He Opens And Nobody Closes
HE OPENS AND NOBODY CLOSES
Since He was the All-holy Son of God, though He condescended to be born into the world, He necessarily came into it in a way suitable to the All-holy, and different from that of other men. He took our nature upon Him, but not our sin; taking our nature in a way above nature. Did He then come from heaven in the clouds? did He frame a body for Himself out of the dust of the earth? No; He was, as other men, “made of a woman,” as St. Paul speaks, that He might take on Him, not another nature, but the nature of man. It had been prophesied from the beginning, that the Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head. “I will put enmity,” said Almighty God to the serpent at the fall, “between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her Seed; It shall bruise thy head.” (Gen. 3:15). In consequence of this promise, pious women, we are told, were in the old time ever looking out in hope that in their own instance, the promise might find its accomplishment. One after another hoped in turn that she herself might be mother of the promised King; and therefore marriage was in repute, and virginity in disesteem, as if then only they had a prospect of being the Mother of Christ, if they waited for the blessing according to the course of nature, and amid the generations of men. Pious women they were, but little understanding the real condition of mankind.
It was ordained, indeed, that the Eternal Word should come into the world by the ministration of a woman; but born in the way of the flesh He could not be. Mankind is a fallen race; ever since the Fall there has been a “fault and corruption of the nature of every man that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam; … so that the flesh lusts always contrary to the Spirit, and therefore in every person born into this world it deserves God’s wrath and damnation.” And “the Apostle doth confess that concupiscence and lust hath of itself the nature of sin.” “That which is born of the flesh, is flesh.” “Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?” “How can he be clean that is born of a woman?” Or as holy David cries out, “Behold, I was conceived in wickedness, and in sin hath my mother conceived me.” (John 3:6. Job 14:4; 25:4. Ps. 51:5). No one is born into the world without sin; or can rid himself of the sin of his birth except by a second birth through the Spirit. How then could the Son of God have come as a Holy Savior, had He come as other men? How could He have atoned for our sins, who Himself had guilt? or cleansed our hearts, who was impure Himself? or raised up our heads, who was Himself the son of shame? Surely any such messenger had needed a Savior for his own disease, and to such a one would apply the proverb, “Physician, heal thyself.” Priests among men are they who have to offer “first for their own sins, and then for the people’s;” (Heb. 7:27) but He, coming as the immaculate Lamb of God, and the all-prevailing Priest, could not come in the way which those fond persons anticipated. He came by a new and living way, by which He alone has come, and which alone became Him. The Prophet Isaiah had been the first to announce it: “The Lord Himself shall give you a sign,” he says, “Behold, a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His Name Immanuel.” And accordingly, St. Matthew after quoting this text, declares its fulfilment in the instance of the Blessed Mary. “All this,” he says, “was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet.”
–Parochial and Plain Sermons, V