Incarnation: God Comes
Tom Shrader opens in John 1:1-14, establishing that Jesus is eternal, pre-existent, and fully God before examining how the Son voluntarily emptied Himself of divine privilege to take on human flesh. Drawing on Philippians 2:5-8, Shrader explains that the Incarnation was not primarily about moral example but about making atonement possible—since only a sinless, fully human substitute could pay for sin. The teaching closes with a chorus of quotes from Packer, Sproul, and MacArthur underscoring that the Incarnation is the central miracle of Christianity, without which there is no redemption and no Christian faith.
“The word became flesh and dwelt among us for a specific purpose, a part of God's grand plan, and that purpose is ultimately to die—to die for our sin.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Doctrine
Recorded: 2011 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 56 min
Themes: incarnation, christmas, who is jesus, redemption, sacrifice, humility, atonement, the gospel, new believer, doubting faith, questioning who jesus is, seeker, young adult, student, struggling with unbelief, searching for hope
Scripture: John 1:1-14, John 10:24-30, John 20:30, 1 John 1:1-4, 1 John 3:8, Philippians 2:5-8, Colossians 1:16-17, 2 Corinthians 3:18, 2 Corinthians 8:9, 1 Corinthians 2:14, Romans 1, Genesis 1:1, Genesis 3:15, Isaiah 6, Luke 2:52, Matthew 1:18-25, Hebrews 10:4, James 2:14
Theological Themes: incarnation, hypostatic union, kenosis, christology, fully god fully man, propitiation, preexistence of christ, substitutionary atonement
Full Transcript
Introduction
If you don't have a Bible, raise your hand and the guys will bring you a copy. When you get that, open to page 576 — that is the Gospel of John, the first chapter. That is where we are going to be today.
We are in the seventh week of a thirteen-week series titled *Doctrine*, fashioned off of the book that Mark Driscoll wrote. You will see the topics arranged in a wheel around the cover of the bulletin. We have talked about the Trinity — three persons, one God. We are monotheists who believe in one God who expresses Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We talked about Revelation, how we know about God through Scripture. We talked about Creation, how God created this earth. Then we talked about the image of man, man being made in the image of God. Then the Fall, which is absolutely crucial and which we will come back to today. Last week Tim spoke about covenants.
I confess to you that each week I appreciate this series even more, because I begin to see both the biblical thrust of it and the logical, sequential thrust of it.
John Piper on Doctrine
We had an opportunity a couple of weeks ago when John Piper was in town with part of the Southern Baptist Convention. Some of the guys were talking with him and thought to turn on a camera. Piper knows what we are doing this summer, and it was very interesting to hear his comments. Take a look at this.
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*"I just want to say a brief word to you at Redemption Church to congratulate you and pray for you, that you're going to tackle doctrine in the church, in the ministry, in the preaching this summer. This really matters. Let me tell you why doctrine is a positive word for me. It's not a boring word, it's not an oppressive word, it's a very life-giving and hope-giving word. Jesus said, 'You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.' I really want to be free — free from sin in particular, which is the context of Jesus' word. Jesus has appointed it that to know things about Him that are true and deep are a means of freeing us, and the way it works is from 2 Corinthians 3:18: 'Beholding the glory of the Lord, we are being changed from one degree of glory to the next.' So if you want to be changed, if you want to be set free, you see the glory of the Lord. The Lord has contours. If you see Jesus or God the Father or the Holy Spirit in vague ways — they just don't have any edges, you don't see them clearly — and therefore they're not thrilling to you, and therefore they don't have the transforming power that they would have if you saw them clearly. And doctrine is an effort to blow the fog away from the truth and the reality of Jesus Christ.*
*One more illustration that has meant a lot to me. If I'm carrying ten thousand dollars down the street in a bag, cash, and I go up to somebody and say, 'Would you take this and deposit it at Wells Fargo for me?' And they say, 'I don't even know you, why would you trust me with this?' And I say, 'Oh, I just do.' They would not feel honored. They'd feel like, 'You're stupid, man.' But if you hand them the money and say, 'Would you go deposit this for me, it's ten thousand dollars in cash,' and they say, 'Have we met? Why would you trust me with this?' and you say, 'You don't know it, but we work at the same place down the street, and I've watched you for a year. I know you, I've watched your character, I can trust you' — that person would feel unbelievably honored. And therefore, if God is that person, and you say, 'Oh, I trust Him,' and He says, 'Why?' and you say, 'Oh, no particular reason — I don't have any doctrinal basis, I don't know anything about Him, I don't know the contours of His character, I don't know the way He has traditionally acted in history, I just trust Him' — He is not honored. But if you know Him, if you've watched Him act in the Bible, if you have drawn conclusions from the kinds of things He does and the way He is, and then you say, 'I know You, God, I can trust my life with You' — that's what doctrine is for. We want to know Him so that we can throw our lives into His cause, and then He gets glory that way. So God bless you as you tackle doctrine. It is a life-giving, freedom-providing, God-honoring enterprise that you're about."*
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That is encouraging. I think sometimes we get into a series like this and need an outside perspective like the one Piper brings. This is, I think, almost always true as you teach something more and more — you grow not just familiar with it, but you start to see the importance of it. It really is a matter of life and death. We do not approach it lightly.
