A Son is Given
Christmas Series
Isaiah 9:6
On this Christmas Eve I want to welcome our guests and visitors to Christ Community Church of Hernando. We’re pleased that God has brought you here to share this joyous hour with us. I'm convinced that you're here by Divine appointment.
Our purpose at this church is to exalt Jesus Christ by preaching the Word of God at all times. We do this to equip and to build up fellow believers to do the work of Christ in this world. Over the years I’ve personally seen the power of God’s Word to change lives, including my own. The Word of God is true whether we believe it or not; but unless we believe it, we can’t benefit from anything we hear. Faith comes by hearing and hearing comes by the Word of God. But skeptics have always tried to challenge every major doctrine of the Christian faith, especially the virgin birth of Christ. That’s our focus tonight, before we celebrate communion.
A skeptic who denied the virgin birth once asked a Christian, “If I told you that child over there was born without a human father, would you believe me?” “Yes,” the believer replied, “if he lived as Jesus lived.” And that’s really the lynch-pin of the whole argument. The life that Jesus lived backed up every claim He ever made. Christ’s virgin birth is a necessary component that helps us believe and make sense of the entire story of His person and work.
We began by looking at Isaiah 7:14 in the last lesson and tonight we’re going to look briefly at Isaiah 9:6. I touched on this verse last time, but we need to look at this more carefully. In order to understand the virgin birth of Christ, we need to understand who He was before He took on human form. We also need to understand how taking on human form didn’t change the essence of who He was before He entered the Virgin Mary’s womb. So let’s look at Isaiah 9:6-7. In honor of God and His Word, let’s stand for the reading of these verses.
6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this. [NIV]
[Prayer] In these two verses, I want us to notice three things about Christ’s nature: this passage tells us something about His human nature, something about His divine nature, and something about His eternal dominion. The first phrase in verse 6 explains His human nature… “For to us a child is born…”
I. As to His human nature -- a child was born.
“For to us” indicates our perspective of the birth of Christ. To us a child is born to a poor young couple who traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem for a census. This first statement makes crystal clear the fact that the Messiah would take on human form by going through the natural process of development in the womb. Although, His conception was supernatural, since Mary was a virgin, the gestation and birth process had all the appearances of natural childbirth. So a child was literally born when Jesus became a man in the incarnation. His body was a real human body with flesh and bones. He needed milk as a baby and had to grow into adulthood. But this was no ordinary child. This child is the incarnation of one who has existed forever. And that explains the second phrase… “to us a Son is given.”
II. As to His divine nature -- a Son was given.
A child was born, but the Son wasn’t “born”; the Son was given in order to be born as a child in Mary’s womb. This is a key distinction in our text. If the text said that the Son was born, that would indicate that the second person of the Trinity came into existence in Mary’s womb. But that is precisely the error this text labors to avoid.
Until the incarnation, the Son did not have a body. Before the virgin birth, Jesus Christ never had a physical body; and since the virgin birth, He has never ceased to have a physical body. This is what theologians call the hypostatic union. This means the divine and human nature are fully resident in one person, the theanthropic God-man. The word theanthropic is another word that only applies to Jesus Christ. It comes from two words: theos is the word for God, like the word theology, which is the study of the nature of God; and anthropos is the word for man or humanity. An anthropologist is a person who studies the nature of man and humankind. So theanthropic means God and man in one person. That’s what happened at the incarnation.
Within Mary’s womb she was carrying her Creator, the One who caused all things to come into being. The Son has always existed. So when the child Jesus was born as a human being, it was because the eternal Son had been given for that purpose. Remember the words of the Chalcedonian Creed quoted last time, that Jesus was “begotten not created”. Because He has always existed, He couldn’t come into being, so the Son was given that this God-man could be born as the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. But this virgin born Messiah would also have power according to the names He will have…
III. As to His eternal dominion -- His titles reflect His power.
…And the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this.
These titles reflect the eternal power of Jesus Christ. In Mary’s womb was the Creator of the universe. In her womb was the eternal Judge of all the nations. The title “Everlasting Father” can be rendered “Father of Eternity”. It means He has no beginning and no ending.
Can you get a sense of the awesomeness of the incarnation in the virgin’s womb? This Sunday we’ll conclude this mini-series on the Virgin Birth of Christ with a message on the Jewish understanding of the virgin birth in the context of the Greek culture… we’ll see why the virgin birth is a non-negotiable for the Christian faith.
Communion Service
At this time we’re going to celebrate the sacrament of communion, which is our Christmas Eve tradition at this church. And we do it a little differently on Christmas Eve. This is a time when we come forward in a single file line of individuals and take the sacrament by a method called intinction—you break off a piece of the bread, big enough to hold onto, and dip it into the cup and then put it into your mouth.
This has been our Christmas Eve tradition for three years now since I first began this custom… and some people have told me it’s the most meaningful time of communion they’ve ever experienced as a Christian. It’s more personal. All Christians are invited to the Lord’s Table if you are truly a Christian having repented of your sin and are walking in faith with Jesus Christ, you are welcomed to participate… all others are strongly exhorted to abstain.
(c) Charles Kevin Grant
2005