“A Body Hast Thou Prepared Me”

Hebrews 10:5

If the Son of God would be our Redeemer and Savior, it was necessary for him to become one with us one of us, God in our nature, Immanuel. -- Therefore, in order to redeem and save his people, a body was prepared for him.

It was not necessary for the Lord of glory to redeem and save anyone. The Triune God is independent and self-sufficient. He does not need us! There is nothing man could do to cause God to save him. But, having purposed to be gracious, having purposed to save a people for the glory of his name, the only way it could be done was for God himself to take humanity into union with himself (Heb. 216-17).

"Wherefore" -- Because there was no other way of atonement whereby God could be both a just God and a Savior, whereby he could both forgive our sins and satisfy his own holy law and justice, -- "when he cometh into the world," -- At that precise moment in time when the Son of God entered into Mary's virgin womb, as he was entering that holy thing prepared in the womb of the virgin by the Holy Spirit, -- "he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not," -- Because no sacrifice would do but the sacrifice of one who is both God and man in one glorious being, -- "but" -- because God found a way to save sinners in the person of his own dear Son, -- "a body hast thou prepared me." Because it pleased God, the great, glorious, triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, to make an external manifestation of his divine glory, a body was prepared for his Son in the womb of the virgin by the Holy Spirit, a body which our blessed Savior gladly took into indissolvable union with himself (1 Tim. 3:16).

This is, indeed, the great mystery of godliness -- God was manifest in human flesh! As we consider this great mystery, the mystery of the incarnate God, let us do so with reverent, believing hearts. If Moses, when he stood before the burning bush, was required to take off his polluted shoes, how much more must we, as we stand before the incarnate God (of whom the burning bush was but a type), take off the polluted shoes of carnal curiosity, speculation, and reason! We must stand here, upon this holy ground, upon the bare feet of reverence and faith.

J. C. Philpot wrote, "The sacred humanity of the blessed Lord consists of a perfect human body and a perfect human soul, taken at one and the same instant in the womb of the virgin Mary, under the overshadowing operation and influence of the Holy Ghost." That is precisely the meaning of the angel's message to Mary. "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35).