A Testimony of Influence
I was here yesterday afternoon, standing right here at 2:13, for a funeral for Tom Flavin. It was an amazing time — a testimony to him, but also, I thought, a testimony to his wife Susan, and to Andrew, Daniel, Jennifer, Elizabeth, and the whole family. It was such a powerful thing to see the children speak, and then to hear from so many young people. I was really struck by that. There were probably half a dozen men and women, the oldest perhaps in their mid-twenties, talking about the influence Tom had had in their lives.
There were a couple of lessons in that. One of them was that you can almost fly under the radar and yet have a huge influence, especially on the next generation. I said it then and I meant it — I was so happy that my Susan wasn't there to find out how a man is really supposed to live.
The Basis of Salvation
There is no one who is in heaven because they were a good guy, a good gal, a good student, a good person. I am in heaven because of the finished work of Christ. That is what is so important, and that is why this doctrine is so important.
When we talk about the Christian faith, it is about what we believe, not merely how we behave. Secular humanists, Buddhists, Hindus, and people of all sorts of different faiths would feed hungry people or build shelters for the homeless. They have all sorts of people who would do, at least in terms of earthly things, what we would call good works. But it is not a good work that earns my salvation — what I believe is what makes me a Christian.
The second part of that truth is this: what I believe affects how I behave. Elizabeth ironically chose James chapter 2, verse 14 to begin her passage yesterday, which I thought was just a wonderful expression of it. It is not just how I behave, it is what I believe, but what I believe affects how I behave. That is a really important truth.
The Supreme Mystery of the Incarnation
Today we are right at the heart of the Christian faith. In his book *Doctrine*, Mark Driscoll includes this quote: "J. I. Packer describes the Incarnation as the supreme mystery associated with the Gospel. The Incarnation is more of a miracle than the resurrection because in it, somehow, a holy God and sinful humanity are joined together, yet without the presence of sin. Nothing in fiction is more fantastic as this truth of incarnation. In Jesus, God enters the human realm. He walks on water. He calms the storm. He heals the sick. He feeds the hungry. He raises the dead. He conquers the grave."
What we are looking at is how this eternal, pre-existing God — the God we spoke about in week one of this series, who exists in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — how that second person, the Son, takes on human flesh. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The word "dwelt" literally means pitched a tent with us. He became one of us.
The Four Gospels and John's Purpose
We have four Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Matthew is writing primarily to a Jewish audience, portraying Jesus as the Messiah. Mark portrays Jesus as a servant — the servant king, God's servant. Luke writes primarily in the manner of Greek thinking, with great logical structure, but his emphasis is on the humanity of Christ. Those are the Synoptic Gospels.
Along comes John and his Gospel, and it seems to me that something like 66 to 70 percent of John's Gospel is unique to his Gospel — not present in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. John is very clear about why he is writing, and he tells us that at the end of the book. In chapter 20, verse 30, he says: "Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, not written in this book; but these have been written so that you might believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life in Him." The whole reason he is writing is to demonstrate these miracles, this teaching, all of it — so that at the end of the day, you will believe that Jesus is who He says He is, and who the Scripture says He is.
John is concerned, and we get it right away in chapter 1, verse 1, with portraying Jesus as eternal, as pre-existing. He is the Son of God. He is revealing the Father to us. In a sense, this is a three-week mini-series within the larger series, because we are going to talk today about the life of Christ, next week about the cross, and the following week about the resurrection. This is phase one of those three phases.
