A CHILD IS BORN——A SON IS GIVEN
(Isaiah 9:6-7 ESV)
This graffiti dialog was found on a university wall: “And Jesus said unto them: ‘Who do you say I am?’ And they replied, ‘You are the eschatological manifestation of the ground of our being, the kerygma in which we find the ultimate meaning of our interpersonal relationships.’ And Jesus said, ‘What?’”
Profound doctrine surrounds the Advent of Christ. I don’t want to complicate it so that even Jesus would say, “Huh!” My goal is for you to understand with me, the beauty of His Incarnation.
Isaiah deliberately uses two important verbs to describe Christ’s advent 700 years before the manger. As a child, He is born, but as a Son He is given. Paul also observes, “concerning his Son, f who was descended from David according to the flesh 4 and h was declared to be the Son of God i in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 1:3-4). (The eternal Son of God assumed humanity to become the messianic King – ESV note). Humanly Jesus descended from David, but from eternity He was designated God’s Son. Paul said, “…when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4-5). As a Son Christ was sent, God’s Son from eternity past. When Augustus was Caesar, Jesus was born of Mary. He became a man at that point in time. The Bible never hesitates to put the twin truths of the full deity and true humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ together.
These crucial truths have been attacked by heretics throughout the history of the church. Early in church history Christ’s deity was denied. Arianism taught that the Son of God and the Holy Spirit were beings willed into existence by God, and that they were not eternal, as God is. Arius claimed that there was a time “before which they were not.” This heresy is still expressed in false doctrines like the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Unitarians.
Docetism, on the other hand, denied Christ’s true humanity. This heresy held that salvation was primarily an intellectual pursuit, so a literal Incarnation of the Son of God was meaningless. A radical and unbridgeable gulf was said to exist between spirit and matter, Matter was thought evil and spirit good. Docetism comes from the Greek verb dokeo which means “to appear.” It taught that Jesus only appeared to be a man, but was actually a phantom, without a real material body. By this teaching then, He did not really die. There are elements of this heresy in Islam and Mormonism.
The church rejected these errors and the early creeds stated the truth. The Athanasian Creed says, “Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man … perfect God, and perfect man … who although he be [is] God and man; yet he is not two, but one Christ; one, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh: but by taking [assumption] of the manhood into God.”
I. A CHILD IS BORN — THE HUMANITY OF CHRIST
The Bible teaches that Jesus, the Son of God, became like us in every respect (except for sin) so that we might become like Him. His humanity is expressed, for example, in His emotional life. Some try to separate Christ from emotions, as if they were not appropriate to Him. Others exaggerate his emotions almost to the point of irreverence. The New Testament is very balanced.
Jesus was often stirred with compassion or pity. With a hungry crowd, a leper, and a blind person, He was moved with compassion. His heart went out to the bereaved widow of Nain at the loss of her only son, and He wept over the stubborn unbelief of the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and again at the tomb of Lazarus. G. Campbell Morgan comments on His shared grief with Mary and Martha, “He … gathered up into his own personality all the misery resulting from sin, represented in a dead man and brokenhearted people around him” (G. Campbell Morgan, The Gospel According to John, (Westwood, N. J.: Fleming H. Revell, n.d.), 197).
Jesus was sometimes indignant. He sternly denounced the religious leaders of His day, calling them, “hypocrites,” “white washed tombs,” “snakes,” “blind guides,” and relating them to their “father, the devil.” James Boice writes, “It is not an impassible, insensitive, unmovable Christ that is presented to us in the New Testament. Rather it is one who has entered into our griefs and understands our sorrow, one who was on occasion moved to righteous indignation and angered by sin.” (James Montgomery Boice, God the Redeemer, [Foundations of the Christian Faith, Volume 2], (Downer’s Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1978), 144).
Jesus clearly became like us by means of His Incarnation. As a man He was subject to temptation. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15). He was well acquainted with suffering. He knew the changing fortunes of life: trials, joys, losses, temptations, and grief. He entered into them, understood them and became our pattern for dealing with them. The author of Hebrews wrote about this, “He had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. 18 For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” (Hebrews 2:17-18).
II. A SON IS GIVEN — THE DEITY OF CHRIST
Our hope of salvation rests entirely upon the shoulders of the promised redeemer whom we identify as Jesus Christ of Nazareth. How can any one person, however extraordinary, be equal to that task? I will quickly admit that if Jesus were no more than a man, however remarkable He might be, He could not be our Savior. The question of His deity is the crucial question about Jesus Christ.
Paul was not one of the original disciples. He was a devout Jew, believing in God’s unity — an enemy of Christ. As a monotheist, he considered the claims for Christ’s deity blasphemous.
In Philippians 2:5-11 Paul traces Christ’s life from eternity past, when he was in the form of God and equal to God, through the events of His earthly life to eternity future, where He is glorified again with the Father.
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
What a profound statement! Jesus possessed the very nature of God Himself and was God’s equal. Paul describes how Jesus laid aside His equality (not His nature), and then shows how His glory was reinstated. Jesus is to be confessed as Lord by every intelligent creature in God’s universe. The “name that is above every name” is the name of God, “The Lord.” “Jesus is Lord” means “Jesus is God.”
Any view that Jesus is merely a great Teacher or Moral Ethicist pales against Paul’s ringing affirmation. The high theology of this passage always thrills me because it was not written originally as a theological treatise. The doctrine of Christ was not Paul’s main subject. His point was not the identity of Jesus, but how His conduct is worthy of imitation. We should be like Him!
