When the angel Gabriel had announced to Mary the dignity which was about to be conferred upon her, in connection with the great work of incarnation, she, not in a spirit of scepticism, but of honest ignorance, inquired, "How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?" It manifestly seemed to her that the birth of this glorious Person who was about to appear should be according to the ordinary principles of generation; and this her thought is made the occasion, in the exceeding goodness of God, of developing much valuable light in reference to the cardinal truth of incarnation. The angel's reply to the virgin's question is unspeakably interesting, and cannot be too closely considered. "And 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 i. 35.) From this magnificent passage, we learn that the human body into which the Eternal Son entered was formed by "the power of the Highest." "A body hast _Thou_ prepared Me." (Comp. Ps. xl. 6 with Heb. x. 5.) It was a real human body--real "flesh and blood." There is no possible foundation here on which gnosticism or mysticism can base its vapid and worthless theories,--no warrant for the cold abstractions of the former, or the misty fancies of the latter. All is deep, solid, and divine reality: the very thing which our hearts needed--the very thing which God has given. The early promise had declared that "the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head," and none but a real man could accomplish this prediction--one whose nature was as real as it was pure and incorruptible. "Thou shalt conceive in thy womb," said the angelic messenger, "and bring forth a Son."[4] And then, lest there should be any room for an error in reference to the mode of this conception, he adds such words as prove, unanswerably, that the "flesh and blood" of which the Eternal Son "took part," while absolutely real, was absolutely incapable of receiving, of retaining, or of communicating a single taint. The humanity of the Lord Jesus was emphatically "_that holy Thing_." And inasmuch as it was wholly without taint, it was wholly without a seed of mortality. We cannot think of mortality, save in connection with sin; and Christ's humanity had naught to do with sin, either personally or relatively. Sin was imputed to Him on the cross, where He was "made sin for us." But the meat-offering is not the type of Christ as a sin-bearer. It foreshadows Him in His perfect life here below--a life in which He suffered, no doubt, but not as a sin-bearer--not as a substitute--not at the hand of God. Let this be distinctly noted. Neither in the burnt-offering nor in the meat-offering have we Christ as a sin-bearer. In the latter, we see Him _living_; and in the former, we see Him _dying_; but in neither is there a question of the imputation