6 The Word became
Flesh - He emptied
Himself
MANY YEARS AGO Hudson Taylor doffed his European clothes, and with them his European life, and put on Chinese clothes and a Chinese pigtail that he might live a Chinese life and win Chinese souls for His Master. Years before that, a band of Moravian missionaries took the only means open to them of reaching the negro slaves of America with the Word of Life by selling themselves into life-long slavery to their tyrannical masters, so that by living the life of slaves they might gain slaves for Christ.
Such actions, magnificent as they were, pale into insignificance when compared with the incarnation of the Word of God, that by taking upon Him the flesh of men He might live the life of man and reconcile men to God. The contrast between the life of the Son of God in Heaven, and that of the Son of Man in Nazareth, is so extreme as to defy description. Yet it is put before us as something which we should consider, and from which we may learn much about Our Saviour's heart. We should therefore ponder all that is told of this event: for it was shown us not to mystify but to enlighten us, not to repel but to attract us. The Holy Ghost came not to disappoint us but to lead us step by step into all truth. It is the fact that man was made in the image of God that enables us to enter into His thoughts and into His feelings. It was the same fact that made the Incarnation a