Why Was Jesus Born?

Old Covenant

We serve a God of covenant. He desires a relationship with His creation. Because he has given us free-will he establishes covenant with us to live in relation with Him. We see at the beginning of creation that God establishes a covenant with Adam. This covenant is quickly broken. After this we see a bi-lateral covenant made between the nation of Israel and God through Moses. This covenant is quickly broken by the nation of Israel. Let’s dive into these two covenants to gain a better understanding

Covenant with Adam

Genesis 2:15–17 NASB95

Then the Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”

God created man and put him in a place of paradise. It was a place of perfection. He gave man the responsibility of cultivating the garden. It was Adam’s responsibility to cultivate it so he could be sustained by it.

God gave Adam a covenant. He told Adam that he was free to eat of any tree from the garden except one. He explained the covenant. He said that if ate of the tree he would surely die. He would be separated from the blessing of God if he broke the covenant.

Adam broke covenant with God and was removed from the blessing of God and eventually died.

Adam demonstrated that man alone cannot keep covenant with God

Covenant with Israel

Exodus 24:3–6 NASB95

Then Moses came and recounted to the people all the words of the Lord and all the ordinances; and all the people answered with one voice and said, “All the words which the Lord has spoken we will do!” Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. Then he arose early in the morning, and built an altar at the foot of the mountain with twelve pillars for the twelve tribes of Israel. He sent young men of the sons of Israel, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as peace offerings to the Lord. Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins, and the other half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar.

God created the nation of Israel through a unilateral covenant in Genesis 15:5-6

Genesis 15:5–6 NASB95

And He took him outside and said, “Now look toward the heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.” Then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.

Through the nation of Israel God created a covenant through Moses. This covenant began with the ten commandments, then the ordinances for the people on how to love with one another, and then the Sabbath ordinances, and finally the establishment of the three national feasts. These were the covenants that God established with Israel.

Notice the people did not negotiate with God or refuse the covenant. They simply said, “All the words which the Lord has spoken we will do!” I am sure they had good intentions but they did not follow through. Just a few days after entering the covenant they broke it.

Exodus 32:1–10 NASB95

Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled about Aaron and said to him, “Come, make us a god who will go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” Aaron said to them, “Tear off the gold rings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” Then all the people tore off the gold rings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. He took this from their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it into a molten calf; and they said, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” Now when Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.” So the next day they rose early and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play. Then the Lord spoke to Moses, “Go down at once, for your people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves. “They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. They have made for themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it and have sacrificed to it and said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!’ ” The Lord said to Moses, “I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people. “Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation.”

The nation of Israel broke the first and second commandment. Exodus 20:3-6

Exodus 20:3–6 NASB95

“You shall have no other gods before Me. “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

The nation of Israel showed that they could not keep the covenant of God. It seems as if man was hopeless in regards to his relationship with God, but God in His great love, mercy, and grace promised a new covenant. This new covenant Jeremiah spoke of.

New Covenant

Jeremiah 31:31–34 NASB95

“Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. “They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

God makes a new Covenant that is unilateral. He says he will put His law within them, He will be their God, they shall be His people, and they will have their sins forgiven.

This covenant was ushered in by the blood of Jesus. Matthew 26:27-28

Matthew 26:27–28 NASB95

And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.

When we surrender our lives to Christ for salvation we are recipients of the new covenant.

God gives us the Holy Spirit to write the laws on our hearts. We no longer have to depend on two stone tablets. The Holy Spirit writes them on our hearts. He also convicts us when we transgress the law of God.

We become a child of God. We no longer belong to the world or the prince of power over the world. We become his child. Romans 8:15

Romans 8:15 NASB95

For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!”

Finally our sins are forgiven. The Bible says that He remembers them no more. He is omniscient so he knows everything. He cannot forget anything. What He is referring to is that He no longer counts our sin against us. It is as if they never happened. Jesus sacrifice was enough to satisfy the wrath of God on our behalf.

Why did Jesus have to be born? Because God wants a relationship with you. Jesus is the only way to have a relationship with God the Father. John 14:6

John 14:6 NASB95

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.