Down to Earth
". . . who for us and for our salvation came down . . ." —The Nicene Creed
To understand this dizzying descent, we must first contemplate the height from which it began. To enjoy from eternity the untrammeled use of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence in uninterrupted, perfect fellowship with the Father and the Spirit; to go from that to being cramped into the limits of a human body, forced to think with a paltry few million brain cells while learning to walk and talk: the sacrifice the Son made for us began long before he ever got to Calvary. He identified with us so completely that he experienced hunger, thirst, bone-tiredness. Being still the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, he had access to his divine power and often used it in his ministry, but he never "cheated" in identifying with us by using it for himself to make his earthly life easier. (You can see that in his temptations.)
Christ identified with us completely. He came down. The high King came down from the dais to serve with the scullery maids in the kitchen. What wondrous love is this! How can we not trust him, cling to him, follow him, and love him with all that we are and have?
Donald T. Williams is Professor Emeritus of Toccoa Falls College. He stays permanently camped out on the borders between serious scholarship and pastoral ministry, between theology and literature, and between Narnia and Middle-Earth. He is the author of fourteen books, including Answers from Aslan: The Enduring Apologetics of C. S. Lewis (DeWard, 2023). He is a contributing editor of Touchstone.
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more from the online archives
20.8—October 2007
The Deep & Abiding Biblical Roots of Western Liberal Education by David Lyle Jeffrey
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
