The Son Of The Most High God Born In Human Flesh
Many of us are getting ready for the Christmas holiday coming. We are excited about presents and Christmas parties with lots of cookies, chocolate, great coffee, hot chocolate, eggnog, and even beer or wine for those Presbyterian brothers and sisters out there; and most importantly a good time. While having joy in such activities is great fellowship, we should be careful to make sure that our ultimate joy about this season is about God: the Eternal One who chose to enter into humanity through the birth of Jesus Christ from his human mother Mary; yet conceived entirely by God through the Holy Spirit to become our Savior.
It is significant that Jesus Christ was born into human flesh in order to pay the penalty for our sins. He was born to die for us, and those who believe can have a relationship with God and enter Heaven. Merry Christmas! The best gift of all is the Son of God.
In Luke 1:31-33 the angel named Gabriel spoke to Mary who was the human mother of Jesus Christ and told her the following,
“Now listen:
You will conceive and give birth
to a son,
and you will call
His name JESUS.
He will be great
and will be called
the Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give Him
the throne of His father David.
He will reign over the house
of Jacob forever,
and His kingdom will have no end.”
(all emphasis mine)
The significance of this passage is God’s command for Mary to name her son JESUS (which means “one who saves” in Hebrew, a form of Joshua), who is also given the title Son of the Most High. No other human on earth was given the title of the Son of the Most high, so this is unique and not simply a play on words to simply explain that He is a human created in the image of God. Nowhere else in the Bible has any human being ever been lifted up and called Son of God in the sense of a special title or rank. So it is obvious that this passage is explaining that Jesus Christ was literally the eternal God coming in flesh. The Father of Jesus Christ was God the Father, and not a human father. This shows further that no mere human has ever been able to claim God as His literal biological father. Mary was a virgin and did not have sex before the birth of Jesus. Joseph her husband did not know her intimately until after Jesus was born.
The next verse down from the above passage is Luke 1:34-35 which explains,
“Mary asked the angel, ‘How can this be, since I have not been intimate with a man?’ The angel replied to her: The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.“
This speaks of Jesus literally coming from God and having God as His Father. No human sperm was used to make an embryo. If Jesus came from God then He has the essence of God in Him. Further, the angel Gabriel told her that the Holy Spirit would come upon her, so Christ was conceived by the Holy Spirit and not by the human, male sperm impregnating her. The Holy Spirit is the “Spirit of God.” Since there is only ONE GOD, the Son of God’s essence is not a separate god-essence, but the exact same singular essence of the Triune God. “Isaiah 43:10-11 explicitly quotes God saying, “No god was formed before me, and there will be none after Me. I, I am the LORD, and there is no other Savior but Me.” This invalidates any possibility that Jesus Christ in any way was another god, or being created like God. It was God, with God, begetting God: the second person of the Trinity born in human flesh through Mary. Jesus Christ is completely God as the Father is completely God as the Holy Spirit is completely God. Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human.
John 14:7 says, “The Word became flesh and took up residence among us.” This implies God decided to live in flesh with humans. God became a human (without losing any of His deity: known as the hypostatic union) in order to live exactly like us and suffer through what we suffer without committing any sins. This includes Jesus Christ’s ability to be tempted by Satan, yet following through with temptation and actually sinning being impossible for Christ to do since He was God. This shows God humbled Himself and went through the same experiences as all humans do and had human emotions. Philippians 2:6-8 reveals that Jesus Christ,
“…who existing in the very form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be used for His own advantage. Instead He emptied Himself by assuming the form of a slave, taking on the likeness of men. And when He had come as a man, in His external form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross.”
This explains that God in every way became human and kept His God-essence and also had human flesh. This is known in theological terms as the dual nature of God the Son, Jesus Christ.
The flesh of Jesus Christ was a vital part of the salvation of humanity, for without flesh there could be no satisfactory punishment in Christ for sins, since all sin can only be pardoned with righteous bloodshed. Hebrews 9:22 says, “According to the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Without Christ coming in human flesh, suffering and experiencing human hardships willfully, and most importantly, without sinning even once there could never have been a way for humanity to be forgiven for their sins and be given righteousness so that they can enter heaven and live eternally with God. Also, if Jesus Christ did not live up to these perfect standards He would not have been God. Now we know He was God because of what He accomplished and also through the resurrection that proves He was God. He returned from the dead and proved Himself resurrected with hundreds of witnesses!
Remember to celebrate this Christmas and the ones after it for the right reasons: that God loves us, wanted to redeem us from eternal hell, willfully suffer the punishment for sins in our place (the death sentence that we deserved) and was killed violently on a cross instead of us. He was then raised from the dead and will return soon to rule over the world with His eternal kingdom. Christmas is about the birth of the Son of God in human flesh solely for the purpose of His death and resurrection that is our gift given to us by God through the Holy Spirit and loved by the Father. This is good news so proclaim it loud this season and celebrate! Our Christmas presents are simply a symbol of the great gift that God gave us because he loves us (our symbols pale in comparison). Dwell on these things and worship God for it. MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Ehud's 18 Inch Dagger 