Introduction
Christmas is a wonderful day.
The secular culture celebrates Christmas as a time to party and share gifts.
Christians, however, celebrate Christmas because it is Jesus’ birthday.
Advent is the season immediately before Christmas Day. In the church calendar, it begins four Sundays before Christmas Day, which happens to be today.
Advent is a season of preparation for the birth of Jesus.
As we prepare to celebrate Jesus’ birthday, I realize that many people have questions about the birth of Jesus.
So, this coming Advent Season, Pastor Scott and I would like to preach a series of sermons called “Questions About the Birth of Jesus.”
There are, of course, many questions related to the birth of Jesus. We could spend an entire year answering questions about the birth of Jesus.
However, this Advent Season, we will tackle just five questions about the birth of Jesus.
First, why did God become man? One of the most staggering truths is that God took on human flesh in the person of Jesus. Jesus was fully God and fully man—two natures in one person. We will explore why God needed to take on human nature.
Second, why did Jesus come when he did? Jesus was born a little over two millennia ago. What was so significant about the timing of Jesus’ birth? Why did he not come a century earlier? Or a millennium later than he did?
Third, why did Jesus come? He mentioned this on several occasions. We shall explore what he said about his reason for coming to Earth.
Fourth, why must Jesus come again? The Bible teaches that Jesus will return to Earth, and Jesus confirmed that truth. We shall examine why.
Finally, why do I need to believe in Jesus? Jesus was a historical figure, no doubt about it. However, his life was significantly different from any other historical figure. We shall explore what makes Jesus’ life different and why belief in him makes an eternal difference in our lives. Lord willing, we shall answer this question on Christmas Eve.
Well, let’s begin. The question for today’s message is, “Why Did God Become Man?”
With that question in mind, let me read from God’s word to set a foundation for us to answer the question.
Scripture
Let’s read John 1:1, 14:
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
14 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.
Lesson
In answer to the question, “Why did God become man?” we learn that God became man to solve a problem only he could solve.
Let’s use the following outline:
1. The Problem
2. The Solution
I. The Problem
First, let’s look at the problem.
Genesis 1:1 tells us, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
Verse 2 tells us that “the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep.”
Then, over six days, God created light and darkness, land and sea, vegetation and fruits, sun, moon, stars, fish and birds, animals and livestock.
Then we read in Genesis 1:26-27:
26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
Furthermore, God blessed them and gave them dominion over all he had created.
We read in Genesis 2:15-17:
15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Adam and Eve lived in this wonderful garden.
They gave names to the animals and birds and flowers and bushes.
They could do anything they wanted with only one prohibition: they could not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
They did not struggle with sickness, for there was none.
They did not have to deal with sin, for there was none.
They did not have to deal with an irritable spouse, for that never happened.
Everything was bliss—pure and absolute bliss.
Until one day when the serpent tempted Adam to disobey God.
Adam listened to his wife, Eve, and ate from the forbidden fruit.
Immediately, Adam and Eve knew that something was wrong.
They looked at each other and saw that they were both naked.
So, they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
Then, “they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.” (Genesis 3:8).
Of course, they could not hide from God. He knew where they were.
But God wanted them to know that what they had done was wrong.
As a result of Adam’s sin, God “drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life” (Genesis 3:24).
Adam fell into sin.
Worse, he plunged all of humanity into sin as well.
Every child of Adam is born in sin.
Every child of Adam commits sins.
Adam cut men and women off from having a personal relationship with God.
Question 17 of The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, “Into what estate did the fall bring mankind?”
The answer is:
The fall brought mankind into an estate of sin and misery.
Sin and misery.
Not only sin but misery as well.
Question 19 of The Westminster Shorter Catechism asks, “What is the misery of that estate whereinto man fell?”
The answer is:
All mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all the miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell for ever.
Sin and misery.
From the time that God banished Adam from the garden of Eden, men and women throughout history have had to deal with sin and misery.
You know that, don’t you?
You feel that. You experience sin and misery in your life.
People of all ages would be in abject despair were it not for the fact that God himself set about to provide a solution to the problem of sin and misery in fallen humanity.
II. The Solution
Second, let’s examine the solution.
About a millennium after Jesus's death, Anselm (c. 1033—1109) became the Archbishop of Canterbury.
He had come to faith in Jesus as a young man after living a very undisciplined life.
As the Archbishop of Canterbury, he demonstrated spiritual devotion and intellectual ability.
He wrote several theological books.
His most famous book, however, was titled Cur Deus Homo (literally “Why God Man?” or more colloquially “Why Did God Become Man?”).
In his book, Anselm answered that God became man because only one who was God and man could solve our problem.
When Adam sinned by breaking God’s command, he incurred a debt against God’s law.
The punishment for breaking God’s law is hell for all eternity.
Later, of course, God gave humanity the Ten Commandments.
God’s moral law is summarized in those Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:1-17and Deuteronomy 5:6-21.
Breaking only one law one time will send a person to hell for all eternity.
So, for millennia, people have tried to appease God’s wrath by doing good works to please him.
But, as Isaiah said in Isaiah 64:6, “…all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment” to God.
There is nothing that any one of us can do to please God.
There is nothing that any one of us can do to satisfy the righteous wrath of God.
We can do nothing to put ourselves in a right relationship with God.
And this is where we see the amazing grace of God.
God decided, in his infinite wisdom, to solve a problem only he could solve.
The Apostle John recognized the solution and wrote about it in his Gospel.
In the opening words of his Gospel, he said, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:14).
