The wondrous story of Christmas is told in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. I encourage you to consider the back-story of Christmas in the Gospel of John. His Christmas version could be called The Incarnation Story. The word incarnation comes from Latin, meaning in the flesh. He takes the Christmas story back in time before Bethlehem and to before time began.
Three things are needed for incarnation and all are explained by John in his Gospel: Why did God choose to enter His creation? How did God enter His creation? For what purpose did God enter His creation? The first may be found in a very familiar verse, John 3:16, For God so loved the world . . . God entered His creation out of love. George Whitefield (1714-1770), God could not, nor can, receive any additional good by our salvation. But it was love, mere love; it was free love that brought the Lord Jesus Christ into our world. What an amazing reason for the incarnation - God loves us! He does not need us but He wants us!
The second is in John 1:1-3, 14, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. God entered His creation through His Son. The baby Jesus in the manager existed before His birth in Bethlehem. He is God the Son, one person with two natures, human and divine. Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), The child in the manger is none other than God himself. Nothing greater can be said: God became a child. In the Jesus child of Mary lives the almighty God. Take time to contemplate the incomparable act of incarnation because the baby in the manager is so much more.
The third thing needed for incarnation is found in John 1:12, But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. God entered His creation to save it. Many misunderstand Jesus' reason for coming to earth. Some believe He was a religious fanatic confused by His zeal. Some believe He was a good man who is an example of how we should live. Christians believe He is God the Son Who came to save us from our sins. Anonymous, He came to pay a debt He didn't owe because we owed a debt we couldn't pay.
It was a costly calling for that baby in a manger. For the only time, past, present or future, the Father turned from the Son because Jesus took our sins upon Himself. The most wondrous thing took place a few moments later when fellowship was restored. His payment for sin was accepted by the Father and forgiveness of sins is available based on Jesus' work alone. J. I. Packer (1926-2020), The Christmas message is that there is hope for a ruined humanity—hope of pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory—because at the Father's will Jesus Christ became poor, and was born in a stable so that thirty years later He might hang on a cross. Who Jesus is determined what he could do. Only Jesus who is fully God and fully man can redeem mankind, one life at a time.
How must we respond to the incarnation? Receive the gift of Christmas by faith alone in the person and work of Jesus Christ. Thomas À Kempis (1380–1471), The Lord is come; come and adore. Seek Jesus, and you shall find Him; knock at the door, and it shall be opened to you; enter the house and you shall see . . . Our King is arrived; Christ is born to us. Come, let us adore and fall down before Him, for He it is who made us.
Join Joseph Bayly (1920-1986), in a prayer of thanksgiving for the incarnation, the back-story of Christmas.
Tonight I will sing praise to the Father who stood on heaven’s threshold and said farewell to his Son as he stepped across the stars to Bethlehem and Jerusalem. And I will sing praise to the infinite, eternal Son, who became most finite, a baby who would one day be executed for my crime. Praise him in the heavens, Praise him in the stable, Praise him in my heart.
A study of Christmas from the Gospel of John may be found under the Books of the Bible tab. Rejoice in the essence of Christmas proclaimed by John Wesley (1703-1791), The best of all is, God is with us!
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