A CHILD BORN AND A SON GIVEN “Unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given…” (Isaiah 9:6).
In the “fullness of time God sent forth His son,” and as a child born, He is to be born of a woman, a human birth, for as man He must have a beginning. As a Son given, He has no birth. He’s from everlasting to everlasting; God, the Eternal Word in John chapter one. As a child born you find Him lying in a manger, wrapped in swaddling clothes. As a son given, wise men come to pay homage to the King of kings. As a child born, humble shepherds come to see this thing that is brought to pass. As a Son given, angels honor Him singing Glory to God in the Highest, Peace on Earth and Good Will toward Men. As a child born, we find Him sometimes hungry and thirsty. As a Son given, He takes a lad’s lunch of a few biscuits, and a few small fish and multiplies it for enough to feed thousands, with plenty left over. As a child born, you find Him on an occasion tired and weary, lie sleeping in the bottom of a fishing boat. As a Son given, He rises up among his terrified disciples and speaks to a raging sea, “Peace be still” and it obeys His voice and quietly settles at His feet. As a child born, we see Him once sitting tired and thirsty on the curb of a well, saying to an adulterous woman, “Give me to drink.” As a Son given, we hear Him say to her, “If thou had ask of me I would have given you living water.” As a child born, see Him hang yonder on Calvary’s bloody tree, dying the death of a felon. As a Son given, hear Him say to a thief, well worthy of his condemnation, “Today shalt thou be with me in Paradise.” He came from the bosom of the Father to the bosom of a woman. He put on humanity that we might put on divinity. He became Son of Man that we might become sons of God. He was born in a supernatural way, lived in poverty, reared in obscurity. Only once crossed the boundary of the land (Matthew 2:13). He had no wealth nor influence, and no college education; yet the profoundest wisdom of men has never equaled His last discourses in John 13-17, and the Sermon on the Mount, “Never man spake like this man.” His relatives were inconspicuous and uninfluential. In infancy He startled a king; in boyhood He puzzled the doctors; even at twelve years of age, proving He was far in advance of the theologians, for He was taught of God; in manhood He ruled the elements, so that He could defy the laws of gravitation by walking on the water, and quiet the raging sea. He healed the multitudes without medicine, and made no charge for His services. He never wrote a book, yet not all the libraries of the world could shelve the books that have been written about Him. He never wrote a song, yet He has furnished the theme of more songs than all song writers combined. He never founded a college, yet all the schools together cannot boast of as many students as He has. He never marshaled an army, drafted a soldier, nor fired a gun, yet no leader ever made more volunteers, who have under His orders made rebels stack arms or surrender without a shot being fired. Great men have come and gone, yet He lives on. Herod could not kill Him, Satan could not seduce Him. Death could not destroy Him, the grave hold Him, and even demons obeyed Him. He fed the hungry multitude with a lad’s lunch, He broke up funerals and gave back life to those who were dead. He laid aside His purple robe for a peasant’s gown. He was rich, yet for our sake He became poor. As to how poor, ask Mary, ask the wise men. He slept in another’s manger cruised a lake in another’s boat, rode into Jerusalem on a borrowed beast, and was buried in another’s tomb. He conquered death, rose on the third day as He said He would, ascended into heaven, is now seated at the right hand of God, and will one day come in the clouds of glory and power for His own and receive them to be forever with Him according to promised after which He will judge the world in righteousness.
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