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It is one of the most striking things connected with our earthly existence that God sends no life into the world unclothed, bodiless. Every life has a body specially adapted for the service which that life has to render. The higher the life the more complex the .organism; but in each case there is a wondrous harmony between every life and its embodiment and every body and its surroundings. If it be so, how much more when He will send His Son into the world will He prepare a body for Him — a body that shall be specially adapted for His great mission and for the accomplishment of His great design! The Incarnation is confessedly among the greatest of all mysteries. It is the Infinite One accepting a body. What does this mean? We cannot tell; we can only touch the fringe of the great subject. It means — it at least signifies this: that, for a time, the Infinite One —

1. Accepts the limitations of finite existence. We know that as man He hungered, was tempted, wept human tears; we know that He prayed to His Father, and that His was the joy of receiving the Father's approval. His acceptance of a finite existence made these things possible in His experience, and thus made Him an example to us. We are very, very far from seeing the full significance of the Incarnation, but we see enough to rejoice in it and glorify God for that Incarnation which, by virtue of the limitations it involved, made a gospel like ours possible. Again, by the Incarnation Christ accepts —

2. The conditions of service, the submission of a servant: "Lo, I come to do Thy will." How does the Apostle Paul put it? (Philippians 2:6-8). The Incarnation was the form in which the Lord Jesus could render the lowliest service. What a step in the path of obedience was that! Once we accept the story of the birth, and believe that the Christ has accepted a human body, Gethsemane and Calvary are perfectly intelligible and easily accepted. It is as man that Godward He has rendered the most perfect service, and that manward He has left a perfect example that we should follow His footsteps. Again, by the Incarnation He accepts —

3. The highest possibility of self-sacrifice. "By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all This Man, after that He had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God." The Incarnation finds its full significance in that sacrifice which was made possible by it. Without the Incarnation there could be no Cross. It is the manger that predicts Calvary.

(D. Davies.)

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KJV: Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:

WEB: Therefore when he comes into the world, he says, "Sacrifice and offering you didn't desire, but you prepared a body for me;