In the Beginning Was the Word
So here we go. Reading from John chapter 1: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Now this gets a little confusing, so let us be clear. The Word translated here is the Greek *Logos*, and you will see it in your Bible with a capital W — John is speaking of Jesus. To the Greeks, there would have been some sense of *Logos* as that which brought order and reason to the universe. Even the ordinary Greek reader would have had some sense of it as something transcendent. The Jewish reader would have gotten this idea even from Old Testament expressions, speaking of one of divine power and divine wisdom.
So when John writes of the Incarnation, all of his readers would understand that he was describing something grand, something beyond them. Keep your finger right there in John chapter 1, and go almost to the back of the Bible —
The Beginning Before the Beginning
If you have a Bible with us, turn to 1 John — page 660. You'll notice a similar beginning or introduction to what we find in the Gospel of John, but there is a significant difference between them. In the Gospel, John writes: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God." Notice that emphasis on the beginning.
In 1 John — written by the same author, John the disciple whom Jesus loved, who also wrote 2 John, 3 John, and the book of Revelation — he begins this way: "What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, that we have looked at and touched with our hands concerning the Word of life. And the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father, and manifested to us. What we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, with His Son Jesus Christ. These things we write so that our joy may be made complete."
Both passages look similar, and both speak of "the beginning," but they do so from two different points of reference. When John writes "in the beginning" in 1 John, he is referring to the beginning of Jesus' ministry — or, putting it more broadly, Jesus' earthly life encompassing His birth, life, death, and resurrection. But when John writes in the Gospel, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God," he is not talking about the beginning of Jesus' earthly ministry. He is talking about Genesis 1:1.
In fact, he is going back before that. Take the beginning of all creation — preceding even that was Jesus. At the very beginning, John is pointing to this eternal pre-existence. This is God manifest, as we have said: one God, three persons.
Jesus' Claim to Be God
You do not need much Greek to understand what is being said here. In the beginning was Jesus, and Jesus was with God, and Jesus is God. So when you find yourself at Starbucks having one of those conversations about life, meaning, and where we come from, and someone says to you, "Jesus never claimed to be God," you can respond with two things.
First, right here in Scripture that claim is made for Him. The Holy Spirit, moving through the apostle John, makes the declaration that Jesus was God. But keep your finger there and turn a few pages to the right, to John chapter 10, where Jesus Himself makes that claim — and it is unmistakably clear.
As you read through the Gospel of John, you can see Jesus speaking and teaching. When you reach John 10:24, it says: "The Jews then gathered around Him, and they said, 'How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.'" If you stay within that chapter, you will see that this is precisely what Jesus had already been teaching them. In verse 9 He says, "I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved." In verse 11, "I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." In verse 17, "For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it up again. No one takes My life from Me; I do this voluntarily; I lay down My life on My own authority."
So when they ask in verse 24 if He is the Christ, His response carries an air of irony — that is exactly what He has been saying. Verse 25: "I told you that, but you do not believe it. The works that I do, I do in My Father's name, and they testify of Me." Then He makes the claim of deity again. You do not believe, He says, because you are not My sheep — and here is how you know His sheep: "My sheep will hear My voice. I know them, and they follow Me, and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish. And no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father's hand."
Then comes the declarative statement, John 10:30: "I and the Father are one." We do not need to speculate about what He meant. The Jews immediately picked up stones to stone Him. Jesus responded, "I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of these are you stoning Me?" And they answered, "For a good work we do not stone you, but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself out to be God."
So when someone says Jesus never claimed to be God, we can go to John 10 and see His own claim, and we can go to John 1 and see what Scripture declares about Him. Here is this eternal, pre-existent, uncreated being — God — who was present from before the very beginning of time and instrumental in the creation we see around us.
Creator, Light, and Life
Returning to John 1, verse 1: "In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God. In the beginning He was with God, and all things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shines in the darkness, but the darkness does not comprehend it."
From the very beginning, Jesus was part of the creation — not as creature, but as Creator. When God said, "Let there be light," it was Jesus who was there. Colossians 1:16 confirms this: "For by Him" — speaking of Jesus — "all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, thrones, dominions, rulers, authorities — all things were created" through Him and for Him.
