The most surprising thing that has ever happened in this world is the coming of the Son of God into it. The most revolutionary thing in the world today is the Christian gospel. Why? Because it is almost the exact opposite of anything that you and I would ever have imagined . . .
The Virgin Mary used these remarkable words about God:
He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;
He has scattered those who are proud in the imagination of their hearts;
He has brought down the mighty from their seat;
but has lifted up the humble'
(Luke 1. 51, 52)
Notice the way in which God's action for the salvation of man condemns and, indeed, demolishes all in which men and women trust or have ever trusted.
What does God destroy?
The first is man's wisdom. It is important that we read the second half of verse 51 correctly. 'He has scattered'- Who? - those who are 'proud in the imagination of their hearts'. And that means those who are haughty with respect to the reasoning or the understanding power of their hearts. The proud are those-and this is the meaning of the word that is used-who put themselves above others, the brainy people, the experts.
The world has always had many such people. You will find them described in the Old Testament and at the time when the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world; the world was even then full of them. Who were they? They were primarily the great Greek philosophers. There had been a mighty succession of them: Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, and their schools of thinking, genius at its very highest, trying to understand life and proud of it. Proud of their learning, proud of their knowledge, proud of their understanding . . .
There has never, perhaps, been a time in the long history of the human race when the philosophers have been made to look quite so silly as they are today. It is the philosophers and scientists and others who have been teaching us, for a hundred years or more, that man is evolving and developing and advancing, and that by his own efforts he can make a perfect world. They have believed it, and they have been preaching it and driving it home to us, and yet the whole world is making them look utterly ridiculous. They have been 'scattered in the imagination of their hearts'.
Yes, but there is something that scatters them more than contemporary history does, and that is this message concerning Christmas. It does it like this: this is the final proof of their failure to find God. Do you listen to Any Questions on the radio, or any similar programmes? Do you hear them talking their folly about immortality and about various other things? How foolish they seem. They do not know, you see. They have no knowledge, no understanding. They have been trying to understand the mystery, and they cannot, of course. They have failed completely. They have their ideas about God but they are not satisfied. How can they be? How can they define God? How can a man with a finite mind encompass the eternal, the infinite and the absolute? They are made to look silly, are they not? And that is exactly what Mary says: 'He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.'
'The world by wisdom knew not God.' Do not misunderstand me. I am not here to denounce intellect. I am not here to denounce ability. I am not here even to denounce philosophy. But what I am here to denounce is pride of intellect, pride of knowledge, pride of understanding. The attitude of the modern man who says: 'I am sufficient and complete. God?' he says, 'Very well then, put him on the table, let me examine him; I'll tell, you what I think about God.'
Our Lord exposes that. But he does not stop at doing it like that, of course. 'The proud in the imagination of their hearts' are scattered in another way: When the true wisdom confronted them, they could not see it. The apostle Paul is very eloquent on this. This is where the intellectually proud have been made to look ridiculous. They say they are men and women of wisdom and that when they see truth they will grasp it. They like to call themselves 'seekers after truth'. But if you call yourself a seeker after truth, you are denying the gospel.
Truth can never be found by you, or by any other person. Truth is revealed. But here are the seekers after truth. They say: 'We want nothing but truth. Give us truth; show us truth; help us to arrive at truth; it's all we want.' Suddenly, truth stands before them in the person of a man, and they do not recognise him. The apostle Paul puts it like this: 'Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory' (1 Corinthians 2.8).
Pride
Secondly, 'He puts down the mighty from their seats.' This is a great theme in the Bible. God is always doing this. He knows that the final sin in the hearts of men and women is the sin of pride. They are proud of intellect, proud of position, proud of power, proud of status; and so God is always fighting it, and demolishing it, always throwing it down. Look at how he has done this in the whole case of the nation of the Jews. There were the nations of the world, proud of their might and their prowess and their armies. But God made a nation for himself out of one man called Abraham; and a very weak nation it was, with just a little country - Palestine. What a small bit of earth it was, his little nation amidst the mighty dynasties of Assyria, Babylon and Nineveh, and all the rest of them! But that is God's way. And he was always ridiculing and bringing down these mighty ones, through his own people. But he has done it finally in a supreme manner.
When the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords came into this world, he came into a stable. If you do not feel a sense of holy laughter within you, I do not see that you have a right to think that you are a Christian. Thank God, this is gospel, this is salvation. God turning upside down, reversing everything we have ever thought, everything we have taken pride in. The mighty? Why, he will pull them down from their seats. He has been doing so. He is still doing so. Let any man arise and say he is going to govern, to be the god of the whole world; you need not be afraid - he will be put down. Every dictator has gone down; they all do. Finally, the devil and all that belong to him will go down to the lake of fire and will be destroyed for ever. The Son of God has come into the world to do that.
Empty
But then, thirdly, 'the rich', we are told, 'He has sent empty away '. This is not to be taken in a material sense primarily, but in a moral sense.
A man says: 'I'm a good fellow, I've got my code, I'm better than this man, I am much better than that one, I do a lot of good, I'm wonderful,' - as the Pharisee said it in the temple (Luke 18.11). And then he finds that God's law is that 'You shall love the Lord thy God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbour as yourself' (Luke 10.27). And he has not started, he is nowhere. He listens to Christ saying: 'Blessed are the poor in spirit' (Matthew 5.3), and he is so full of pride, he is damned already, and he goes away empty. 'Blessed are the meek' (Matthew 5.5), and he is the opposite to meekness. 'Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness' (Matthew 5.6) and he is boasting of his righteousness. He is sent empty away . . .
O, this Son of God always sends the rich empty away. Really to know him and to understand his teaching, brings men and women to see that the whole world lies guilty before God. 'For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God' (Romans 3.23). Every one of us, the best of us. Our righteousness is but as filthy rags.
But see it supremely in the case of that great man the apostle Paul, when he was Saul of Tarsus. What a wonderful man he was! Israelite of the Israelites, Hebrew of the Hebrews, of the tribe of Benjamin, and so on; knowing the Lord God better than most other people. Yet, he suddenly met Christ, and the wealth he boasted of, the riches in which he gloated became manure, refuse, vile. 'I do count them but dung' (Philippians 3.8). It was hopeless. He had gone away empty. He was nothing. He had been stripped, he was naked. 'I was alive,' he says, 'without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died' (Romans 7.9). He had nothing at all. The rich are sent empty away.
Can you not see that everything that man boasts in, his intellect, his understanding, his power, his social status, his influence, his righteousness, his morality, his ethics, his code - every one of them is utterly demolished by this Son of God.
From chapter 2 of Christmas Sermons - an exposition of the Magnificat by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. 96 pages. £3.30, published in late November by Gwasg Bryntirion Press.
