Holy assurance
Christmas with Charnock Day 3
Welcome to the third in a series of reflections from Stephen Charnock on the incarnation. As a way of expressing my gratitude for the support people have shown as I set out on my PhD, I’m sending out a short excerpt each morning up to and including Christmas Day.
I should start with an admission. The first few reflections in this little Christmas series have been rather theological. But I suppose that, since we are looking at what Charnock thought about the incarnation, it could hardly have been any other way. The fullness of God coming to dwell in a human body is, after all, one of the more theological ideas of, well, theology.
But this doesn’t mean that the incarnation makes no difference to life. In fact, because it has such a prominent place in the Bible’s teaching, the incarnation rather punches above it’s weight when it comes to practical implications. And it’s at this point in his discussion that Charnock begins to draw out just a little of this.
With the conception of Jesus in the womb of Mary, Charnock explains that
It is now a pure and unpolluted humanity that is the temple and tabernacle of the divinity. The fulness of the Godhead dwells in him bodily, and dwells in him holily; his humanity is supernaturalised and elevated by the activity of the Holy Ghost, hatching the flesh of the virgin into man, as the chaos into a world.
What had happened in Mary’s womb was not the same as what happens when the Holy Spirit works in the life of someone like you or me, even at the earliest age. It is true that, when someone becomes a Christian, they are set apart for God at that very moment. However, Charnock explains that this is not a ‘pure and perfect holiness’ but more
like the light of fire mixed with smoke, an infused holiness accompanied with a natural taint; but the holiness of the Redeemer by his conception is like the light of the sun, pure and without spot, the Spirit of holiness supplying the place of a father in a way of creation.
Getting practical
Having developed some of the theology involved in the incarnation, Charnock now identifies one implication of it for the Christian life. And, of all the areas that he could have developed, the one he goes for is assurance.
Where we might naturally think that Jesus’ pure and perfect holiness would mean that he could have nothing to do with our sin, the incarnation means that the opposite is in fact true. Charnock writes of Christ
His fitness for his office is also assured to us; for being born of the virgin, one of our nature, but conceived by the Spirit, a divine person, the guilt of our sins may be imputed to him because of our nature, without the stain of sin inherent in him; because of his supernatural conception he is capable, as one of kin to us, to bear our curse, without being touched by our taint.
One irony that I’ve noticed since working as a pastor is that, for many of us, Christmas can be a tricky time spiritually. It can be a time of distraction, not contemplation. A time of regret, not thankfulness. A time where we see more of our sin, not less.
So when you’re confronted by your failings this Christmas, think of the incarnation. Because, as Charnock concludes in this section of his discussion,
Nothing but the power of God is evident in this whole work. By the ordinary laws and coarse of nature a virgin could not bear a son, nothing but a supernatural and almighty grace could intervene to make so holy and perfect a conjunction.
It is to this conjunction of the human and the divine that Charnock will turn next.
See you tomorrow . . .