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Be careful to see clearly that Christ is the speaker, and that it is He who says to His Father. "A body hast Thou prepared Me." It is the Deity of the Second Person in the Trinity — not yet become incarnate, but at the very point — addressing God, and declaring the great mystery of the passing away of all sacrifice and offering — that is, of the death of animals and the presenting of gifts — as utterly inadequate, and nothing worth for the atonement of the soul. He introduces Himself — God's one great method with man, in the strange and inexpressible blending of the Divine and human, which was in Him. The God in our Emmanuel explains His own manhood, and traces it all up to the Father's pre-arranging mind: "A body hast Thou prepared Me." Let us look at the time of the "preparation." In the mind and counsel of God that "body" was before all worlds (Proverbs 8:24-31). So was Christ ready before He came, and, or ever man sinned, the scheme was complete. Then came the Fall, and immediately the ready promise (Genesis 3:15). As the ages rolled on, the plan developed. Then, as the time drew on, the "preparation," which was in the bosom of the Father, began to take form and substance. The whole Roman world was stirred, that that "body" should appear at its destined spot. Through the purest channel which this earth could furnish, by miraculous operation, that "body" should come into the world, human but sinless, perfectly human but exquisitely immaculate. By what unfathomable processes I know not. "Curiously wrought" in this lower earth, that "body" — the prototype, before Adam was made, of all that ever should wear human form — that "body" came... But let us stand again by that little form laid in the manger outside the caravansaai, and let us reverently ask, For what is that "body"?

1. The text answers at once, For sacrifice. There is that dear Babe — lovely as no other babe was ever lovely — only a victim, a victim to be slaughtered upon an altar!... But let me ask, Is your "body" fulfilling the purpose for which it was "prepared"? Is it a consecrated body? Is it a ministering body? Ministering — to what? To usefulness, to mission, to truth, to the Church, to Christ?

2. And that "body" was "prepared" for sympathy. Therefore "He took not on Him the nature of angels," but He became the Son of Man, that He might have human instincts; that His heart might throb to the same beat; that He might be true, even to every nerve and fibre of the physical constitution of every child of Adam. When you have an ache or feel a lassitude or depression, do not hesitate to claim and accept at once the fellowship of "the man Christ Jesus."

(J. Vaughan, M. A.)

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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;