Down to Earth
". . . who for us and for our salvation came down . . ." —The Nicene Creed
To understand this dizzying descent, we must first contemplate the height from which it began. To enjoy from eternity the untrammeled use of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence in uninterrupted, perfect fellowship with the Father and the Spirit; to go from that to being cramped into the limits of a human body, forced to think with a paltry few million brain cells while learning to walk and talk: the sacrifice the Son made for us began long before he ever got to Calvary. He identified with us so completely that he experienced hunger, thirst, bone-tiredness. Being still the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, he had access to his divine power and often used it in his ministry, but he never "cheated" in identifying with us by using it for himself to make his earthly life easier. (You can see that in his temptations.)
Christ identified with us completely. He came down. The high King came down from the dais to serve with the scullery maids in the kitchen. What wondrous love is this! How can we not trust him, cling to him, follow him, and love him with all that we are and have?
Donald T. Williams is Professor Emeritus of Toccoa Falls College. He stays permanently camped out on the borders between serious scholarship and pastoral ministry, between theology and literature, and between Narnia and Middle-Earth. He is the author of fourteen books, including Answers from Aslan: The Enduring Apologetics of C. S. Lewis (DeWard, 2023). He is a contributing editor of Touchstone.
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