If we are wise we shall not bother ourselves too much over the metaphysical puzzles which the schoolmen have formulated. We no longer have the puzzle which was so urgent with them, how two natures, pole-wide apart, could be united in one Person, for we now know that divinity and humanity are not pole-wide apart. There is something human in God and something divine in man and they belong together.
We shall not, again, be over-anxious about the question of nativity. Note the grandeur and the simplicity of Paul’s text about it: “God sent forth His Son born of a woman,” and there he stops with no attempt to furnish details. John is equally lofty: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory.” There is no appeal to curiosity. There is no syllable about the _how_. Two synoptic gospels have given us a simple story of the nativity which has profoundly impressed men in all ages and which will always appeal to the deepest instincts in us. But the _method_ of Christ’s coming, embodied in these two accounts, must not be forced. The devout soul must be free, as both Paul and John were free, to leave the _how_ wrapped in mystery. That He came out of our humanity we shall always believe. That He came down out of the highest divinity we shall equally believe. That He was a babe and increased in wisdom, that He learned as He grew, that He was tempted and learned through temptation, are all necessary steps, for there is no other path to spiritual Personality and He must have been “made perfect through sufferings,” or He could not have been the Captain of salvation.
Speculations and dogmas have taken men’s thoughts away from verifiable facts. Here was a life which settled forever that the ultimate reality is Love. He brought into focus, or rather He wove into the living tissue of a personal life, the qualities of character which belong to an infinitely good being and with quiet simplicity He said, “If you see me you see the Father.”
I have spoken, perhaps, as though the revelation of the human goal, and the unveiling of the divine Character were two different things. Christ does both, but both are one. If you bring a diamond into the light you occasion a double revelation. There is a revelation of the glorious beauty of the jewel. While it lay in the dark you never knew its possibilities. It was easily mistaken for a piece of glass. Now it flashes and burns and reveals itself because it has found the element for which it was meant. But there is also at the same time a revelation of the mystery of light. You discover now new wonders and new glories in light itself. Most objects absorb part of its rays and imperfectly transmit it to the eye. Here is an object which tells you its real nature. Now you see it as it is. So Christ shows us at once man and God. In a definite historic setting and in the limitations of a concrete personal life, Christ has unveiled the divine nature and taught us to say “Father” and He has, in doing that, showed us the goal and type of human life. The Son of God and the Son of Man is one person.