“Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’ All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel’
(which means, God with us).” [1]
Christmas is right around the corner—literally! Tomorrow is Christmas Day. At the centre of the day is the birth of Christ the Lord—or at least, that should be the case. Certainly, we would hope it to be true in the homes of those who profess the Son of God as Master over life. Even those who don’t go to church have some familiarity with the story of the birth of Jesus the Messiah—the star over Bethlehem, the manger located in the caves overlooking the little village, and especially the child born to a virgin mother. And almost everyone has heard, whether they believe it or not, how that child would grow to manhood to become the Redeemer and the Saviour of humanity.
However, what often isn't talked about are the circumstances that led up to Christ's birth on a cosmic scale. We know He was born for the sole purpose of dying for our sins and bring us back to God, but why did this all have to happen?
It started with an argument.
God created the heavens and the earth. He filled the earth with a stunning variety of creatures according to their kind. Without doubt the angels marvelled at all the Lord had created—vistas never before seen, and so many kinds of animals, and birds, and fishes that they had never seen since God created the angels. Among these angels was one named Lucifer, the most exalted of all the angels. He was known as “the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty” [see EZEKIEL 28:12]. This beautiful and wise angel whom God created walked through Eden while covered in precious stones, displaying God’s beautiful work. His responsibility was to be the guardian over all that God had created.
Lucifer was startled when God created one last being, a lowly creature formed out of the dust of the earth. God called this creature He had made, “man.” Here is what must have been startling to Lucifer: God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” [GENESIS 1:26a].
The Lord GOD then gave these weak, finite creatures dominion over all that He had created. These feeble creatures would become heirs to God’s Kingdom! The Lord GOD had determined that these feeble, weak lately created beings would even judge the angels [see 1 CORINTHIANS 6:3]; they would bear the image of God Himself [see ROMANS 8:29]!
Lucifer, witnessing all that God was doing in giving these puny creatures such authority over the holy angels, was overwhelmed by pride. How could these pitiful creatures rule over him—God’s majestic masterpiece! Lucifer determined that he would prove God wrong; Lucifer was determined to demonstrate how misplaced God’s will was in assigning these lately created beings such authority.
Lucifer was not an idiot, despite this puerile attempt to demonstrate that the Lord God was wrong being an idiotic thing to attempt, much less thinking one could prove God to be in error. In the Bible, Lucifer is presented as an incredibly intelligent creature, an angel who was created as wise beyond comprehension, an angel possessing perfect knowledge of cosmic law.
Lucifer, driven by pride of his beauty and by pride in his position, sinned against God. Lucifer rebelled, and paid the price by being cast out of Heaven. God exposed that rebellion, saying,
“Your heart was proud because of your beauty;
you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor.”
[EZEKIEL 28:17a]
The disciples, returning to Jesus after being sent them out on their initial mission were ecstatic to realise they had authority over demonic powers. The Master brought them back to earth when He said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” [LUKE 10:18-20].
You see, Lucifer knew that God’s justice was perfect, but Lucifer thought that he could have humanity erased from its pedestal if he could prove these creatures were imperfect. He would prove man’s imperfection by causing him to break God's established rules! If Lucifer could do that, God would be forced to destroy humanity, and the experiment would be done. Lucifer would again be settled at the apex of creation!
More importantly still, if he could prove God wrong, it would mean Lucifer was wiser than God, and if he’s better than God ... why shouldn't he be seated on the throne?
Lucifer's opening move was to use God's creation against him. In Eden, at the centre of the garden, there was a tree known as the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.” God had expressly ordered Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of that tree.
All Lucifer had to do was to get one of these despised creatures to eat from that tree, and he would have gained what he sought. In His justice, God would destroy mankind! Sure enough, Lucifer, the would-be guardian, led the weak creatures astray, and they ate some of the fruit. He had done it! One little bite had given Lucifer a victory that would reshape the universe, and it was a victory witnessed by all the heavenly host. Now, God would be forced to act, and angels, with Lucifer at the top, would rule.
When God at last confronted Adam, you can only imagine Lucifer’s shock when God created something never seen before—MERCY! The revelation of mercy, heretofore neither seen nor required, would change everything. God didn’t do as Lucifer expected! God didn’t destroy the creation He had brought into existence! God didn’t kill the rebels. Instead, God clothed them, sending them out of Eden. The sinful couple were held accountable for their sin by being forced to contend with the Earth instead of living in harmony with it. Moreover, God instituted the practise of sacrificing animals as a response to the sin they had committed. The invention of mercy was proof that God does indeed love us.
