The Virgin-born Saviour – Another in a series on essential Christian Doctrines.
We come in this post to the most essential truth of all, the historic reality of Jesus Christ, the only mediator between men and God. Seeking to describe this astonishing person with words is almost impossible. But we must try, because belief in his person defines our destiny.
But first, lest we hide our need of his salvation behind a smokescreen of imagined independence and self-reliance, let’s remind ourselves of our plight. “Your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear”—when you complain or cry for help. (Isaiah 59:2) We are separated from eternal help. Our sins are unforgiven. We stand guilty before the bar of divine justice. We face eternity in hell. Until we acknowledge our sins, God will not hear us. Instead, “the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all unrighteousness” (Rom. 1:12). Who will intercede for us, fending off God’s wrath? Who will deliver us from our own blind self-righteousness?
“There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus who gave himself as a ransom for all men” (1 Timothy 2:5,6). Consider then, the arrival of this mediator.
In the counsels of the godhead, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit determined to mount a rescue operation. The Son of God was chosen as the spearhead of this rescue. Remember, “He is the image of the invisible God…For by him all things were created; things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible…all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:15-17). Although he was the creator and sustainer of the whole universe, and eternally God, the Son, co-equal with the Father and the Spirit, he voluntarily agreed to become our Saviour.
In mounting this rescue operation, God, the Son, came down amongst us. As God, he is omnipresent, so in what sense did he come? He came setting aside something and embracing something else. He voluntarily set aside the independent exercise of his divine prerogatives—power, omnipresence, omniscience—and embraced humanity by being born as a real baby of the virgin Mary. (See Phil. 2:5-8.)
Mary was frightened when the angel announced his birth, but he said to her; “Do not be afraid, Mary. You have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David…the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:30-32, 35).
When Mary was found to be with child, her betrothed, Joseph, thought to divorce her quietly but an angel spoke to him. “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet” (Matt. 1:20-22). That babe was the prophesied one, the Messiah, promised from Eden on. No other child had 2000 years of prophecies about his coming. No other child came to atone for our sins. And no other child was virgin born through the conception of the Holy Spirit.
No wonder the writers of Christmas carols wax poetic;
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see,
Hail the incarnate Deity,
Pleased as man with man to dwell,
Jesus, our Emmanuel.
Hark! The herald angels sing,
“Glory to the newborn King!”
The story of Jesus’s birth has beguiled people from all ages. It is charming. Who doesn’t love a baby. But a baby called Immanuel, God with us? A baby born in a manger? A birth heralded by a choir of angels? Who is this babe?
All babies have a beginning. Yet Christ always existed as the Son of God. “He is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:17). “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:1,14). He himself testified, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, [first and last] who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty” (Rev. 1:8)
Imagine this; the eternal creator of time who exists beyond time, came into time; the immaterial God took on a material body; the almighty God came as a helpless babe. God and man; the God-man. No avatar. No figment of someone’s superheated imagination. “In this way it came about that the two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the divine and the human, were inseparably joined together in one Person, without the conversion of the one nature into the other, and without the mixing, as it were of one nature with the other; in other words, without confusion. Thus, the Son of God is both truly God and truly human, yet one person, Jesus Christ, the only mediator between God and man” (The 1689 Confession, chapter 8, 2.) Our mediator is one Person with two distinct natures.
In some mysterious way which is beyond our experience or understanding, the infinite, eternally existing Son of God came as Jesus, our Shepherd, Friend, Saviour, and Mediator.
Incredible? Yes. His body was not a phantom, not a mirage but a real flesh and blood body. As a baby, “the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him…when he was twelve years old, they went up to the Feast” (Luke 2:40,42). Jesus went through all the stages of human development.
As man, he ate and thirsted and felt pain and became tired and wept. His disciples touched him. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life [Jesus]” (1 John 1:1). An essential truth of the Christian faith that must be believed by all true Christians concerns the genuine human nature that Christ embraced without ceasing to be God, the Son. He is the eternal Son of God; truly God and truly man—two natures in one person. But how could he atone for our sins?
(Let me know your thoughts on this subject. If you appreciate this blog, please pass it on. If I can help you spiritually, let me know. Further articles, books, and stories at: Facebook: Eric E Wright Twitter: @EricEWright1 LinkedIn: Eric Wright ; Eric’s books are available at: https://www.amazon.com/Eric-E.-Wright/e/B00355HPKK%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share)
