Category: Christmas

God’s Purposes at Christmas

Matthew 1:18-25

She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins (1:21 NIV).

Christmas is a time for wish lists, whether others give you theirs or you ask what they would like, or others request them from you, or you happily volunteer yours lists to them. We all have items on our lists that we would like to have. Yes, that includes you! We all have plans and purposes that we would like to see happen. By the way, how did your plans turn out this year? Truthfully, this year was nothing like I had hoped for last December. I praise the Lord for the many gracious blessings that he poured out through Christ. But there were many items that I never put on my yearly planner—but God did.

God is the Greatest Planner. The Sovereign, Holy, and Wise God always plans what is best for his glory and for the good of his chosen people. But we do not always see life the way that the Lord of all views it. The history of the first Christmas is a clear example of this difference in evaluation. While a long acquaintance with the story of the birth of Jesus Christ might produce a kind of sentimental charm, it is not the way we would have written the story. A quick reading of the first seventeen verses of Matthew one might leave us with the impression that we have been set up for a glitzy, exciting dramatic account. For in these verses we read of great men, like Abraham and David, and of great events like the exile to Babylon and how God stuck with his people in the long years after that event, since there was still a long line of people who were heirs of the promises made to Abraham and David. Now certainly, God will send the Messiah in regal splendor to crush the oppressors of his people, in order that they might live happily ever after. But if we listen to the story written in God’s word, we can learn much about God’s purposes.

God’s purpose was to send a Savior to save his people from sin (1:18-21). At first glance the way to God’s goal seems very strange.

Joseph, who was a descendant of Abraham and David, is overwhelmed by circumstances that seem to be contrary to God’s law. Joseph was pledged to be married to Mary, whom he esteemed as a good and godly woman. But unexpectedly, she tells him that she is with child, by the creative power of the Holy Spirit. Now Joseph, like any man would be, is rather suspicious and incredulous. After all, all humans are born through the union of a man with a woman, aren’t we? Therefore, he decides to break their engagement, which in that culture required him to divorce her, since an engagement to marry was binding. All Joseph’s dreams for a happy life seem to be crushed.

But the Lord gives Joseph a new dream. It is a dream that involves his heartache. That is often the way the Sovereign Lord of all chooses to work in us and through us. He uses our tragedies to mold his triumphs. This displays his glory and honor in a greater way. He takes what is bitter and makes it sweet. The Lord’s angel verifies the story that Mary has told him. She is expecting because of the Holy Spirit’s power working in her. The Lord tells him to replace his fears with confident action.

God’s message about Mary’s child will be the foundation of a better hope for Joseph and for all God’s people. The Lord makes Joseph a participant in the story. In faith, he is to take Mary as his wife. He must rely on the Lord’s word to do this, for he has no other way of knowing if her account of her pregnancy is true. And in faith Joseph is to name her child Jesus, which means “the Lord saves”. Joseph must replace his fears with a faith that works.

The important point lies in the significance of the name “Jesus”. The son born of the Virgin will be the Savior of his people. But this salvation is not a physical deliverance. Instead, Jesus will rescue his people from their sins—from guilt and condemnation and from the power and finally the presence of sin, which is ruinous and damning.

Here is what Jesus does: When he saves people, he meets their true and basic needs. He saves us from our past, in our present, and for a glorious and joyful future with God forever. The question is, “Has Jesus saved you?” Right now, you may have the best Christmas present that you will ever receive—salvation by Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

God’s purpose was also to be with his people (1:22-25). This purpose had been declared seven hundred years earlier through Isaiah the prophet (Isaiah 7:14).

Matthew clearly teaches us that Isaiah’s words were significant far beyond the time and setting to which he originally spoke. The wicked King Ahaz had rejected the sign that the Lord offered through Isaiah. So the Lord gave a sign to all Israel. Now the time had come for its fulfillment. Here is an important idea in Matthew and the New Testament Scriptures: promise and fulfillment. 

Matthew by the direction of the Holy Spirit applies the words of Isaiah to what happened to Mary. A virgin gave birth to a son. How could this be? It took the power of God. Every hope we have rests on the power of God. Can God do what is otherwise impossible? Yes, God can! 

Through the virgin birth, God the Son came to be with his people. Here we encounter what is beyond human comprehension. We can know the fact that the Messiah or Anointed One is both God and man. But how can this be? The Bible never presents a full explanation, but instead presents many facts of Christ’s true deity and true humanity. The Son of Mary is also God over all. This is a mystery (1 Timothy 3:16), and the best response is to worship.

