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Herman Bavinck – Jesus: David’s Son and David’s Lord

24 Dec

Jesus was counted a son of David by the reckoning of Joseph’s lineage, not by that of Mary’s. All the emphasis is on Joseph’s Davidic descent, not only in Matthew (1:16, 20) but also in Luke (1:27; 2:4). Although Jesus was not the natural son of Joseph, through Mary, who was engaged to Joseph, he was civilly and legally the son of Joseph (Luke 2:27, 41, 48) and inherited from him the rights to David’s throne. Also for that reason Joseph was warned by God to take Mary as his lawful wife, to act as head and father of the family, and in that capacity to give the child the name “Jesus” (Matt. 1:18–21). Thus Christ became David’s son and simultaneously remained David’s Lord.

The exclusion of the man from his conception at the same time had the effect that Christ, as one not included in the covenant of works, remained exempt from original sin and could therefore also be preserved in terms of his human nature, both before and after his birth, from all pollution of sin. As subject, as “I,” he did not descend from Adam but was the Son of the Father, chosen from eternity to be the head of a new covenant. Not Adam but God was his father. As a person he was not the product of humankind but himself came to humankind from without and entered into its ranks. And since he thus, in God’s righteous judgment, remained exempt from all original sin, he could be conceived by the Holy Spirit and by that Spirit remain free from all pollution of sin. Conception by the Holy Spirit was not the deepest ground and final cause of Jesus’ sinlessness, as many theologians say, but it was the only way in which he who already existed as a person and was appointed head of a new covenant could now also in a human way—in the flesh—be and remain who he was: the Christ, Son of God the Most High.

~Herman Bavinck~




Reformed Dogmatics Volume 3: Sin and Salvation in Christ (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006), p. 294-295.

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Wilhelmus à Brakel – The Incarnation Was For You

23 Dec

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(4) You who yearn for Jesus, however, in order to be justified and sanctified by Him, even if it is accompanied by much darkness, fear, anxiety, and concern (John 6:40); you, in whose heart Jesus dwells by faith, so that your desires are repeatedly drawn towards Him (Eph. 3:17); you, in whom Jesus has been formed (Gal. 4:19) and in whom Jesus lives (Gal. 2:20), so that He is all your joy and desire, generating within you a hatred towards sin, a desire to walk as He walked, and perceiving within you a battle between spirit and flesh; you, who love Jesus (1 John 4:19)—you have reason to be assured that He has been born for you. Therefore you have double reason to rejoice with delightful and unspeakable joy, and to jubilate concerning the coming of the Lord Jesus in the flesh.

Fifthly, come therefore, and acknowledge Him as your Lord. “Kiss the Son” (Psa. 2:12), “For He is thy Lord; and worship thou Him” (Psa. 45:11). Surrender yourself to Him, seek to please Him, fear Him, serve Him, and hold Him before you as your only and perfect example, and thus follow in His footsteps (1 Pet. 2:21).

As one must consider the Lord Jesus as being very God—and thus interact with Him with awe, reverence, fear, confidence, and in a worshipful frame—one may and must likewise have fellowship with Him as man, as being our brother, “for … He is not ashamed to call them brethren” (Heb. 2:11). Such fellowship with Him the bride desired. “O that Thou wert as my brother!” (Song of Sol. 8:1). Since He has become our brother, we may and must have fellowship with Him as such, always viewing Him as being in such a relationship to us, “For both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one” (Heb. 2:11). He is flesh of our flesh and bone of our bones. This yields boldness and familiarity to bring all our needs before Him who, being man Himself, understands man’s frame of mind when he suffers pain and is troubled in both soul and body. He can and does have compassion with them (Heb. 2:17; 4:15). This familiarity makes the heart tender. It gives boldness to approach unto Him and commune with Him in human fashion as speaking to a man, commending our cause to Him, and on the basis of His Godhead entrusting it to Him. This in turn will stir up the heart in sweet love towards Him.

~Wilhelmus à Brakel~





The Christian’s Reasonable Service, ed. Joel R. Beeke, trans. Bartel Elshout, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 1992), 516.

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John Bunyan – Jesus Is The Virgin’s Son

4 Dec

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14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. – Isaiah 7:14 ESV.

This woman must be a virgin (Isa 7:14) where it is said, ‘A virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Imanuel.’ And Jesus is he that was the fulfilling of this scripture (Matt 1:22, 23), ‘Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a Son, and they shall call his name Imanuel.’

