our Prophet gave an ineffaceable and irrefragable demonstration that the love of God is truly boundless and exhaustless, and passing all understanding.
Now, is it possible that the life of Christ,—clear, and distinct, and decisive as are the manifestations of the love and goodness of God which it affords,—could have manifested that love and goodness to as great an extent, or have given so impressive and indubitable a demonstration of them, as that which we derive from his death ? Every reader will readily answer, No. It was through his whole life, but still more especially and emphatically in his death, that our great Prophet revealed unto us the Father. Then it follows that he died as a Prophet, not less than as a Priest; or, in other words, it was from his death as a sacrifice to expiate our sins that we derive the highest instruction, which, as our Prophet, he came to teach us. Had God sent his Son merely to instruct us by his doctrine, this would have been a great proof of love; but it might still have been supposed that that love was limited, [and] that though he gave him to be our instructor, yet he would not give him up to suffering for our sakes. But when Christ actually died, then was the love of God proved to be truly infinite; “For greater love hath no man than this, that he should lay down his life for his friends.”
But what mighty proof of love was this, if Christ was really a fallen sinful man? In that case his death could be of no avail to us, and could afford us no proof that the love of God is infinite, but it was essentially necessary on his own account. For if he were fallen, he needed regeneration, having been generated by the Holy Ghost [as] a sinful thing; and regeneration can be perfected only through the medium of death. And if he died to perfect his own regeneration, then his death is no more to us than the death of any other fallen, sinful, but regenerated man; nor can I see how the love of God toward us is displayed in the one case more than in the other. But supposing that the death of Christ was not at all necessary on his own account, but was endured solely for our sakes, then the demonstration of the love of God which it affords becomes much more distinct and impressive, when viewed in connection with that demonstration of the exceedingly hateful and malignant nature of sin which was given by the same event. If the evil of sin be small, then the love that forgives it is not great, and, therefore, the death of Christ would not be a proof of the infinite love of God, unless it were also a proof of the infinite evil of sin.
That the evil of sin is infinite is easily proved by abstract reasoning; for its direct tendency is to dethrone God, and thus destroy the universe. But God does not teach us truths of importance by abstract reasonings which require close thinking to apprehend, but by practical demonstrations which are alike intelligible to all. And the death of Christ is the practical illustration, not only that sin is evil, but that its evil is infinite. When sin was first introduced into the dominions of God, some demonstration of its evil was given in the punishment inflicted on the offenders. That demonstration, however, was comparatively trifling. In them it was not immediately punished to the full extent of its demerit, nor, consequently, to the full extent of its evil shown. And had these first offenders been at once and freely forgiven, could this by any possibility have been done, it would have afforded a comparatively trifling manifestation of the grace of God.
Before that grace could be seen in all its glory, sin must first be seen in all its malignity. And this could not be seen merely in the fall of angels. One of its most awful characteristics their fall could not show. I refer to its generative nature,—its capability of being propagated from race to race through successive generations. Whatever number of angels there were who kept not their first state, each fell by his own personal act; and to however many other sins that first sin might give rise in the individual, this was only a proof that sin once admitted into the heart would propagate itself there, but could give no idea of another fact, which far more fearfully demonstrates the malignity of sin,—namely, that sin might be committed under such circumstances, as would render it just in God to cause the poison of that sin to pass from the actual transgressor to unnumbered millions of other responsible creatures, connected in a particular manner with the transgressor, so as to involve them all in his guilt and in his doom. Till man fell, and the result of his fall was seen, it could not be known that such was the malignity of sin, that one sin of one man was sufficient to diffuse guilt and misery through all generations of men. One sin thus committed, under circumstances which afforded it an opportunity for producing all its natural and proper effects, gave a much more impressive view of its native malignity than the fall of angels could possibly do.
Many proofs of the hatefulness of sin have been given, such as the sweeping away of a guilty world by the flood,—the sudden destruction of “the cities of the plain,”—the devotion of the Amorites to extermination when the measure of their iniquities was full. And all the madness, and folly, and guilt, and misery, that abound on earth, and every sin and every sorrow of every individual, when viewed, as it ought always to be, in connection with the original source whence it sprung, are all affecting and convincing proofs—proofs coming home to the bosom of every man who is capable of feeling—how evil a thing and bitter sin is; while, at the same time, they are proving that the “evil figment” of man’s heart, the “root of bitterness,” is at this day as vigorous, and fresh, and flourishing, and fruitful, as it was at the beginning; and while they are showing how one sin of one man, when committed under circumstances favourable to the development of its proper effects, is capable of resulting in the actual guilt and temporal sufferings of all, and in the final condemnation of many.
And when this demonstration of the malignity of sin has been for ages exhibited to the examination of men and of angels, when we have seen one sin spreading its contamination over a whole world, and over all generations of men, and showing its poison in the production of a guilt and a misery that baffle all calculation and all conception, is this demonstration, overwhelming though it be, the most painful and the most awful exhibition of the “exceeding sinfulness of sin,” which God hath given to angels and to men? No. Notwithstanding this demonstration, the evil of sin, inconceivable as it is shown to be, might yet have a limit, and its misery might have an end. Therefore, a demonstration more striking still, and one which may prove that the evil of sin is truly and properly infinite, was wanted; lest men, ever apt to undervalue that evil, should come to think that the sufferings of life, and the pangs of death, form a sufficient expiation for it. The only begotten Son of God is sent forth to teach us this, among other things, that the holiness of God is something far beyond all conception,—that his aversion to sin is wholly unalterable,—and that, in short, there is a hatefulness in sin, which we can no more comprehend than we can comprehend the perfections of God. We have seen the effects of one sin, and these are disastrous beyond all calculation. But the death of our Divine Prophet affords a demonstration even beyond this, else it would not have been given.
When angels saw him, whom they were accustomed to worship, go forth into the world “in the likeness of sinful flesh,”—when they saw him take upon himself the penalty due to the sins of a lost world,—when they saw him undertake to pay a debt of such incalculable magnitude, they would be ready to say, ‘Surely it is sufficient that he has had goodness enough to undertake for these fallen creatures! The debt will not be in reality exacted; the penalty will not be unsparingly inflicted. The sins which could not be forgiven to the creature will be freely forgiven to the only begotten and well-beloved Son, when he has taken them upon himself. A little may be exacted, in order to prove the reality of his suretyship; a little may be inflicted, in order to prove the reality of his substitution; but surely the whole will never be either required or inflicted. The transgressions of the law, which could not be forgiven to the actually guilty creature, may well be forgiven, when they become, by imputation, the transgressions of him who is above the law. He will spare the Son.’ But no, not one pang due to our guilt was withheld, not one drop of gall which guilt had mingled in our cup, was abstracted from his. “The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all”; and he is able to forgive every sin, because there is no sin, the bitterness resulting from which he did not feel to the full. And this is what constitutes his death, so awful and solemn, and impressive a demonstration, beyond all other demonstrations, of the infinite and inconceivable holiness of God, and of the unspeakable hatefulness of sin, that though he who took our iniquities upon himself was the well-beloved Son, yet not one pang due to guilt was spared him.