What we must notice and lay hold of is that God did this to be present with his people. This is a great idea of Christmas: God with us. God has a purpose to be with his people forever (Revelation 21:3). God is not far away; he has come near through Jesus the Messiah. The Lord the Son took the form of a servant to save his people and in the process to have an earned lordship over all humanity, because of his obedience to the Father’s will (Philippians 2:5-11). In doing this he makes us citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem, where we will be with him forever (Philippians 3:20-21).

As we look forward to being with the Lord forever, free from sin and rejoicing in the glory of God Almighty, we can know that the Lord is still with us, as Jesus the Messiah promised (Matthew 28:18-20). Here is something for you and me as we journey through this world. Life might not work out according to our plans. But all will work out according to God’s plan, because he has planned to be with you and me forever. Believer in Christ, remember this in the days ahead. Everything is all right when the Lord of Glory is with you!

Grace and peace,
David

Messiah, the Lord

Luke 2:11

Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord (NIV).

Jesus is the Messiah, or what most Christians are used to saying, the Christ. Both Messiah and Christ mean “the Anointed One”. Jesus is the Chosen One of God (Luke 23:35). He is the One sent to save his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21).

He is also the Lord.

Much of Christmas thinking is wrapped around the idea that Jesus was born as a very human baby, wrapped in strips of cloth, and laid in a manger by his virgin mother Mary. All that is correct certainly, but it is insufficient, if that is as far as one’ thoughts go. We read our granddaughter the children’s book The Bible in Picture for Little Eyes (the old edition with realistic pictures), and it talks much about how Jesus came as a baby. It also stresses that Jesus is God’s Son. That is good.

It is also good to know that he is the Savior. God the Father sent his one and only Son to save or rescue us from the guilt, pollution, and penalty that we fully deserve. We lived in rebellion against God and were liable for eternal punishment. But thanks be to God, in his amazing mercy he provided an Almighty Deliverer for us.

All that Jesus is able to do for us is possible because he is the Lord. He is the great I Am, the Creator and Controller of all things, the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. This is what we have trouble thinking through with our small brains. The Chosen Savior, God’s Prophet, Priest, and King; yes, we know that. But to comprehend that the little baby in the manger, the firstborn son of a young Jewish woman is also the Firstborn over everything (Colossians 1:15), that makes us pause and wonder.

The Lord blessed my wife and I with three children. How I remember holding each of the three infants on my forearm with their heads safely cradled in the palm of my hand. They were so tiny, yet very real people! Now think of Joseph holding Mary’s newborn son in the same way. Yes, that is easy to imagine. But that newly arrived infant is also the Lord. Listen to what the prophet Isaiah said of the Lord. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? (Isaiah 40:12 ESV) The Lord is so immense that he has measured the universe with the span of his hand! Yet he was at the same time a very small baby! The fragile human frame that Joseph supported with his forearm and hand at the same exact moment was holding the universe together. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of his nature, sustaining all things by his powerful word (Hebrews 1:3a CSB; cf. Colossians 1:17).

Jesus, Messiah and Savior, is also the Lord of glory! Meditate on this awe-inspiring reality as you walk through the tattered remnants of the year 2020. Focus on him as you long for hope for your future. Jesus Messiah is the Lord of all!

By the way, he is also the Lord of your life. 

Grace and peace,
David

Why Christ Came (Part Two)

Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll—I have come to do your will, my God’” (Hebrews 10:5-7 NIV).

Our second text makes known why the Messiah came in relation to the story of God’s glory. God chose to work out his plan through a series of covenants. There are five covenants clearly identified in the Holy Writings, and they are usually linked to major characters in God’s plan. So we speak of covenants associated with Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, and Christ. The covenant with Abraham is called the holy covenant (Luke 1:72) or the promise (Galatians 3). The covenant with Moses is called the law or the old covenant in many places; it is also called the first   covenant (Hebrews 8:7; 9:1). It is important to keep this last designation in mind in order to understand Hebrews ten properly. The covenant of which Christ is the substance (Isaiah 42:6; 49:8) is usually called the new covenant, though in Hebrews it is also called the better or the second covenant (8:7 CSB, ESV, NLT). Now let’s focus on this second reason for Christ’s first coming.

The Messiah said, I have come to do your will, my God. Now surely he always pleased God the Father. When you read the Gospel of John carefully, you learn that all his works and words were exactly what the Father desired. When he did signs and wonders, each one was the will of the Father. When he spoke, he spoke what the Father told him to speak. How he acted was to reveal the Father to us (John 1:18). If we read this text through the lens of systematic or practical theology, we will think that this phrase is speaking of our Lord’s general obedience to the Father, and how he is our pattern to do the same. Certainly, there is nothing wrong with either systematic or practical theology, but we must not allow them to interfere with a proper understanding of any Biblical text. What is the will of God that Christ came to do?