But pride was driving Lucifer. And pride has been the downfall of all that God created since man was placed on this earth. The Lord God pulled Lucifer up short, punishing him for his arrogance that had prompted him to dare insert himself between man and God, thus ruining God’s beautiful creation. Lucifer was stripped of his title and the favoured position he had once occupied. Still, the evil that Lucifer had done induced other angels to see humanity as did Lucifer. One third of the angels joined Lucifer in rebellion because of their anger that these puny creatures could one day rule over them!
These rebelling angels joined Lucifer (hereafter identified as Satan, the accuser) in his quest to prove God wrong. Together, Satan and these raging angels devised a plan that they assured themselves would so ruin humanity that God would have no choice but destroy them. We must admit that these disobedient angels were very good at fomenting dissent and inciting mankind; they did what was necessary to ensure that humanity brought out the worst in itself over the following generations. Eventually, people became so godless, so corrupt in all their lives that God was forced to act. God saw what man had become, and we read, “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart” [GENESIS 6:5-6].
Nothing was left to the LORD but to destroy the world He had made, killing everyone except for one family. Thus, we read in the divine account, “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD” [GENESIS 6:8]. Satan’s plan to destroy humanity had hit a snag. Noah, his wife, his three sons and their wives, survived the flood in an ark that also saved the animals God commanded them to bring onto the ark with them. But the world was flooded, killing all who were outside of the ark.
Generations passed, and mankind failed again to embrace the righteousness of God. We are privy to Satan who attempted to debate the LORD over the divine work in one man’s life. Satan’s argument hinged on the idea that all it would take was misfortune and pain to make a righteous person turn from serving God. Job disproved Satan’s slander by refusing to curse God despite the loss of every physical comfort and even the loss of all companionship.
And to this day, Satan tries to turn the righteous from serving God through trials, through deprivation, through hardship, through pain. But the Spirit of God works in the life of God’s child to encourage even when hope seems to be gone and challenges seem insurmountable.
Israel needed God’s mercy; it was impossible to keep the commandments God had given. In the same way, you and I can never keep the commands of God perfectly. At best, we approach keeping God’s commands in a scattershot manner. Our emotions and the pressure of the moment are more likely to dictate our behaviour at any given moment. We need divine intervention if we will please God. We need One Who is Himself very God to deliver us if we ever hope to please God.
And the One whom God would send was His Anointed One, His Messiah. And God’s Messiah would provide the sacrifice that would take away the sin of all mankind. The Law given through Moses served to expose humanity’s need for salvation. All that was lacking was God’s intervention to provide what man could never do on his own—save himself!
Then, one day it happened. Few expected it, though all recognised they were desperate for it. A star shone brightly in the sky over the small, out-of-the-way village of Bethlehem. Satan could only react to what he recognised was God’s intervention for His desecrated creation. Satan utilised King Herod’s paranoia and pride to send soldiers out into the land with the order that they were to slaughter every male child below the age of two. However, an angel appeared to Joseph, telling him to flee to Egypt, a place outside Herod’s jurisdiction. There, the baby God had sent would be safe from Satan’s rage.
Satan had unwittingly fulfilled two of God's prophecies. That of Rachel (the wife of Israel) weeping for her children in Ramah (a town in ancient Israel near Bethlehem), and the other, that God would call His Son “out of Egypt.” Even when he acted, Satan misjudged his power, just as he had misjudged God’s mercy and grace.
Satan saw the prophecies fulfilled even as he watched, and he realised he was the reason these prophecies were brought to pass. Instead of backing down, as any reasonable creature would have done, the wicked one would take matters into his own hand. He knew God had arrived as a man. But if there’s one thing Satan is good at, it is tempting humans and ushering them into guilt. All he needed to do was cause God to fail in His human form, and Satan would finally have his victory; he would win the argument and reclaim his authority in Heaven.
At this point, you realise that this epic struggle is over you, over your destiny, and over your rightful inheritance—but that’s another story. The birth of Christ is an incredible moment in history, not just because it’s the arrival of our Saviour on Earth, but because His birth is proof of God’s long, complicated, and heartbreaking fight for us. This is a fight that has been ongoing since the beginning of time. If you look at just how much God has had to struggle on our behalf, how many events He had to put in order, and how much pain He had to endure, it shines a brilliant light on the Words of God—“God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” [JOHN 3:16].
The story of Christmas is one essential chapter in the ongoing tale of an epic, extended, and brutal cosmic war conducted throughout space and time, This beloved story of Christmas is also the account of how our loving Father in Heaven has fought tooth and nail against a highly skilled adversary to protect and save His children, and the creation He made through His Word, from what was certain destruction. This is the story of God’s salvation made real for you and for me. Amen.
[1] Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2016. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