~John Bunyan~


The Works of John Bunyan Vol. 2: Some Gospel Truths Opened (Edinburgh, London; Banner of Truth, 2009) p. 144

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Martin Luther – Where We Wilt

22 Dec

This is the word of the prophet: “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given” (Isa. 9:6). This is for us the hardest point, not so much to believe that he is the son of the virgin and God himself, as to believe that this Son of God is ours. That is where we wilt, but he who does feel it has become another man. Truly it is mar- velous in our eyes that God should place a little child in the lap of a virgin and that all our blessedness should lie in him. And this Child belongs to all mankind. God feeds the whole world through a Babe nursing at Mary’s breast. This must be our daily exercise: to be transformed into Christ, being nourished by this food. Then will the heart be suffused with all joy and will be strong and confident against every assault.

~Martin Luther~






Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus (Wheaton, IL; Crossway Books; 2008) p. 26-27

Adapted from Martin Luther’s Christmas Book, edited by Roland H. Bainton.

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George Whitefield – Think of Jesus This Season!

21 Dec

Let me now conclude, my dear brethren, with a few words of exhortation, beseeching you to think of the love of the Lord Jesus Christ. Did Jesus come into the world to save us from death, and shall we spend no part of our time in conversing about our dear Jesus; shall we pay no regard to the birth of him who came to re- deem us from the worst of slavery, from that of sin, and the devil; and shall this Jesus not only be born on our account, but likewise die in our stead, and yet shall we be unmindful of him? Shall we spend our time in those things which are offensive to him? Shall we not rather do all we can to promote his glory and act according to his command?

O my dear brethren, be found in the ways of God; let us not disturb our dear Redeemer by any irregular proceedings; and let me beseech you to strive to love, fear, honor, and obey him, more than ever you have done yet; let not the devil engross your time, and that dear Savior who came into the world on your accounts have so little. O be not so ungrateful to him who has been so kind to you! What could the Lord Jesus Christ have done for you more than he has? Then do not abuse his mercy, but let your time be spent in thinking and talking of the love of Jesus, who was incarnate for us, who was born of a woman, and made under the law, to redeem us from the wrath to come.

~George Whitefield~




Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus (Wheaton, IL; Crossway Books; 2008) p. 14-15

Adapted from “The Observation of the Birth of Christ, the Duty of all Christians; or the True Way of Keeping Christmas,” sermon (16) by George Whitefield, in Selected Sermons of George Whitefield.

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Herman Bavinck – The Incarnation

19 Dec

The incarnation of God is the central fact in special revelation, the fact that sheds light upon its whole domain. Already in creation God made himself like human beings when he created them in his image. But in re-creation he became human and entered totally into our nature and situation. In a sense God’s becoming human starts already immediately after the fall, inasmuch in his special revelation God reached back deeply into the life of the creation, linked up with the work of his own providence, and so ordered and led persons, situations, and events, indeed the entire history of a people, that he gradually came close to the human race and become ever more clearly knowable to it. But it reaches its culmination only in the person of Christ, who therefore constitutes the central content of the whole of special revelation. He is the Logos who made and sustains all things (John 1:3; Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:3) and may be considered the angel of YHWH who led Israel (Exod. 14:19; 23:20; 32:34; 33:2; Isa. 63:8,9), and the content of prophecy (John 5:39; 1 Pet. 1:11; Rev. 19:10); and in the fullness of time he became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). Thus Christ is the mediator both of creation and re-creation. “It was his part and his alone, whose ordering of the universe reveals the Father, to renew the same teaching.” In creation and in providence (John 1:3-10), and in the leading of Israel (John 1:11), he prepared his own coming in the flesh. Special revelation in the days of the Old Testament is the history of the coming Christ. Theophany, prophecy, and miracle point toward him and reach their fulfillment in him. He is the manifestation, the word, and the servant of God. He shows us the Father, explains to us his name, and does his work. The incarnation of God is the end of Israel’s history and the center of all human history. “Up until now, and from that point on, history proceeds on its course” (Joh. von Muller). The incarnation is the central miracle: “It is the wonder of all wonders when the divine enters into direct contact with the human.”

~Herman Bavinck~




Reformed Dogmatics Vol. 1: Prolegomena (Grand Rapids, Michigan; Baker Academic; 2003) p. 344.