First, in the above verses, notice the contrasts between sacrifice and offering with the body God prepared for the Messiah, and between offerings that could not please God and doing God’s will. Weren’t sacrifices and offerings established by God (see especially Leviticus) and so his will? Yes, they were! But they could not please God in the sense of being able to take away sin and cleanse the consciences of those who sinned. The Messiah had to come to provide a better sacrifice for sins, the offering of himself.

Second, notice what the writer of Hebrews said about the old covenant. The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship (10:1 NIV). It was a shadow and its sacrifices can never… make perfect those who draw near to worship. Now a shadow is good for the purpose for which God made shadows. They show us that something of substance is nearby. But that does not make the shadow better than the substance. And when we have the substance, we no longer need the shadow. For example, my shadow might show my wife that I am walking toward her. So she is alert to my presence. But I don’t want her to kiss my shadow; I want her to kiss me!

There are too many Christians in our time that are in love with the shadows of the law covenant. Such shadows proclaimed that the Lord was near his old covenant people. So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous, and good (Romans 7:12 NIV). But now that Christ, who is the better covenant, has come and accomplished redemption, we no longer need the shadows of the law, because Christ is now in us.

Third, Christ came to fulfill the law, set it aside because it was fulfilled, and to establish the new covenant. Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all (Hebrew 10:9-10 NIV). Notice what the Spirit caused to be written. He sets aside the first to establish the second. The first is the law or old covenant and the second is the new or better covenant. We are no longer under the law, written on stone tablets and given to Israel on Sinai. We are in Christ, and the Spirit of Christ who lives in us is our leader in following Christ, our Lord and Savior.

Grace and peace, David

Why Christ Came (Part One)

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins (1 John 4:10 NIV).

I write this during the Christmas season, which remains a major cultural holiday in the western world. Every follower of Jesus the Messiah views Christmas differently from the people of the world. To us, it is more than a cultural holiday. It is the time we remember that the Son of God took on true humanity. The King of all was born in the lowliest circumstances, and his mother Mary made up his first bed in a manger. There the Shepherd of God’s people received his first visitors, a group of shepherds who would go and tell the good news of his birth. To the world, this is a strange story. To those who believe in God through Christ, this was the first step to the great events of the gospel, the good news of Christ’s crucifixion, resurrection, ascension,and second coming in glory. We know that the cradle led to the cross and then to the crown. But to accomplish this great purpose, many other purposes were included. Let’s consider them together.

Our first text clearly presents the core purpose that the Father sent his Son to accomplish. God, having decided to rescue his people from eternal ruin, knew what was necessary for our deliverance. A Savior must come to rescue us from the cause and the corruption of our sins. What makes sin such a great evil that a divine Rescuer is needed? Sin is the rejection of God as God, the refusal to love him completely, and rebellion against God and his will and ways. Sin is a heinous crime against the Divine Majesty. Therefore, God sent His one and only Son to do all that was necessary to pay the penalty for our sins and to make us right with him.

To do this, the Son had to become the atoning sacrifice or propitiation for our sins. He had to become what would satisfy God’s righteous wrath against sin and so turn it away from us. To do this he had to be a perfect sacrifice, without spot or blemish, and also powerful enough to absorb the wrath and to provide righteousness by his perfect obedience and sacrifice. Consider what happened when Christ died as the propitiation for our sins. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed… Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him; he has put him to grief (Isaiah 53:4-5, 10a ESV). Ponder what he suffered from God’s hand and weep for our sins that he died for.

Why did God send his Son to die as an atoning sacrifice for our sin? The simple, and beautiful and truly amazing, answer of the Holy Writings is this. God loved us. He loved sinners, who had rejected him as God, refused to love him with the total love that he deserves, and rebelled against his will and ways. John pushed aside any other reason with the all-encompassing rejection of any suggestion that we loved God. Our salvation is traced back to a single source, the love of God.  Christ came because God loved us. Read that and weep also, but for a more glorious reason. Love sent the Lord of glory as a tiny baby. Love caused him to endure the sufferings of life in this broken world. Love took him finally to a cruel cross. And there, redeeming love showed itself in an atoning sacrifice for our sins. This Christmas, focus on God’s love, regardless of all the brokenness and evil that surround us.

Grace and peace, David