Writings

Christ Veiled in Flesh, Shines the Dawn

“Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see / Hail the incarnate deity! / Pleased as man with men to appear,
/ Jesus! Our Immanuel here! / Hail, the heavenly Prince of Peace! / Hail, the Sun of
Righteousness! / Light and life to all he brings, / Risen with healing in his wings.”

“Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see / Hail the incarnate deity! / Pleased as man with men to appear,
/ Jesus! Our Immanuel here! / Hail, the heavenly Prince of Peace! / Hail, the Sun of
Righteousness! / Light and life to all he brings, / Risen with healing in his wings.”

I love the lyrics to Charles Wesley’s “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.” It’s such a theologically rich song
that it’s a shame we only sing it at Christmas. Notice how he covers both the deity and humanity
of Jesus. See the Godhead veiled in flesh. That baby, born in Bethlehem, was God hidden
behind a body. He came to do what only God could do—forgive his people by dying to pay the
infinite debt of their sin on the cross. Only God could withstand the wrath of God on the cross.
Jesus rent the veil between God and man when he bore the cross and yet could stand.
But there was more to see in God’s pleasure to become a man. God in flesh did something that
only God could do—live a perfect life of righteousness. It was not just the death on the cross
that saved humanity, it was the life that the baby began to live on Christmas day. He would die
the death that we deserved, but he also lived the life that we could not live. When we trust in
Jesus, God looks at the perfect, obedient life of Jesus as our perfect and obedient life lived. God
declares us righteous entirely based upon the righteousness of Christ. His works become our
works. Christmas is the beginning of the veil of God in man and it’s the dawn of the sun of
human righteousness.

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