One writer says: We have here a chain of assertions about our Lord Jesus Christ, made within some thirty years of his death at Jerusalem … not in the least manner of controversy … but in the tone of a settled, common, and most living certainty. These assertions give us on the one hand the fullest possible assurance that he is man, man in nature, in circumstances and experience, and particularly in the sphere of relation to God the Father. But they also assure us, in precisely the same tone, and in a way which is equally vital to the argument in hand, that he is as genuinely divine as he is genuinely human. (Handley C. G. Moule, Philippian Studies: Lessons in Faith and Love, (London: Pickering and Inglis, n.d.), 97).
Paul was certain on this subject: “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell” (Colossians 1:19). “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Colossians 2:9). He speaks of our Lord’s return with remarkable words, “We wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13 -NIV).
John chose the deity of Christ as the overriding theme in his writings. He says clearly that the purpose of his gospel is “that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life a in his name” (John 20:31). His thesis, “Jesus is God,” appears in the prologue of the gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God” (John 1:1-2). Verse 14 says, “the Word a became flesh and dwelt among us.” Jesus is identified as “the Word” —a categorical statement of His deity.
According to John, Christ was “in the beginning.” This takes Him beyond the manger, and even beyond creation, to eternity past with God. He was “with God.” He was fully God, but a subtle truth is communicated here. He is God, but there is also a division of persons within the Trinity. John concludes the first verse with the statement, “And the Word was God.” Everything that can be said about the Father can also be said of the Son. Is the Father sovereign? So is Jesus. Is He omnipresent? So is Jesus. All of God’s fullness dwells in Him!
Jesus Himself taught that He was God. To know Him is to know God. He said, “If you knew me, you would know my Father also” (John 8:19), and again, “If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well.” (John 14:7 - NIV). To believe Him was to believe God, “When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me” (John 12:44-NIV). He said, “Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him” (John 5:23). He made claims that only God could make, “I am the bread of life.” “I am the light of the world.” “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.” “I am the good shepherd.” “I am the resurrection and the life.” “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Jesus infuriated the religious leaders when he claimed, “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). This was a plain assertion of eternal preexistence, and His use of the term “I am” is a clear claim of deity.
Jesus obviously presented Himself as the Savior of the world, claiming to be God. Is He? If He is, He is much more than a man. If not, He is mistaken or even worse, an intentional deceiver. C. S. Lewis carefully studied the possibilities concerning Christ and concluded,
You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him for a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. (C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, (New York: Macmillan, 1958), 55—56).
Much of the world believed in multiple gods. It was a polytheistic society, but Jesus claimed to be God in the midst of a society and a people who believed strictly in one God. He claimed that He came to do something about our problem with sin. He came to die for our sin, bear its punishment, and save all who trust in Him. Jesus is who He says He is. He is God and we should follow Him.
III. WHY GOD BECAME MAN
A child was born and a Son was given to show that God has not abandoned us in our sin. He loves us and values us even in our fallen state. The given name of the promised Messiah looks forward to the atonement. Mary, and later Joseph were told, “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). This is the reason God became man.
Only God is qualified to bring salvation. But a human was also required because humans wronged God and must make the wrong right. Only One who is both God and human can bring us to salvation.
We need God to be saved. And God must become a man to provide such help. Some object that if Jesus was God as well as man that His suffering and death cannot be meaningful, supposing it was easy for him. C. S. Lewis debunks such thinking by describing the rescue of one who is drowning: “If I am drowning in a rapid river, a man who still has one foot on the bank may give me a hand which saves my life. Ought I to shout back (between my gasps) “No, it’s not fair! You have an advantage! You’re keeping one foot on the bank”? That advantage — call it “unfair” if you like — is the only reason why he can be of any use to me (Lewis, 60—61).
A child is born — a son is given! Christmas in itself is not good news. Not even the good life of Christ, Himself, is the gospel. The good news is that sin has been dealt with; that Jesus became our representative and suffered its penalty for us. The resurrection is a proof that He was successful in atoning for us. He made us “at-one” with God. All who believe in the Incarnate Christ foretold by Isaiah may have eternal life and the glory of God’s Christmas Gift.
A wealthy man and his son loved to collect rare works of art. They had everything in their collection, from Picasso to Raphael. They would often sit together admiring the great art. One day the son died and the father was so grieved that in just a few months he died also.
An auction of his paintings was scheduled and many influential people gathered, hoping to purchase one of the great masters for their collections.
The auction opened with a painting of the rich man’s son. The auctioneer pounded his gavel. "We will start the bidding with this picture of the son. Who will bid for this picture?" There was total silence. A voice in the crowd shouted, "We want to see the famous paintings. Skip this one."
But the auctioneer persisted. "Will someone bid for this painting? Who will start the bidding? $100, $200? The son! The son! Who’ll take the "SON?"
Finally, a voice from the back of the room, the family’s longtime gardener, "I’ll give $10 for the painting."
"We have $10, who will bid $20?"
The crowd was angry. They didn’t want the picture of the son. They wanted the more famous pieces for their collections. The auctioneer pounded the gavel. "Going once, twice, SOLD for $10."
A man from the second row shouted, "Now let’s get on with the collection!"
The auctioneer laid down his gavel. "I’m sorry, the auction is over. When I was called to conduct this auction, I was told of a secret stipulation in the will. I was not allowed to reveal that stipulation until now. Only the painting of the son would be auctioned. Whoever bought that painting would inherit the entire estate, including the paintings. The man who took the son gets everything!"
So it is with salvation. Many will pass over the gift of the Christ child because something else looks more appealing, but in the end, only those who take the Son get everything.
Delivered at Madison Baptist Church—12/7/08
Copyright © 2008 by Dan E. Jackson
