Hark! the herald angels sing

...Stanza 2 of Hymns, #84 says, "Christ, by highest heav'n adored, / Christ, the everlasting Lord: / Late in time behold Him come, / Offspring of a virgin's womb. / Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, / Hail th' incarnate Deity! / Pleased as man with man to dwell, / Jesus our Immanuel." Immanuel in Hebrew means "God with us." God became a man to live with man. Stanza 3 says, "Hail the heav'n-born Prince of Peace! / Hail the Sun of righteousness! / Light and life to all He brings, / Ris'n with healing in His wings: / Mild He lays His glory by, / Born that man no more may die; / Born to raise the sons of earth; / Born to give them second birth." This shows that God became a man in order to bring salvation to man.

God speaks and communicates to man through the Bible, but He also wants to be with man. Because He has given us the Bible, God does not need to speak directly to every believer, and if we pay attention to the words in the Bible, we can hear God's speaking. Nevertheless, even though God communicates through the words in the Bible, He personally came to be among man. However, He did not come in the greatness and glory of His position as the God who dwells in unapproachable light (1 Tim. 6:16). If He came in this way, no one would dare come near to Him. There is no way for us to approach the glorious light of God's holiness, because we are defiled and evil. As filthy sinners, we cannot see God, much less approach Him. Therefore, God became a man like us in order to come to us.

Today the Lord Jesus is in our spirit as the seed of the woman to bruise the head of the serpent. He bruised the head of the serpent on the cross, and today He is bruising the serpent's head in us. "Hark! the Herald Angels Sing" is a famous hymn written by Charles Wesley. The last verse of this hymn says, "Come, Desire of nations, come! / Fix in us Thy humble home: / Rise, the woman's conqu'ring seed, / Bruise in us the serpent's head; / Adam's likeness now efface, / Stamp Thine image in its place: / Final Adam from above, / Reinstate us in Thy love" (Hymns, #84). Christ's bruising of the serpent's head not only took place on the cross objectively but also is being accomplished in us subjectively. Without Satan's subtle activities in the garden, Christ could not have been revealed as the woman's conquering seed to bruise the head of the serpent in us.

Charles Wesley's hymn "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" (Hymns, #84) is of a very high standard. I would like to point out stanza 3 of this hymn, which says, "Born to raise the sons of earth;/Born to give them second birth." God's economy needs man to go through two births. He receives a human life in his first birth. Then he has to go through another birth, the second birth. This birth is for him to receive the divine life. God intended that man would have two lives—the human life and the divine life. In order to do this, God must have a prototype, a model. So He Himself became incarnated to be the prototype.

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Titus 3:5 speaks of the washing of regeneration. Regeneration is a washing. It washes away the filthiness of the old nature of our old man. This washing away is to put off our old man and put on the new man. It is also a kind of reconditioning. We all have been regenerated, reconditioned, with the divine life. Regeneration is very deep. I like this word recondition. Charles Wesley used the word reinstate in stanza 4 of hymn #84 —"Reinstate us in Thy love." We lost our state, our position, so we needed to be reinstated. But we also needed to be reconditioned. Our nature, our essence, and our entire being needed to be reconditioned. Nothing can do this except regeneration. To be regenerated is to be reborn, reconditioned, with the divine life.