John started by saying that “the Word was God.”
People reading his Gospel would have asked, “So who is the Word? Who is the Word that was God?”
John eventually made clear who that was in John 1:14, “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.”
The Word is none other than Jesus!
So, Jesus was fully God and fully man.
But the question still stands: “Why did God become man?”
Anselm gave two answers to that question.
First, said Anselm, God became man because salvation had to be achieved by God, for no one else could achieve it.
Adam got all of us into trouble because of his sin.
Since the time of Adam, every person born of Adam has only added sin upon sin. Every person breaks the law of God in thought, word, and deed many times each day.
Every person born of Adam is a rebel against God’s just law.
Worse, our wills are bound to our sinful inclinations that we only want to do what pleases ourselves and not what pleases God.
Every one of us is in a terrible predicament.
We have a problem that we are utterly incapable of solving by ourselves.
Only God, who has the will and the power to save us, can do so.
Only one who was God could have borne up under the weight of the Father’s wrath upon sin.
Only one who was God could satisfy the infinite justice of God, who was offended by all our sins.
So God sent the Second Person of the Godhead, Jesus, to achieve salvation for sinners.
Second, said Anselm, God became man because man had to achieve salvation. This appears to contradict the first answer, but it does not.
Adam, as a man, sinned against God.
All of Adam’s progeny sinned against God.
It needed to be a man who obeyed God’s righteous law.
So, Jesus became a man. He became the Second Adam.
He fully obeyed God’s law.
Not once in his entire life did Jesus think a sinful thought.
Not once in his entire life did Jesus speak a sinful word.
Not once in his entire life did Jesus commit a sinful deed.
Jesus fully obeyed God’s law.
Moreover, as a man, Jesus suffered the penalty for our sins.
As a man, he was able to be our high priest and reconcile us to God.
James Montgomery Boice notes that we must remember three points to understand what Anselm was saying.
First, it is God who initiates and carries out the action.
God is not distant and disinterested.
God is a God of love, and because of his love for us, he provided an incredible solution to the problem of sin.
God sent his Son Jesus to satisfy his justice.
Because Jesus died on the cross and paid the penalty for sin, God was both just (in that he did not overlook sin but exacted punishment for it) and also the justifier (in that he provided the solution for our sin).
Second, people did not appease the wrath of a righteously angry God.
None of us could ever do so in a million years.
People do not appease God.
No, it is God placating his wrath by the suffering of his Son Jesus.
Why did God do so?
God did so because of his infinite love for the elect.
Third, Jesus was the substitutionary sacrifice as the Second Adam.
Jesus’ death on the cross was more than one innocent person taking the place of a guilty person.
Jesus died on the cross as the representative of the elect.
Adam was the representative of all people when he sinned and plunged us into sin and misery.
Similarly, Jesus was the Second Adam who paid the penalty of sin for all the elect.
Jesus was the representative of all the elect when he died on the cross and satisfied the justice of God.
Jesus was the representative of all the elect when he died and achieved salvation for us.
That is good news.
Conclusion
God became a man to solve a problem that only he could solve.
I want to note two implications that flow from this truth.
First, Jesus’ death and not Jesus’ birth is the central point of the gospel.
The biggest holiday in Western culture is Christmas.
Christmas is a time to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
Our culture acknowledges Jesus’ birth, but they downplay its significance.
Our culture says it is a time for peace and goodwill to one another.
While that is true, the entire point of Jesus’ birth was so that he could eventually die and pay the penalty for our sins.
In his book titled Knowing God, J. I. Packer wrote:
“The crucial significance of the cradle at Bethlehem lies in its place in the sequence of steps down that led the Son of God to the cross of Calvary, and we do not understand it till we see it in this context” (J. I. Packer, Knowing God, p. 51).
If we focus only on the birth of Jesus, we are guilty of mere sentimentality.
We need to keep in mind that Jesus was born to die. He died to reconcile sinners like us with his holy Heavenly Father.
Second, there is no gospel without the death of Jesus on the cross.
Jesus’ birth by itself is not the gospel.
Jesus’ life by itself is not the gospel.
Jesus’ resurrection, vital as it is, is not the gospel.
The gospel includes all these facets, but its primary focus is on Jesus's death on Calvary.
James Montgomery Boice has rightly written the following words:
Rather, the good news is that sin has been dealt with (of which the resurrection is a proof); that Jesus has suffered its penalty for us as our representative, so that we might never have to suffer it; and that therefore all who believe in him can look forward to heaven” (James Montgomery Boice, Foundations of the Christian Faith: A Comprehensive & Readable Theology [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1986], 292).
Let me close with this question: Who is Jesus to you?
You think of Jesus as merely a man.
Perhaps a great man. Even the best man who ever lived.
You may think Jesus is a beautiful example of love, sacrifice, and goodness. But he is no more than that to you.
Or, you think of Jesus as some god.
He is more than a man. He is one of many gods.
Or, you think of Jesus as fully God and fully man in one person.
You understand that Jesus had two natures in one person.
You believe that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary and that he lived a sinless life, then died a cruel death on a Roman cross.
He died on that cross to pay the penalty for all your sins.
On the third day, God raised him to life, a sign that he had accepted Jesus’ payment for your sins.
Jesus is now seated at the right of God and constantly praying for you.
If you believe this about Jesus, you can be assured that you will be with him in heaven.
If you do not believe this about Jesus, let me warn you that not believing this will send you to hell for all eternity.
So, I urge you to trust in Jesus for the gift of eternal life. Amen.
