No greater gift that I could give

A week of Christmas reflections from Stephen Charnock

If you’re anything like me, this time of year not only brings with it plenty of roast turkey and mince pies. It also serves up ample opportunity for reminiscing and reflection. I naturally find myself looking back over the last 12 months, thinking over what the Lord has done in my life and in the lives of others I know. And, quite naturally, my mind then casts forward in anticipation of what he’ll do over the coming year.

One of the affections that this exercise usually stirs in me is thankfulness. Thankfulness for a roof over my head. Thankfulness for food on my plate. Thankfulness for friends and family to eat many of those meals with. This year’s leading news stories, it seems to me, have particularly highlighted the number of people around the world who so sadly are not able to enjoy such things this Christmas.

But the gratitude prompted by this annual exercise is not limited to physical things. It extends to spiritual matters too. To the forgiveness God has shown me in Christ for my frequent failings. To the Holy Spirit who has been helping me grow out of my flaws and into Christ’s likeness. To my local church who have not only borne with me, but also cared for me and my family.

A little ‘thank you’

This year, however, there is another item that I have been able to add to my thank you list - the support people have shown me as I have set out on my PhD. Two years ago, the idea of doing post-graduate research had not even entered my mind. Yet, with a suggestion from my boss back in February 2022, I found myself on an unlikely journey into further theological study. Even only a few months ago, I was still doubting whether this was a wise thing to do. But what has helped me take the plunge is the encouragement of people like you.

This Christmas I wanted to provide the readers of my newsletter with a token of my appreciation. But what could I give that would even in some small way reflect my thankfulness to you for supporting on my journey? Then the penny dropped. Because, whilst there might not be much I could give you, I know of someone who has plenty of goodies to offer. The man himself, Stephen Charnock.

So in this Christmas week, I’ll be sending you a series of short reflections from Charnock on the incarnation. They’ll hit your inbox first thing each morning, from now up to and including Christmas Day. Don’t worry! They’re much shorter than my normal updates and will only take a few minutes to read. As usual, there’ll also be an audio version so you can enjoy the meditations whilst you are wrapping presents, peeling potatoes or whatever else you normally get up to doing at this time of year.

(Not so) simple simplicity

To whet your appetite for what’s in store, in this email I thought I would give a little bit of background for this part of Charnock’s writing.

Charnock’s fullest meditation on the incarnation comes in the middle of his Discourse upon the Power of God. It might seem odd to you that he would choose God’s power as the place to talk about the intricacies of God’s coming as a man in Christ. Why not talk about it in his discourse on, say, God’s wisdom or his goodness?

In one sense it did not matter to Charnock which of God’s attributes he used as the setting for talking about the incarnation. Like many theologians down the centuries, he believed in the simplicity of God. That doesn’t mean that Charnock thought God lacked intelligence. Rather, he believed that there are no distinctions in God’s being. There is only God’s simple, undivided essence. This means that God’s power cannot ultimately be separated from any of his other attributes. God’s power is his wisdom is his goodness, and so on and so forth.

Not abstract academics

I appreciate that this might all sound rather abstract and academic, certainly for some short Christmas reflections. But before you give up on my little festive foray before it’s barely begun, let me show you the impact this had on how Charnock understood God’s work in Christ.

Before getting into the details of the incarnation, Charnock first introduced the topic with reference to God’s wisdom, which was the subject of the discourse immediately before this one in his great work The Existence and Attributes of God. Charnock wrote,

As our Saviour is called the wisdom of God, so he is called the power of God 1 Cor 1:24. The arm of power was lifted up as high as the designs of wisdom were laid deep. As this way of redemption could not be contrived but by an infinite wisdom, so it could not be accomplished but by an infinite power; none but God could shape such a design, and none but God could effect it.

No competition

One of the reasons that we might not think of the incarnation in connection with God's power is because we tend to first think of other things as demonstrating his potency. I suspect that, if someone asked you to point out an example of God’s power, the first thing you might mention is his creation. And Charnock does acknowledge that this is the way God’s power first appears in the Bible. However, compared with how it is displayed in the coming of Christ, there’s no competition. He said

In creation the world was erected from nothing; as there was nothing to act, so there was nothing to oppose; no victorious devil was in that to be subdued, no thundering law to be silenced, no death to be conquered, no transgression to be pardoned and rooted out, no hell to be shut, no ignominious death upon the cross to be suffered.

Thus, Charnock concluded

It had been in the nature of the thing an easier thing to divine power to have created a new world, than repaired a broken and purified a polluted one. This is the most admirable work that ever God brought forth in the world, greater than all the marks of his power in the first creation.

It’s good stuff isn’t it?

Well, this is how Charnock sets up his discussion of how we see the power of God in the redemption of his people, and not least in the coming of Christ in the womb of the virgin Mary.

Look out for the first installment in your inbox tomorrow morning . . .

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P.S. Regular readers of this newsletter will know that one of the things I have been learning on my PhD so far is how important it is for our understanding of writers from the past to be sensitive to their own life and times. So when you first saw this post you might have been surprised to find it adorned with an image of Stephen Charnock wearing a Santa hat. Whilst the common understanding that the Puritans hated Christmas is not entirely correct, I admit that Charnock would probably not have been best pleased to know that one day he was going be depicted in such a get-up. But, then again, he might have taken some small comfort from the fact that the person who had inflicted this abomination upon him was doing so in the hope that it would prompt your good self to open an email containing his writings on the incarnation! Well at least one day I’ll get to ask him.