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Charles Spurgeon – No Angel, Only a Man

5 Nov

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Suppose God had chosen an angel to make satisfaction for our sins– imagine that an angel were capable of bearing that vast amount of suffering and agony which was necessary to our atonement; yet after the angel had done it all, justice would never have been satisfied, for this one simple reason, that the law declares,– “The soul that sinneth IT shall die.” Now, man sins, and therefore man must die. Justice required, that as by man came death, by man also should come the resurrection and the life. The law required, that as man was the sinner, man should be the victim– that as in Adam all died, even so in another Adam should all be made alive. Consequently, it was necessary that Jesus Christ should be chosen out of the people; for had yon blazing angel near the throne, that lofty Gabriel, laid aside his splendours, descended to our earth, endured pain, suffered agonies, entered the vault of death, and groaned out a miserable existence in an extremity of woe, after all that, he would not have satisfied inflexible justice, because it is said, a man must die, and otherwise the sentence is not executed.

~Charles Spurgeon~




Spurgeon’s Sermons (Spokane, Washington; Olive Tree Bible Software; 2010) eBook. Vol. 1, Sermon No. 11; Titled: The People’s Christ; Delivered on Sabbath Morning, February 25, 1855.

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Charles Spurgeon – Jesus Christ as My Brother

22 Oct

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Before I enter into the illustration of this truth I wish to make one statement, so that all objections may be avoided as to the doctrine of my sermon. Our Saviour Jesus Christ, I say, was chosen out of the people; but this merely respects his manhood. As “very God of very God” he was not chosen out of the people; for there was none save him. He was his Father’s only-begotten Son, “begotten of the Father before all worlds.” He was God’s fellow, co-equal, and co-eternal; consequently when we speak of Jesus as being chosen out of the people, we must speak of him as a man. We are, I conceive, too forgetful of the real manhood of our Redeemer, for a man he was to all intents and purposes, and I love to sing,

“A Man there was, a real Man, Who once on Calvary died.”

He was not man and God amalgamated–the two natures suffered no confusion–he was very God, without the diminution of his essence or attributes; and he was equally, verily, and truly, man. It is as a man I speak of Jesus this morning; and it rejoices my heart when I can view the human side of that glorious miracle of incarnation, and can deal with Jesus Christ as my brother–inhabitant of the same mortality, wrestler with the same pains and ills, companion in the march of life, and,for a little while, a fellow-sleeper in the cold chamber of death.

~Charles Spurgeon~




Spurgeon’s Sermons (Spokane, Washington; Olive Tree Bible Software; 2010) eBook. Vol. 1, Sermon No. 11; Titled: The People’s Christ; Delivered on Sabbath Morning, February 25, 1855.

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Charles Spurgeon – Comfort and Joy: Found

23 May

Ay, my friends, if it were not true, ye might weep. If the Bible were not the truth of God– if we could not meet together around his mercy seat, then ye might put your hands upon your loins and walk about as if ye were in travail. If ye had not something in the world beside your reason, beside the fleeting joys of earth– if ye had not something which God had given to you, some hope beyond the sky, some refuge that should be more than terrestrial, some deliverance which should be more than earthly, then ye might weep;– ah! weep your heart out at your eyes, and let your whole bodies waste away in one perpetual tear. Ye might ask the clouds to rest on your head, the rivers to roll down in streams from both your eyes, for your grief would “have need of all the watery things that nature could produce.” But, blessed be God, we have consolation, we have joy in the Holy Ghost. We find it nowhere else. We have raked the earth through, but we have discovered ne’er a jewel; we have turned this dunghill- world o’er and o’er a thousand times, and we have found nought that is precious; but here, in this Bible, here in the religion of the blessed Jesus we the sons of God, have found comfort and joy; while we can truly say, “As our afflictions abound, so our consolations also abound by Christ.”

~Charles Spurgeon~


Spurgeon’s Sermons (Spokane, Washington; Olive Tree Bible Software; 2010) eBook. Vol. 1, Sermon No. 13; Titled: Consolation Proportionate to Spiritual Sufferings; Delivered on Sabbath Morning, March 11,, 1855,.

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Charles Spurgeon – Christ, The Man

21 May

We are, I conceive, too forgetful of the real manhood of our Redeemer, for a man he was to all intents and purposes, and I love to sing,

“A Man there was, a real Man,
Who once on Calvary died.”

He was not man and God amalgamated– the two natures suffered no confusion– he was very God, without the diminution of his essence or attributes; and he was equally, verily, and truly, man.

~Charles Spurgeon~






Spurgeon’s Sermons (Spokane, Washington; Olive Tree Bible Software; 2010) eBook. Vol. 1, Sermon No. 11; Titled: The People’s Christ; Delivered on Sabbath Morning, February 25, 1855,.

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