The most frequent form under which the great fact of the incarnation is
represented in Scripture is that of our text--'God sent His Son.' It is
familiar on the lips of Jesus, but He also says that 'God gave His Son.'
One can feel a shade of difference in the two modes of expression. The
former bringing rather to our thoughts the representative character of
the Son as Messenger, and the latter going still deeper into the mystery
of Godhead and bringing into view the love of the Father who spared not
His Son but freely bestowed Him on men. Yet another word is used by
Jesus Himself when He says, 'I came forth from God,' and that expression
brings into view the perfect willingness with which the Son accepted the
mission and gave Himself, as well as was given by God. All three phases
express harmonious, though slightly differing aspects of the same fact,
as the facets of a diamond might flash into different colours, and all
must be held fast if we would understand the unspeakable gift of God.
Jesus was sent; Jesus was given; Jesus came. The mission from the
Father, the love of the Father, the glad obedience of the Son, must ever
be recognised as interpenetrating, and all present in that supreme act.
There have been many men specially sent forth from God, whose personal
existence began with their birth, and so far as the words are concerned,
Jesus might have been one of these. There was a man sent from God whose
name was John, and all through the ages he has had many companions in
his mission, but there has been only one who 'came' as well as 'was
sent,' and He is the true light which lighteth every man. To speak in
theological language of the pre-existence of the Son is cold, and may
obscure the truth which it formulates in so abstract a fashion, and may
rob it of power to awe and impress. But there can be no question that in
our text, as is shown by the juxtaposition of 'sent' and 'born,' and in
all the New Testament references to the subject, the birth of Jesus is
not regarded as the beginning of the being of the Son. The one lies far
back in the depths of eternity and the mystery of the divine nature, the
other is a historical fact occurring in a definite place and at a dated
moment. Before time was the Son was, delighting in the Father, and 'in
the beginning was the word and the word was with God,' and He who in
respect of His expression of the Father's mind and will was the Word,
was the Son in respect of the love that bound the Father and Him in one.
Into the mysteries of that love and union no eyes can penetrate, but
unless our faith lays hold of it, we know not the God whom Jesus has
declared to us. The mysteries of that divine union and communion lie
beyond our reach, but well within the grasp of our faith and the work of
the Son in the world, ever since there was a world, is not obscurely
declared to all who have eyes to see and hearts to understand. For He
has through all ages been the active energy of the divine power, or as
the Old Testament words it, 'The Arm of the Lord,' the Agent of
creation, the Revealer of God, the Light of the world and the Director
of Providence. 'He was in the world and the world was made by Him, and
the world knew Him not.'
Now all this teaching that the Son was long before Jesus was born is no
mere mysterious dogma without bearing on daily needs, but stands in the
closest connection with Christ's work and our faith in it. It is the
guarantee of His representative character; on it depends the
reliableness of His revelation of God. Unless He is the Son in a unique
sense, how could God have spoken unto us in Him, and how could we rely
on His words? Unless He was 'the effulgence of His glory and the express
image of His person': how could we be sure that the light of His
countenance was light from God and that in His person God was so
presented as that he who had seen Him had seen the Father? The
completeness and veracity of His revelation, the authoritative fulness
of His law, the efficacy of His sacrifice and the prevalence of His
intercession all depend on the fact of His divine life with God long
before His human life with men. It is a plain historical fact that a
Christianity which has no place for a pre-existent Son in the bosom of
the Father has only a maimed Christ in reference to the needs of sinful
men. If our Christ were not the eternal Son of God, He will not be the
universal Saviour of men.
Nor is this truth less needful in its bearing on modern theories which
will have nothing to say to the supernatural, and in a fatalistic
fashion regard history as all the result of an orderly evolution in
which the importance of personal agents is minimised. To it Jesus, like
all other great men, is a product of His age, and the immediate result
of the conditions under which He appeared. But when we look far beyond
the manger of Bethlehem into the depths of Eternity and see God so
loving the world as to give His Son, we cannot but recognise that He has
intervened in the course of human history and that the mightiest force
in the development of man is the eternal Son whom He sent to save the
world.