CHRISTMAS

 

Christmas

Image from Web

Christmas is about the incarnation. We sing about it every year in the old Wesley hymn, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing! ‘Veiled in flesh the Godhead see/ Hail, the incarnate Deity/ Pleased as Man with man to dwell/ Jesus, our Immanuel.’ Yet, I fear that, along with the Trinity, the two natures of Christ is perhaps one of the most misunderstood teachings of the Bible. It wasn’t the Father or the Spirit who became flesh, but God the Son. Christmas celebrates this fact. Therefore, those who deny that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit also deny that Jesus is the incarnate Deity. However, those in whose hearts the Spirit has effectively worked savingly with His Word, those whom God by His grace alone has regenerated and declared righteous on Christ’s account, see clearly according to Scripture alone that Jesus is the second Person in the Godhead who was born as a human baby in Bethlehem. God and Man in one Divine Person with two distinct natures forever.

The Incarnation of God did not begin on the very first Christmas Day, but rather some nine months prior in the womb of a woman who was virgin at the time. Mary, the virgin, was having the same problem we would be having when she heard that she was going to conceive without a man. However, God had it explained to her: ‘And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God”’ (Luke 1:35). And Mary had the benefit of knowing and also applying the Old Testament Scriptures: ‘Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel’ (Isa. 7:14). Immanuel, of course, means ‘God with us’ (Matt. 1:23). So, the third Person of the Godhead, in Mary’s womb united her human substance with the Divine substance of God as she conceived the Son that she gave birth to on that first Christmas Day.

Now, this is where it begins to go wrong for some people. They think that if Jesus is God, then as God He didn’t need to be born in the usual way, opening the womb (Luke 2:22-24). Couldn’t He just ooze through the walls of Mary’s womb? You see the same happening with His resurrection. They think that He oozed out of His graveclothes and oozed through the tomb walls even before the stone was rolled away, that He oozed through the locked door into the room where His disciples were meeting after His resurrection. But this is to confuse His two natures, the human with the Divine! It is a popular belief today. Jesus is fully God! And we don’t like your use of the word ‘ooze’! Yes, but He’s also fully Man and I don’t like the way you’ve got Him passing through solid objects as if His body were not like yours and mine!

Isn’t Christmas more exciting when as adults we can talk about adult stuff, such as ‘What did Jesus get you?’ instead of childish things, e.g., ‘What did Santa get you?’ By His Incarnation Jesus has ensured, in the words of the old song, ‘Man will live forevermore/ Because of Christmas day.’ (Belafonte) How so? ‘For this reason He had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest in service to God, and that He might make atonement for the sins of the people’ (Heb. 2:17). The Son saved humans by becoming fully human and remaining fully human forever. He’ll live on the new Earth with those humans He has saved (Matt. 5:5) by His incarnation (John 1:14), life, death, resurrection (Matt. 1:21), ascension (Dan. 7:14) and bodily return (Acts 1:11). 

Click the link for Celtic Worship playing their version of Hark! The Herlad Angels Sing! https://youtu.be/LN0FRBdNC1E?si=Bhv0sJkZ6-hOlzf6