“The ‘horn of salvation been raised up for us,’ and God’s purpose carried out, ‘that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all that hate us.’ (Luke 1:69-71)
The man, the sufferer, the conqueror has appeared– the woman’s seed, the second Adam, who is the Lord from heaven.
Now, then, we know of a truth, that God has so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son; that Christ Jesus, the seed of the woman and the Son of God ‘has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of HIMSELF;’ that He has been ‘once offered to bear the sins of many; and that to them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation.’ (Heb. 9:26-28)
It is this man, this sufferer, this conqueror, that presents himself to us, ‘full of grace and truth.’ (John 1:14) He has done His work, and asks us to come and share its fruits.
He has conquered; and He asks us to partake of His triumph.
To each one of us He holds out the friendly hand, offering to lead us into that Paradise which He has reopened, and which now stands before us with unfolded gates.
It is this man, this sufferer, this conqueror, that God is pointing to, as He in whom it has pleased Him that all fulness of grace should dwell.
The story of grace has not only been told in words, but embodied in a person, the person of the God-man, the woman’s seed.
In Him there is represented and contained ‘the manifold grace of God’ (1 Peter 4:10) —the ‘exceeding riches of His grace’ (Ephesians 2:7) It is not words that God has given us; it is far more than this.
It is not abstract truth that He places before us. It is a person, a living person, a man like ourselves, that He sets before us, as the vessel in which all this truth is contained.
He clothes His grace in the loving form of manhood; He makes it to beam forth from a loving countenance; He gives it utterance through a loving voice; he sends it to tell its own story to us in deeds that are without a parallel from the beginning of the world.
It is this God-man, in whom all grace is stored, that invites you to enjoy His blessings.
All the day long He stretches out His hands; and His words are ‘Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.’ (John 6:37)”
–Horatius Bonar, The Story of Grace: An Exhibition of God’s Love (Geanies House, Scotland: Christian Focus, 1848/2025), 97-98.
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