C H Spurgeon on Christmas

Posted on December 18, 2022 by brucesbiblepage

https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/blog-entries/spurgeons-guidance-on-celebrating-christmas/

Phillip Ort December 21, 2018

In Spurgeon’s view, the true significance of Christmas was that it “compelled” people to “think of the birth of Christ.” Indeed, Spurgeon argued that “you may keep his birthday all year round” if one remembered that “in a spiritual sense he is born every day of every year in some men’s hearts.” For Spurgeon, the Incarnation was the foundation of mankind’s salvation, and that made it all the more beautiful.

For Spurgeon, the Incarnation was “a mystery, a wondrous mystery” more easily believed than defined. While he believed it was impossible to find words that were “exactly accurate” to describe the “wonderful incarnation” he nonetheless had much to say.

In the Incarnation “God has become flesh.” Simply, “the Infinite has assumed the form of an infant.” When Christ came down he was “as a real man as he is God” just as he was “God and man in one person.”

Jesus Christ, in his human nature, was “born,” “begotten of the Holy Ghost,” and “born of the Virgin Mary.” But, in his nature as God he was “not born; but given,” “begotten of his Father from before all worlds,” “begotten – not made, being of the same substance with the Father.”

Jesus Christ was “man, yet God.” He was “allied to us in ties of blood” and in his atoning death the “groans of pain,” and the “moans of despair” were put to death themselves. In taking on the “weakness of man” he died as the Christian’s substitute, and “had he not died we must have died forever.” For Spurgeon, the Incarnation was “a means to atonement.”

#GIVETHANKS