This is a cardinal truth which cannot be too accurately laid hold of or too tenaciously held. The incarnation of the Son, the second Person in the eternal Trinity--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 topstone is a glorified God-man in heaven, the Head, Representative, and Model of the redeemed Church of God. The essential purity of His manhood perfectly met the claims of God; the reality thereof met the necessities of man. He was a Man, for none else would do to meet man's ruin. But He was such a Man as could satisfy all the claims of the throne of God. He was a spotless, real Man, in whom God could perfectly delight, and on whom man could unreservedly lean. I need not remind the enlightened reader that all this, if taken apart from death and resurrection, is perfectly unavailable to us. We need not only an incarnate, but a crucified and risen, Christ. True, He should be incarnate to be crucified; but it is death and resurrection which render incarnation available to us. It is nothing short of a deadly error to suppose that in incarnation Christ was taking man into union with Himself. This could not be. He Himself expressly teaches the contrary. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and _die_, it abideth _alone_; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." (John xii. 24.) There could be no union between sinful and holy flesh, pure and impure, corruptible and incorruptible, mortal and immortal. Accomplished death is the only base of a unity between Christ and His elect members. It is in beautiful connection with the words, "Rise, let us go hence," that He says, "I am the vine, ye are the branches." "We have been planted together in the likeness of His death." "Our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed." "In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead." I would refer my reader to Romans vi. and Colossians ii. as a full and comprehensive statement of the truth on this important subject. It was only as dead and risen that Christ and His people could become one. The true corn of wheat had to fall into the ground and die ere a full ear could spring up and be gathered into the heavenly garner.