Christmas is a time of celebration and song, goodwill and good food, family and friends. But it's important to remember that the source of Christmas is the saving Christ.
Humanity is lost, fallen. We were separated from God because of our sin, and our only hope of forgiveness was for someone completely innocent of any wrongdoing to take all the punishment for our crimes. Such a perfect life and a perfect love were impossible for any human to achieve, so God Himself did it for us. He sent His Son from eternity into mortality, from glory into flesh, and from a throne to a manger. Ultimate hope was born in ultimate humility.
Whenever you study the Gospels, you see God in every picture of Christ. He talks like God, acts like God, thinks like God, performs miracles that only God could do, teaches truth only God would teach, and responds with the love, goodness, wisdom, and omniscience that only God could possess. And it all begins with the birth of the divine Child.
This is the immeasurable gift of Christmas. Christ, God's own Son, gave up His wealth and privilege to live as God with us, Immanuel, that He might save His people from our sins and that through His poverty we might become rich.
The miraculous gift of Christmas is God being born in a manger. so we can be born again in His glory. May this book help you marvel anew at the message and meaning of that gift.
Christmas is not about the Savior's infancy; it is about His deity. The humble birth of Jesus Christ was never intended to be a façade to conceal the reality that God was being born into the world.
No one can really fathom what it means for God to be born in a manger. How does one explain the Almighty stooping to become a tiny infant? It was the greatest condescension the world has ever known or ever will know. Our minds cannot begin to understand what was in God's becoming a man. We will never comprehend why He who was infinitely rich would become poor, assume a human nature, and enter into a world He knew would reject Him and kill Him.
Nor can anyone explain how God could become a baby. Yet He did. Without forsaking His divine nature or diminishing His deity in any sense, He was born into our world as a tiny infant.
People often ask me if I think He cried, or if He needed the normal care and feeding one would give to any other baby. Of course He did. He was fully human with all the needs and emotions that are common to every human.
Yet He was also fully God—all wise and all powerful. How can both be true? I don't know. But the Bible clearly teaches that it is so. In some sense, Jesus voluntarily suspended the full application of His divine attributes. He didn't give up being God, but He willingly set aside the independent use of the privileges and powers that were His as God (Philippians 2:5–8). He chose to subjugate His will to His Father's will (John 5:30; 6:38). Through all that He remained fully God.
For nearly two thousand years, debate has been raging about who Jesus really is. Cults and skeptics have offered various explanations. They'll say He is one of many gods, a created being, a prophet, and so on. The common thread of all such theories is that they make Jesus less than God.
But let the Bible speak for itself. John's Gospel begins with a clear statement that Jesus is God: "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 came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being." Who is "the Word" spoken of in these verses? Verse 14 removes any doubt: "And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth."
The biblical evidence is overwhelming that this child in the manger was the incarnation of God. For one thing. He was omniscient. John 2:24–25 says, "But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man." Nathanael was shocked to discover that Jesus knew all about him before they ever met, and it was enough to persuade him that Jesus was the Messiah (John 1:48–50). John 4 describes Jesus' meeting with a Samaritan woman at Jacob's well. He knew everything about her, too (vv. 17–19, 29).
Jesus also did the works of God, saying, "Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves" (John 14:11). Jesus' works are convincing proof that He is God. He began His miraculous ministry with a simple act—He created wine at a wedding in Cana (John 2:1–11); only God can create. Moreover, He healed people who were hopelessly ill. He gave sight to the blind (Matthew 9:27–31). Не opened ears that had never heard (Mark 7:31–37). He created enough fish and bread to feed thousands (Mark 6:48–52: 8:1–9). He raised the dead by simply commanding them to come forth from the grave (John 11:38–44).
Taken from God's Gift of Christmas by John F. MacArthur, Jr. Copyright © 2006 by John F. MacArthur, Jr. Used by permission of Thomas Nelson. www.thomasnelson.com.