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 any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

For to which of the angels did God ever say,

"You are my Son, today I have begotten you"? Or again, "I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son"?

And again, when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says,

"Let all God's angels worship him."

Of the angels he says,

"He makes his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fire."

But of the Son he says,

"Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions."

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.

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to her. And he came to her and said, "Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!" But Mary was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end."


And Mary said to the angel, "How will this be, since I am a virgin?"

And the angel answered her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy--the Son of God. … For nothing will be impossible with God." And Mary said, "Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word."

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).

When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son.

A decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. And all went to be registered, each to his own town. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were filled with fear. And the angel said to them, "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!"

When the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has made known to us." And they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. And all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

And at the end of eight days, when [the child] was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, "Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him."

(they said this because the prophet Balaam saw that it pleased the LORD to bless Israel, and he did not go, as at other times, to look for omens, but set his face toward the wilderness. And Balaam lifted up his eyes and saw Israel camping tribe by tribe. And the Spirit of God came upon him, and he took up his discourse and said,

I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near: a star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel;")

After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh.

Labels: christmas, incarnation, Scritpure

One of the most wretched experiences that God can grant a man is to ordain that he should go through seminary single. I tell you the truth, there is hardly a more miserable man on the earth than a single seminary student. By the grace of God, they are as blissfully unaware of their miserable condition, but every sane person around them know, and can smell it a mile away. I'm afraid young seminarians reek of desperation and boredom like boys reek of cologne at the eighth grade dance. The only thing that smells worse is an internet troll.

I know a lot of guys, and I have some friends in seminary right now who are single -- so I know of what I speak. This is not meant to be a total slam against seminary guys and girls who are studying to serve in the ministry. I love these people. I pray for them. I was one of them, and the only reason I know of the trial they are in is because, by God's grace, I survived it, was given a wife, a pastorate, and two children by an all-loving God who should have killed me in seminary.

The poor, young, seminary student is often under the erroneous impression, like the internet troll, that what he really needs is more knowledge and a position from which to dispense it. Mixed up in this longing to tell people all the mysteries of God is the longing, wishing, and hoping that God will finally grant him a wife. On a seminary campus, the ration of guys to girls seems to be about 42:1. This means that any hapless, single, relatively attractive young lady on that campus is being circled by (self-ignorant) predatory seminarians from the time she leaves one class until the time she sits through another. Some of the guys are oblivious to the fact that they are doing this. Some are embarrassed by the awareness that they are but feel they have little choice. Some call their pastors and tell them that they believe God wants them to be single forever because the humiliation of becoming one of those circling sharks is too great to bear.


This is why these guys wind up excommunicating one another over where one lands on the question of whether Jesus was able not to sin or not able to sin. As if that answer is going to revolutionize the evangelical church and explains why evangelicals are in such a state of disrepair. They have too much knowledge, too much testosterone, and no outlet for any of it. God bless their hearts.

All of this is by design. God will let his man burn for awhile with the passions of his flesh. He will let his man cry out in despair, become despondent, and wonder whether or not anybody cares, if God will ever grant him a wife, and whether or not he will ever be called to a church. These questions will drive him to near madness, like some kind of crazed bull who gets a whiff of a herd of cows but finds himself on the other side of a 8 foot fence.

For what reason does God do these things, and a million more, to his own servants? The reason is simple: until a man feels the wicked, unruly fire in his own flesh he can never have sympathy for another man caught in the throes of his own. Young men, full of potential, talent, and love for God are put through the fire that they might learn to be gentle with God's precious flock. God isn't seeking zealous men who love to fuss and beat others about the head and shoulders for their nincompoopery. We have plenty of those guys already. He is looking for a shepherd who is patient with the flock, who is able to bear their sorrows, and who knows that deliverance is at hand for all the trouble that a bleating sheep will encounter.  I truly hope that you serve with a church full of men and women that know exactly what I am talking about.

But above all, God is looking to make leaders who understand why He named His beloved son Jesus. God named Him Jesus "because he saveth his people from their sins." Pastors need to know that. Missionaries need to know that. Pastor's wives need to know that.

You need to know that.

Labels: incarnation, Jesus, mediator, savior

When we speak of the Christ as being eternally the Son of God we are not saying God created the Son or that the Son was born in some way; what we are saying is that God who ordains commands God who obeys through the power of God who performs. To convey that notion to creation, God has described God who ordains as "God the Father", and God who obeys as "God the Son" and God who performs as "God the Holy Spirit". Though the language is imperfect, I think we have enough to understand that Christ was eternally God "the Son", equal with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, having no beginning, and no end.

The scriptures tell us, in perhaps the greatest recorded understatement ever written, that the Son of God emptied Himself, allowing Himself to be "made" in the likeness of man (cf. Philippians 2). Don't get confused by the language there either, the "likeness of man" does not imply that He looked like a man but wasn't - it means He was made, in every way, a man. In the moment that Mary conceived, the Son of God entered into creation as a living man with a living soul.

The Son of God had become the incarnate Christ. In doing so He did not stop being the Son of God. He became the second Adam: a man born into this sinful world who was free from Adam's curse. It follows therefore that all that was true of Adam before the fall would have been true of Christ in the incarnation, and this not because of the Christ's divinity, but because of His humanity; for God originally created man to be in fellowship with Him. So the Christ grew up in the presence of God, and aware of God, not because He was God the Son, but because He was a man who was not under Adam's curse.

But Jesus was not only a man, He was also God the Son. He had possessed as God (in eternity) an unquenchable life - and it was this same unquenchable life that those who were joined to Christ were baptized into when they were born again (i.e. from above). This creation was cursed and will be destroyed, but God is going to make a new heavens and a new earth after these are no more. To get from one to the other we need a boat capable of sailing between the two creations - an ark if you will; an ark made of materials that transcend this creation, lest it be undone, along with those in it, when this creation is likewise undone.

Christ, being the eternal Son of God, possessed the only life that capable of transcending the destruction of this present creation. His death satisfied God's wrath for our sin, but without His life - a life that transcends this creation, He could bring no one into the new creation. It was therefore necessary for the Christ to be both the Son of God and a man, for only in this way could He "mediate" our salvation.

Labels: born this way, Christ, God and Man, incarnation, Jesus, mediator