Exod. 26
The fine twined linen, as expressive of Christ’s spotless manhood, opens a most blessed spring of thought to the spiritual mind. When the angel had announced to Mary the tidings of the Saviour’s birth, she said unto him, “How shall this be, seeing I know not a man.” This was not the expression of unbelief, but of utter incompetency to understand the wondrous mystery of “God manifest in the flesh.” But mark the angelic reply: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; wherefore, also, that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:34, 3534Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? 35And the angel answered and said unto her, 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 1:34‑35).) Mary, no doubt, imagined that this birth was to be according to the principles of ordinary generation. Hence her inquiry. But the angel corrects her mistake. Divine power was about to form in the virgin’s womb A REAL MAN—One whose nature was divinely pure, utterly incapable of taint. He was “in the likeness of sinful flesh,” without sin in the flesh. He partook of real flesh and blood, without a shadow of the evil thereto attaching. Comp. Rom. 8:33For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: (Romans 8:3); Phil. 2:77But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: (Philippians 2:7); Heb. 2:1414Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; (Hebrews 2:14); Heb. 4:1515For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15).
This is a cardinal truth, which cannot be too accurately held, or too jealously guarded. The incarnation of the Son of God—His mysterious entrance into pure and spotless flesh, formed by the power of the Highest in the virgin’s womb—is the foundation of the great mystery of godliness, of which the top stone is a glorified God-man in heaven—the Head, Representative, and glorious Model of the redeemed Church of God. (1 Tim. 3:1616And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. (1 Timothy 3:16).) The purity of His manhood fully met the claims of God; the reality thereof met the necessities of man. He was a spotless, real man, in whom God could perfectly delight, and on whom man might confidently lean.
I need not remind the enlightened reader that all this, if taken apart from death and resurrection, is quite unavailable to us. But incarnation was the first layer of the glorious superstructure: and the curtain of “fine twined linen” prefigures the spotless purity of “the man, Christ Jesus.” We have seen the method and character of His conception; and, as we pass along the current of His life here below, we see instance after instance of the same purity. He was forty days in the wilderness, tempted of the devil; but there was no response in His pure nature to the tempter’s foul suggestions. He could touch the leper and receive no taint. He could pass unscathed through the most polluted atmosphere. He was like a sunbeam emanating from the fountain of light, which can pass undefiled through the most polluted medium. His humanity was as incapable of receiving, as it was of communicating, any evil. He could say, “Thou wilt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” (Psalm 16) This was in reference to His humanity, which, as being perfectly pure, was capable of being a sin-bearer. “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree.” (1 Pet. 2:2424Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. (1 Peter 2:24).) It is not, to the tree, as some would falsely teach us; but “on the tree.”
According to the doctrine of some, the blessed Lord Jesus was a sin-bearer all His life. If He carried our sins up to the tree, He must have had them on Him before He went thither, and the question is, when did He begin to bear them? Let my reader remember, it was on the cross, and nowhere else, that Christ was our sin-bearer. He never had aught to say to sin before that terrible hour; and, blessed be God, He can never have aught to say to it again.
“Notes on Exodus.”