He, the Lord Jesus Christ, Who Saved Me

It was expected that He should come in pomp. Instead of that, He grew up as a tender plant, silently and insensibly. He had no form nor comeliness, nothing extraordinary which one might have thought to meet in an incarnate Deity. The manner of His appearing in the world had nothing of outward glory.

His gospel is preached, not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but with plainness. He was a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. His whole life was not only mean but miserable. Being made sin for us, He underwent the sentence sin had subjected us to. His condition was, upon many accounts, sorrowful. He was unsettled, had not where to lay His head, lived upon alms, was opposed and endured the contradiction of sinners against Himself… We never read that He laughed, but often that He wept.

…

Carnal hearts see no excellency in the Lord Jesus, nothing that should have induced them to desire an interest in Him… Men whom He came to save rejected Him, and His sufferings mean nothing to them. Christ, having undertaken to satisfy the justice of God for man’s sin, did it, not by divesting Himself of the glories due to an incarnate Deity, but by submitting to the disgrace due to worst of men and malefactors. Thus He glorified His Father… But alas, by how many is He still despised in His people, and rejected of men as to His doctrine and authority.

– Matthew Henry (October 18, 1662 – June 22, 1714)¹

¹ Extracted from: Rev (Dr) Tow, Timothy. The Gospel Prophets — An Applied Commentary On Isaiah and Micah. 120.