(Matthew 1:21) “He will save His people from their sins”
Hi brothers and sisters, One of the great things about living in the western democracies is that every year we get to celebrate the virgin birth of the Messiah our Lord Jesus when He as the pre-incarnate Son of God took upon Himself to become a man who was fully human and fully divine in the same person and in whom was no sin at all. The Messiah our Lord Jesus is the eternal living Word of God who was with God and who was God and who was in the beginning with God from all of eternity and the one through whom all things were made and that without Him nothing was made that has been made. He is the one who became flesh and tabernacled among us (Proverbs 30:4) (1 John 3:5) (John 1:1-3, 10-14) (Psalm 102:25-28) (Hebrews 1:10-12).
This is the one who was born in a stable because there was no room for him in the inn. The amazing and awesome fact is that Mary was a virgin untouched by man and a very young girl who became pregnant with the Son of God through the life-giving power and presence of the blessed Holy Spirit Himself, who is also God the Spirit. The Father of the Lord Jesus was God Himself, who caused His only begotten Son the Living Word of God Himself, to be conceived in Mary’s womb through the power of Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:18-20).
While not much is mentioned about Joseph, Mary’s future husband as they were betrothed and not yet married, we see the character of the man in that he really loved Mary and accepted fully that this whole situation was from the God of his forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Socially, to human logic and reasoning of others, Mary was a woman who had conceived out of wedlock but this did not phase Joseph her husband who realised he and his betrothed bride were part of something that God had initiated that was not subject to the opinions of man.
The incarnation of the Word of God Himself was the only way God could come into the Human race and become a fully human flesh and blood man in order to redeem men, women, boys and girls from the terrible power and penalty and eternal consequences of sin. While we focus on His supernatural birth and entry into this world at this Christmas season we also need to remember that His birth was overshadowed by His cross. As we reflect on the real meaning of this Christmas season there are three things we can see in the incarnation of the Son of the Living God.
1. God with Us:
Billy Graham told a story many years ago about a little boy walking along the road with his father. As they were walking along they accidently stepped into an ants nest on the ground and the ants were scattered. They stopped to look at the seemingly confused actions of the ants that were undoubtedly confused and disorientated and having no direction. The little boy said to his father, “Daddy if only I could become an ant like them and show them what to do.” This is a very simple story but profound in that it illustrates the desire of the eternal Son of God to enter into this fallen world to reconcile man with His creator and to bring them back into a right relationship with Him, a relationship which had been broken through sin. As it is written, “For the Messiah died for our sins once for all, the righteous one for the unrighteous ones to bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18a). In the incarnation God was with us.
2. God for us:
The Bible says, “But God demonstrates His love for us in this: while we were still sinners, the Messiah died for us” (Romans 5:8). By nature and birth we are all great sinners and rebels against God and have violated His laws and commandments and under the sentence of an eternal hell cut off from any relationship with God, an eternal inferno created for the devil and his angels, not for man, but the Bible says that the wages of sin is death, yes physical death, an appointment all of us must keep and cannot avoid, but after this comes the judgement (Hebrews 9:27). When one dies they either go up to heaven to be with the Lord Jesus or down into hell to be with the devil and his angels. So you see the real message of Christmas goes far beyond the tinsel and Christmas decorations and the so called partying at this festive season as it it so called!
However, we are also told in the Word of God that a righteousness comes from God, which is not our own, but which comes through faith in the Messiah our Lord Jesus to all who believe and that there is no difference with God in that all have fallen short of His glory and divine standards and forfeited heaven and yet are freely justified and acquitted of all offences in God’s heavenly court room by the unmerited favour of God through the redemption price that came by the Messiah our Lord Jesus. The price God required was the atoning blood of His sinless Son, that blood which not only brings forgiveness and puts one in right standing with God through faith, but will also protect all who trust in Him and His shed blood, to be protected from the coming wrath of God upon sin and rebellion (Romans 3:22-26) (Romans 5:9)
All who repent and by faith turn to God for mercy and pardon and seek to be reconciled to Him with all of their hearts, He will freely pardon and cleanse them in the blood of the Messiah (Isaiah 55:6-8) (1 John 1:7-9). As it is also written, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s unmerited, unearned favour” (Ephesians 1:7). In the incarnation God showed He was for us.
3. God in Us:
We can know about the message of Christmas, we can know intellectually that the Lord Jesus is God and that He was born of a virgin. We can even know and give mental assent to why He came into this world, and there are multitudes of people even in churches across our land who know this and celebrate this and every year, attend church at Christmas time but have never encountered the living Lord Jesus personally deep down on the inside of them. This is a supernatural spiritual work of the Spirit of God. One must be born again from above, a spiritual rebirth, not a work of man or of the human will or by human effort, but supernaturally wrought by God the Spirit, and without which no one can enter into or even perceive the things pertaining to the kingdom of God (John 3:3) (1 Corinthians 2:10-16) (Ephesians 2:8-10).
God Himself has made known this great eternal truth to us being the glorious riches of this mystery, which is the Messiah in us, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27). At this Christmas season we can know that God is with us and for us but it is vital for our eternal destiny after we leave this life, that we know God is also in us. This is the hope of all who have been spiritually reborn from above supernaturally by the Spirit of God and destined to experience the fullness of the glory of God in the face of Jesus the Messiah for all of eternity where all sickness, sorrow, suffering, pain, disappointment, sighing, pain and death itself will be eliminated forever (Revelation 21:1-4).
You know dear brothers and sisters the Messiah our Lord Jesus was born in a smelly, dirty stable, which metaphorically can represent the condition of our hearts and lives defiled and polluted by sin. However, we can ask who was born in that smelly, dirty stable? Who was it that made that place the very throne room of God on earth? It was the presence of the Lord Jesus that sanctified that environment. Our hearts are deceitful above all things and desperately wicked and defiled, and only God can really know the depths of spiritual depravity of sin that lurks within every human heart (Jeremiah 17:9).
When we are spiritually reborn from above by the blessed Holy Spirit He applies the blood of the Messiah to the doorposts of our heart and mind and cleanses us from all spiritual defilement and filthiness of flesh and spirit. The stable of our heart no longer smells of the corruption of sin and rebellion but with the fragrance of the grace, the mercy and the very presence of God Himself through the indwelling Spirit, and by that same Spirit we are set apart to God for his service and glory. This is the real truth of the incarnation!
It is by faith in the Lord Jesus that our hearts are purified by the blood of the Messiah which cleanses from all sin, protects us from the coming wrath, and brings us into the very eternal habitation where God resides with all of the hosts of heaven, and where the spirits of just men and women have been perfected forever!
As it is written, “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of heavenly beings, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the Judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel” (Hebrews 12:22-24).
At this Christmas season in the euphoria of our celebration of the incarnation let us also reflect on the fact that the cross overshadowed the crib and that the baby was destined to die the cruellest of deaths in order to bring us back to God and to save us from the power of sin and from an eternal hell! Indeed it is only the presence of the Lord Jesus dwelling in the stable of our hearts that can remove the foul smell of our spiritual corruption and replace it with the fragrance of His indestructible life and His very presence and awesome power. Indeed as the angels proclaimed “He will save His people from their sins!”
Shalom to you all at this special season of the year.
Brother Raoul
