The Wisdom of God, Displayed in the Way of Salvation - 1733

If the Son of God be substituted in the sinner's stead, then he comes under the sinner's obligation to suffer the punishment which man's sin had deserved. And who could have thought that to be possible? For how should a divine person, who is essentially, unchangeably, and infinitely happy, suffer pain and torment? And how should he who is the object of God's infinitely dear love, suffer the wrath of his Father? It is not to be supposed, that created wisdom ever would have found out a way how to have got over these difficulties. But divine wisdom has found out a way, viz. by the incarnation of the Son of God. That the Word should be made flesh, that he might be both God and man, in one person. What created understanding could have conceived that such a thing was possible? Yet these things could never be proved to be impossible. This distinction duly considered will show the futility of many Socinian objections.

And if God had revealed to them that it was possible and even that it should be, but left them to find out how it should be, we may well suppose that they would all have been puzzled and confounded to conceive of a way for so uniting a man to the eternal Son of God, that they should be but one person, that one who is truly a man in all respects, should indeed be the very same Son of God that was with God from all eternity. This is a great mystery to us. Hereby, a person that is infinite, omnipotent, and unchangeable, is become, in a sense, a finite, a feeble man, a man subject to our sinless infirmities, passions, and calamities! The great God, the sovereign of heaven and earth, is thus become a worm of the dust. (Psa. 22:6) "I am a worm, and no man."