Matthew 1: 19
The Incarnation of the Son of God

I have read an abnormally long Scripture reading from three places.  But the occasion is an exceptional occasion.  My topic is about the incarnation -- the Second Person of the Godhead robing himself in humanity, which is the greatest miracle that has ever come to pass.  If it is really believed, and not merely passed off as a parable or a meaningful hyperbolic legend, it dwarfs all the miracles that prompt unbelief in those who are outside of the bounds of the Christian Faith.  The historic Christian faith takes it as a literal and historical event and as an essential truth.  Without it, Christianity would be nothing more than just another religion with no claim to a means of salvation.

I. FIRST, THIS MORNING, LET ME SPEAK ABOUT THE NATURE OF THE INCARNATION.

1. It is frequently misunderstood.  Sometimes you will hear people say that "Jesus made the worlds," or will address the Lord in such a way that suggests that he did so.  This is, in a sense, true, as we will see, but it tends to confuse the issue by confusing his human nature with his divine nature.

2. On the other hand you will sometimes hear someone describe Jesus as one who used to be God, as if the Lord was an ex-god.  This also is a misunderstanding of the theology.

3. Yet another view that is in error is that the incarnation merely means that God worked mightily in Jesus of Nazareth and indwelt him as no other person has ever been indwelt.  The view is called "adoptionism," and is essentially the view of modern liberalism and historic Unitarianism.  You see this illustrated when people make a sequence out of Jesus, Albert Schweitzer, Martin Luther King, Ghandi and Mother Teressa as if they were in the same succession, as being the same kind of people.  It is certainly not the Bible view or the historic view of the church!

4. Still others have implied that God ceased to be God at the incarnation but transferred into man and gave divinity to mankind -- a kind of anthropological idolatry we might call it.  Someone of the "Death of God Movement" said that God became incarnate in Jesus and was crucified and died, and so, that God ceased to exist.

All of these are either incorrect or incorrect and extremely heretical in their view of the incarnation.  Not everybody who uses the terms has the Biblical doctrine, to be sure.

1. The rational and internally consistent view that this is, is dependent upon the understanding of the Trinity, and is very related to the insistence that there are three Persons in the one Godhead.  The wonderful Westminster Shorter Catechism, in answer to the question: "Are there more Gods than one?" says: "There is but one only, the living and true God."  And then it questions "How many persons are there in the Godhead?"  And the beautiful answer to that questions is "There are three Persons in the Godhead: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  And these three are one God; the same in substance, equal in power and glory." 

This threeness in oneness and oneness in threeness is very important if we are to understand God.  The truth is in agreement with the almost universal understanding among people who believe the Bible, but the Shoreter Catechism's statement is a particularly wonderful definition that helps us define it more particularly.

2. We believe that there was a true incarnation of the Second Person in the womb of the virgin Mary, the betrothed wife-to-be of Joseph the carpenter of Nazareth.  In a way that we do not fully understand, that child was born with two natures, united harmoniously, unconfused and totally distinct in that one person.  Since there were two natures in Christ, it is usually agreed in orthodox theology, that what can be said about either nature, may be said of the whole person of the Lord Jesus Christ -- just as he himself once said: "Before Abraham was, I am."  But we understand that he was speaking of his divine nature and not about his human nature when he said this.  It is wise not to confuse the two by speaking of Jesus (his human name) creating the universe, for example, but using the Messianic title, "the Lord Jesus Christ" in such a case, or his title as God, the "Second Person of the Godhead."

As John said in his Gospel: "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we beheld his glory, glory as of the only unique One of the Father." (John 1: 16)

III. THE PURPOSE OF THE INCARNATION IS IMPORTANT. IT IS NOT JUST A CAPRICIOUS MIRACLE (like some of the supposed "miracles" of the middle ages).  BUT REALLY IS THE CENTRAL EVENT IN HUMAN HISTORY.

1. It is often thought that the purpose of the incarnation was God visiting man in order to show what God was like.  That certainly was a minor purpose. The Gospel of John says: "No one has ever seen God; the only unique Son who is the bosom of the Father, he has made him known."(John 1: 18)  However, the purpose was much larger and essential than just being a revelation of the Father so that men might know what God is like.

2. The overriding purpose of the incarnation had to do with our reconciliation with God, not just our understanding of God.  It was to bring into existence a divine -- human person, who was perfectly man and perfectly God so that he might be the only person in history not imputed with Adam's sin.  As the Westminster Shorter Catechim says in answer to question 22: "the Son of God became man by taking unto himself a true body and reasonable soul, being conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, and born of her without (imputed) sin."

Therefore this person, who was born as the only person in history not imputed with Adam's sin, was perfectly righteous and able to be the bearer -- the substitute for -- other persons' sins.  And since he was God and of infinite value, he could die, bearing the sins of billions of people who would ever call upon him, and, he being infinite in his Divine Person, could provide an infinite righteousness for that huge number of people, whatever it might turn out to be.

3. Thus the Christmas event -- the birth of the Lord -- was the first step, of which, the second step was his perfect life and the third step, his atoning death and resurrection -- was all a part of the basis of our salvation and nor merely a nice little story with sheep and cows grazing while a baby sleeps in the manger.  It was a first step in the greatest drama in history -- of him who is our righteousness before God the Father, in God's role as the judge of all mankind.  As Romans 8 says of him who also "bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die unto sin and live unto righteousness." "By who's wounds (we) are healed" as I Peter says. (I Peter 2: 24)  The incarnation was the first step -- the original miracle in a life filled with miracles that have provided our individual salvation.

Christmas is not just a cute story about a baby being born in unusual circumstances, but it is about the ultimate truth of God saving his people.  Christams and Good Friday and Easter are al one story.  (The only difference is that Good Friday speaks only of his bearing our sins, while Christmas makes possible both aspects of our salvation -- the bearing of our sins and the providing of his personal righteousness that is imputed to us.  As John says in what amounts to his Christmas story: "The true light -- was coming into the world -- and even though world was made by him, yet the world knew him not.  He came unto his own and his own people received him not.  But to all who did receive him, he gave the power to become the children of God." (John 1: 11-12) 

IV. HOW SHOULD THIS EFFECT US?

1. First of all, if this is true -- which every Christian will believe on the authority of God's Word -- the individual Christian will do everything possible to bend the holiday to the glory of God.  We live in a secular culture that will think that almost everything I have said is medieval nonsense.  They do not have believing hearts -- unless "belief" means having a fuzzy feeling about things-unseen and a conviction about the symbolic meaning of legends.  It is no wonder that a secular culture has secularized the supposed birthday of our Lord and has really marginalized him who is the central person in history as he is the central person in God's salvation.

It is perhaps too much to ask that Christians abandon Christmas as a lost cause.  But would it be too much to suggest that they might radically adjust their own personal observance and the observance of their family so that it reflects their belief in the incarnation?  I know that it has become a cliché to say "put Chrsit back into Christmas" by so many of the people using it to mean to sentimentalize its commercialism and secularism.  But this is not something simplistic like that cliché. Would you take it upon yourself to do -- say -- just six significant things this year that would bring it back toward the place where it might glorify the Lord?

2. And, secondly, would you take time several times in the next eight days to ponder the mystery of the incarnation and its relationship to your eternal salvation, and then to rejoice in it's eternal blessedness, as far as you are concerned?

Joy to the Word, the Lord has come
Let earth receive her king;
Let every heart prepare him room
And heaven and nature sing!
"He came unto his own things and his own people receive him not;
But to as many as did receive him, he gave the power to become the children of God." John 1: 12