Thank God Jesus Came

Introduction

Yesterday, we visited my grandmother as a part of our Christmas tradition. For the last 32 years I have every spent Christmas at my grandmother’s house, with exception to last year due to COVID. In fact, yesterday was the first time I have seen my mother since COVID—that makes over 1 1/2 years. Since there had been so much time since the last time I saw her, I was looking forward to spending time with her.

Generally, Christmas, for me, has never been about Jesus’ birthday, because we were taught that Christmas is a pagan holiday. It has been said that we have nothing in Scripture to validate our celebration of Christ’s birthday. Rather, our celebration should be towards celebrating the resurrection of Christ, rather than His birth. Nevermind the wonderful memories and the kind acts of love shown through one’s participation of perhaps the world’s favorite holiday.

However, while we are incredibly committed to the importance of the resurrection, may I suggest that there would have never been a resurrection if there had not first been a birth. And so, by default, if we celebrate the resurrection of Christ, shall we not too celebrate the birth of the Christ who would be resurrected?

I am not here to battle with those who wish to exclude themselves from the practice of the holiday. However, may I encourage all to consider the birth of Jesus Christ as important as it deserves to be. What are we celebrating when discussing the birth of Jesus? We are celebrating Jesus’ incarnation.

Revelation 13:8 “8 All those who live on the earth will worship it, everyone whose name was not written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slaughtered.” declares that the Lamb was slained from the foundation of the earth.

The word “slained” is actually slaughter. It is a perfect passive participle, which means the writer was a recipient of the act, though this event happened in the past. Yet, this event or action still continues as a matter of process. The slaying of the Lamb is a past event and a current event.

Yet, we see that in 1 Peter 1:20 “20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was revealed in these last times for you.” the Lamb who was foreknown before the foundation of the world had to be revealed in the last times. And since the verb revealed is a participle, it speaks to the fact that this act of revelation should be considered ongoing. That is, Jesus was being revealed to that audience as the eternal son of God and plan of God.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 2:7-10 “7 On the contrary, we speak God’s hidden wisdom in a mystery, a wisdom God predestined before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age knew this wisdom, because if they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But as it is written, What no eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no human heart has conceived— God has prepared these things for those who love him. 10 Now God has revealed these things to us by the Spirit, since the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.”

My dear friends, the resurrection is so important because it points to the revelation of Jesus Christ as the plan of God. It is the coming of Jesus to earth as the Son of God that makes this revelation identifiable. We call it incarnation.

Defining Incarnation

The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary Incarnation

“Incarnation” means literally “en-fleshment” or, slightly more fully, “embodiment in flesh.”

The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church Incarnation

The Christian doctrine of the Incarnation affirms that the eternal Son of God took flesh from His human mother and that the historical Christ is at once both fully God and fully man. It is opposed to all theories of a mere theophany or transitory appearance of God in human form, frequently met with in other religions. By contrast, it asserts an abiding union in the Person of Christ of Godhead and manhood without the integrity or permanence of either being impaired. It also assigns the beginnings of this union to a definite and known date in human history.

The doctrine of the Incarnation means:

Jesus had to pre-exist.

The pre-existing one became a human.

John 1:14–18 CSB

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John testified concerning him and exclaimed, “This was the one of whom I said, ‘The one coming after me ranks ahead of me, because he existed before me.’ ”) Indeed, we have all received grace upon grace from his fullness, for the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. The one and only Son, who is himself God and is at the Father’s side—he has revealed him.

Though he was rich, so rich,

Yet for our sakes how poor he became!

Even his garments they parted

When he hung on the cross of shame.

All that he had he gave for me,

That I might be rich through eternity. -E. H. Swinestead

Jesus’ coming to earth was for the purpose of declaring the Father to us!

The Exalted of The Humble

Slave

Humble

Death

These three lead to exaltation, which never would have happened if he did not come in the first advent.

When Paul says that Christ Jesus was in the form of God, that is, in full possession of the divine nature, he underlines the fact by using, not the simple verb ‘to be’, but a stronger verb which in its characteristic usage has the force ‘to be really and truly’, ‘to be characteristically’, even ‘to be by nature’. In a passage like the present one, where it is plain that every word has been weighed and measured, the full meaning of the verb can be assumed: he was really and truly, in his own personal and essential nature, God.

But, being so, he emptied himself. The very notion of ‘emptying’ inevitably suggests deprivation or lessening, the loss of something that was possessed before. -J Alec Motyer