In this holiday season—or, well, any season!—there seems to be such confusion about why Jesus came. Jesus did not come to put on a show or to be a fix-it man for life’s problems. He came to call us to faith and repentance, to believe in him, and have eternal life.
So, today, some scattered-brain-but-true reminders about what the coming of Jesus means. May it encourage your to thank our God all the more for loving us so!
#1 - Any so-called church that has denied Christ's incarnation has lessened love, slandered God, hurt themselves and attempted to deceive you.
This is a non-negotiable. The incarnation of Jesus was visible historical proof that God keeps his promises spoken in the Old Testament. No incarnation = no salvation, false God, etc.
#2 - The miracle of the incarnation is that God did not cease to be what he was in becoming who we are.
The primary miracle of Christianity isn't found in any of the miracles of Jesus but in the miracle of Jesus Christ himself—God incarnate. The incarnate Son of God is not merely a bearer of the light, but He is the light itself. He is not one revelation among many others, but He is the greatest revelation of God that the world will ever know (Isaiah 42:6-7).
#3 – The incarnation of Christ got us out of our incarceration to sin.
Jesus came to save only one kind of person: Sinners.
Mankind must answer for the sin of man—but no man is sinless enough to do it. So, you see the problem the Incarnation solves.
So great is the depth of our spiritual need that it took the miracle of the incarnation and the life and once-for-all death of God's Son to meet that need.
The incarnation of Jesus arrests us with both the extent of God’s amazing grace and gravity of our sin. If it took the literal coming of God down to us in human flesh, the cross & the bodily resurrection to defeat sin, then this isn’t something we should mess with.
#4 - In order to understand the incarnation of God, we must first understand the wrath of God, only then can we truly understand the love of God.
Some teach the idea that it was "sin" that received the wrath of God at the cross and not Jesus is a distinction without a difference. Sin is not simply some dark and ethereal force—a yin to God's yang. It is embodied, whether by devils or people.
Thus, Christ came in "the likeness of sinful flesh" and condemned sin "in the flesh" (Rom. 8:3). And, what’s more, Christ himself "became the curse" for us (Gal. 3:13). Or, said another way, Christ, in effect, became sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). Jesus came not just to die, but to live the righteous life that we would not be able to live. He came as our willing substitute.
It is not simply sin that stands condemned, but *sinners.*
It is not simply sin that deserves God's wrath, but *sinners* (John 3:36).
Which is what makes Christ's substitution doubly glorious. He didn't simply conquer the forces of evil and sin (though he did!). He also received the wrath owed to sinners. He became sin for us that we might be called the righteousness of God. "In our place condemned he stood."
Praise his name!
#5 - What a privilege we have to herald the good news of the incarnation!
No need to be cute or clever with elaborate illustrations about candy canes, Rudolph as a type of Christ or snowstorms. The Word made flesh and Immanuel, God with us—that is what the world needs to hear. It's the Incarnation. It doesn't need fog and lasers or any prop-ups.
#6 – No one ever started so high and humbled Himself so low as did Jesus in His incarnation.
It is usually improper to speak of the Son of God “leaving” heaven to take on flesh. Jesus was/is fully divine, which means the tabernacling God was/is simultaneously enfleshed and omnipresent. The Incarnation, then, was a filling, an *addition.* It was not an exit but a stooping.
In essence and practice, the incarnation of Jesus is a command. It calls all of us to bow before him in joyful adoration and humble surrender, not just once, but every day of our lives.
