promises of deliverance, of forgiveness, and the like; but I am
rather disposed to believe that the extreme emphasis of the epithets
which the Apostle selects to describe these promised things now
fulfilled suggests another interpretation.

I believe that by these 'exceeding great and precious promises' is
meant the unspeakable gift of God's own Son, and the gift therein and
thereafter of God's life-giving Spirit. For is not this the meaning of
the central fact of Christianity, the incarnation--that the Divine
becomes partaker of the human in order that the human may partake of the
Divine? Is not Christ's coming the great proof that however high the
heavens may stretch above the flat, sad earth, still the Divine nature
and the human are so kindred that God can enter into humanity and be
manifest in the flesh? Contrariety vanishes; the difference between the
creature and the Creator disappears. These mere distinctions of power
and weakness, of infinitude and finiteness, of wisdom and of ignorance,
of undying being and decaying life, vanish, as of secondary consequence,
when we can say, 'the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.' There can
be no insuperable obstacle to man's being lifted up into a union with
the Divine, since the Divine found no insuperable obstacle in descending
to enter into union with the human.

So then, because God has given us His Son it is clear that we may become
partakers of the Divine nature; inasmuch as He, the Divine, has become
partaker of the children's flesh and blood, and in that coming of the
Divine into the human there was brought the seed and the germ of a life
which can be granted to us all. Brethren! there is one way, and one way
only, by which any of us can partake of this great and wondrous gift of
a share in God, and it is through Jesus Christ. 'No man hath ascended up
into Heaven,' nor ever will either climb or fly there, 'save He that
came down from Heaven; even the Son of man which is in Heaven.' And in
Him we may ascend, and in Him we may receive God.

Christ is the true Prometheus, if I may so speak, who brings to earth in
the fragile reed of his humanity the sacred and immortal fire which may
be kindled in every heart. Open your hearts to Him by faith and He will
come in, and with Him the rejoicing life which will triumph over the
death of self and sin, and give to you a share in the nature of God.

III. Let me say, lastly, that this great text adds a human accompaniment