His Blessings Flow
No more let Sins and Sorrows grow,
Nor Thorns infest the Ground:
He comes to make his Blessings flow
Far as the Curse is found.
And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus. -Philippians 4:19
Christ’s arrival as Emmanuel, God with Us, brings with it benefits beyond what we might even be able to imagine or comprehend. As the third verse of Joy to the World clearly says, the blessings of Christ flow as far as any curse is found. This is joyous news! This means that no matter where there is a “curse”, His blessings flow over it all. No matter where there is sin, brokenness, pain, or hurt, the blessings and healing nature of Christ covers it all. There is no part of our broken human condition that Christ Himself cannot, and has not redeemed.
In the incarnation of Christ, Jesus came as man. He came as the “second Adam.” Adam fully represented humanity because we would all come from him. Through our being “in him,” we suffer from the consequences of the fallen nature of man. In this same way, Jesus, the “second Adam” (as Scripture speaks of Christ) atoned for the brokenness of humanity in all that he did. Because we would be “in Him,” we share in all of his atoning and redeeming work. But in order for Christ to redeem the human condition, He had to take the entirety of it onto Himself. Through his life, death, and resurrection, Jesus redeemed what he had assumed, the broken human condition, and brought it back to union with God.
To put it simply, Christ redeemed everything about us. He assumed the entirety of our human condition. We have been fully cleansed through our full union with Him. Wherever we might see a “curse” in our lives, we take comfort in knowing that the blessings of our relationship with Christ extend over all of it. As today’s verse from Philippians says, God will meet all our needs IN Christ Jesus. All of the brokenness we have that needs repair, Christ has redeemed. All this takes place because Christ came as Emmanuel, God with Us.
May sins and sorrows no longer grow in our lives, because our humanness has been redeemed by the One who assumed it. May thorns no longer infest our grounds, because Jesus has assumed our humanness and reunified it with God, in an intimate, unbreakable relationship.
