2. His manner of doing the work of a Saviour called for his taking of our flesh.
He must do the work by dying. 'Ought not Christ to have suffered? Christ must needs have suffered,' or else no glory follows (Luke 24:26; Acts 17:3). 'The prophets testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow' (1 Peter 1:11). Yea, they did it by the Spirit, even by the Spirit of Christ himself. This Spirit, then, did bid them tell the world, yea, testify, that Christ must suffer, or no man be blest with glory; for the threatening of death and the curse of the law lay in the way between heaven gates and the souls of the children, for their sins; wherefore he that will save them must answer Divine justice, or God must lie, in keeping them without inflicting the punishment threatened. Christ, then, must needs have suffered; the manner of the work laid a necessity upon him to take our flesh upon him; he must die, he must die for us, he must die for our sins. And this was effectually foretold by all the bloody sacrifices that were offered under the law—the blood of bulls, the blood of lambs, the blood of rams, the blood of calves, and the blood of goats and birds. What did these bloody sacrifices signify? What were they figures of, but of the bloody sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ? their blood being a shadow of his blood, and their flesh being a shadow of his flesh.
Therefore, when God declared that he took no pleasure in them because they could not make the worshippers perfect as about the conscience, then Jesus Christ offered his sinless body and soul for the sin of the people—' For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sin. Wherefore, when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifices and offering thou would not, but a body hast thou prepared me; in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, to do thy will, O God.' Since burnt offerings cannot do thy will, my body shall; since the blood of bulls and goats cannot do thy will, my blood shall. Then follows, By the will of God, 'we are sanctified, through the offering up of the body of Jesus Christ once for all' (Heb 10:4-10).
3. The end of the work required that Christ if he will be our Saviour, take our flesh upon him.
The end of our salvation is that we might enjoy God and that he, through us, might be glorified forever and ever.
(1.) That we might enjoy God. 'I will dwell in them; they shall be my people, and I will be their God.' This indwelling of God, and consequently our enjoyment of him, begins first in its eminency by his possessing our flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. Hence his name is called 'Immanuel, God with us'; and 'the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.' The flesh of Christ is the tabernacle which the Lord pitched, according to that saying, 'The tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God' (Rev 21:3). Here God begins to discover his glory, and to be desirable to the sons of men.
God could not communicate himself to us, nor take us into the enjoyment of himself, but concerning that flesh which his Son took of the Virgin because sin stood betwixt. Now this flesh only was the holy lump, in this flesh God could dwell; and forasmuch as this flesh is the same with ours, and was taken up with intent that what was done in and by that, should be communicated to all the children; therefore through that doth God communicate of himself unto his people—' God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself' (2 Cor 5:19). And 'I am the way,' saith Christ, 'no man cometh unto the Father but by me' (John 14:6).
That passage to the Hebrews is significant to our purpose. We have boldness, brethren, 'to enter into the holiest,' the place where God is, 'by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh' (Hebrews 10:19, 20).
Wherefore by the flesh and blood of Christ we enter into the holiest; through the veil, saith he, that is to say, his flesh.
(2.) As the end of our salvation is that we might enjoy God, so also it is that he by us might be glorified forever—' That God in all things might be glorified, through Jesus Christ our Lord.'
Here, indeed, will the mystery of his grace, wisdom, justice, power, holiness, and glory inhabit eternal praise. At the same time, we who are counted worthy of the kingdom of God shall admire the mystery and see ourselves, without ourselves, even by the flesh and blood of Christ through faith therein, effectually and eternally saved. Oh, this will be the burden of our eternal joy—God loved us and gave his Son for us; Christ loved us and gave his flesh for our life and his blood for our eternal redemption and salvation!
