Friday, December 31, 2010

Fri.-Sabbath, 12/31/10-1/2/11 Devotion

Happy New Year, everyone!!

Wahoo--it's almost Sunday! We *get* to return to the church, to wor-
ship God! In order to help us get ready, here is Thomas Watson, from his, "A Body of Divinity" book:

"When was Christ incarnate?

"In the fulness of time. 'When the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman,' (Gal 4:4). By the fulness of time we must understand [it to be] the determinate time that God had set. More particularly, this fulness of time was when all the prophecies of the coming of the Messiah were accomplished; and all legal shadows and figures, whereby He was typified, were abrogated. This may com-
fort us, in regard to the church of God, that though at present we do not see that peace and purity in the church which we could desire, yet in the fulness of time, when God's time is come and mercy is ripe, then shall deliverance spring up, and God will come riding upon the chariots of salvation.

"Why was Jesus Christ made flesh?

"The 'causa prima,' and impulsive cause, was free grace. It was love in God the Father to send Christ, and love in Christ that He came to be incarnate. Love was the intrinsic motive. Christ is God-Man, because He is a lover of man. Christ came out of pity and indulgence to us: 'non merita nostra, sed misera nostra,' Augustine. 'Not our deserts, but our misery,' made Christ take flesh. Christ's taking flesh was a plot of free grace, and a pure design of love. God Himself, though Almighty, was overcome with love. Christ Incarnate is nothing but love covered with flesh. As Christ's assuming our human nature was a masterpiece of wisdom, so it was a monument of free grace."