In Him All Things Hold Together
"And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together." — Colossians 1:17
I have told this story before, but there was a man I met years ago named Bob Hage, and he was a fascinating person. There was something about him that made you want to talk to him, and once you started, you wanted to keep listening. In 1960, when John Kennedy declared that America would put a man on the moon and return him safely by the end of the decade, there were scientists and government officials asking, "How are we going to do this? We don't have a rocket. We have nothing but this dream." Bob worked for McDonnell Douglas, which was part of the group that developed the Gemini capsule, and his role — which sounds to me like a great job — was serving as a liaison between McDonnell Douglas and the seven original astronauts. He was a brilliant mind. He sent me a book, probably four or five years ago, on the first hundred years of flight from the Wright brothers to the space shuttle.
In the midst of all of that professional accomplishment, Bob was wrestling internally with deep personal questions — the meaning of life, the purpose of life, why he was here, all of it. So he did what very smart people customarily do: he read books by other smart people, he talked to smart people, he went and sat with Francis Schaeffer at L'Abri, he visited Oxford and Cambridge. He did what brilliant people do. He came back totally unconvinced.
One day he was sitting in his home office on a conference call with other scientists. They were calculating how to take a spacecraft, put it in orbit, and figure out what to do from there, starting with John Glenn. In the middle of this technical discussion, a sidebar conversation broke out about gravity — specifically, how does it actually work? The conversation went back and forth, and eventually Bob got off the phone. His maid was there cleaning, and she said, "I couldn't help but overhear your conversation. I can explain gravity to you." He said, "Really?" And she said, "Yes." She picked up her Bible and read to him Colossians chapter 1, verse 17: "And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together." That day, God used not Francis Schaeffer, but Bob's maid, to lead this brilliant scientist to salvation. I love that story.
The Life and Light in Jesus
That is exactly what we are talking about. Here is a spectacular mystery that I cannot necessarily fully understand, that I can only inadequately explain, yet I am absolutely certain it is true. Why? Because God says it is true. In the beginning was Jesus. He has no beginning and no end. He precedes Genesis 1. He was the One who spoke creation into existence. And in Him, chapter 1 verse 4, was life, and the life was the light of men.
The idea of life here is really spiritual life. In Him is true life. When we speak of being set free by the truth, it is that spiritual bondage and death that every one of us is born with and born into. We come into the human family spiritually dead. Vital physical signs may be fine — 98.6 degrees, 120 over 70 — but the spiritual condition is dead. Jesus is the antidote to that. He is the life. And He is the light — the idea of truth and of boldness.
Going back to John 10, Jesus is saying, "I have explained it to you, but you don't understand it because the Holy Spirit is not in you." That is 1 Corinthians 2:14 — the natural man cannot understand spiritual things. We see it in John 1 verse 5: "The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness does not comprehend it." Creation is all around us — that is Romans 1. We saw God's power in creation. We saw God's general revelation, all of it, and yet He also speaks to us through His Word. So in these first five verses, what John is telling us is that Jesus is God — He is eternal, He has creative power, and He is self-existent.
The Central Point: The Word Became Flesh
I was listening to a message the other day where the speaker must have said fifteen times in a forty-five-minute message — once every three minutes — "this is a huge point." I found it extraordinarily distracting. How many huge points can one message have? But here is one that genuinely deserves the label.
Chapter 1, verse 14. "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." This is the whole center point. The word "dwelt" carries the image of setting up camp among us. It is that Old Testament picture of God's dwelling place — a place of revelation, a place of sacrifice, a place of worship, a place where the Law is housed. It is the tabernacle. He tabernacled. He dwelt among us.
That is the singular, overarching point today: that God, in the person of Jesus Christ, without ceasing to be God, also becomes man. He places certain limitations on Himself — we will get to some of those — but He never ceases to be God. Everything else flows as a subset from that one central reality.
Preparing Together
Here at our church we study collectively in preparation for the Sunday message. Tyler is teaching in Arcadia today, Ricardo is teaching in Tempe, Luke is teaching at Gateway, and I am teaching here. We all get together beforehand, we talk, we plan it out, and then we send our notes to one another as they are prepared. I am always the last one in.
The Ultimate Undercover Boss
When Luke sent his notes today, he was talking about John 1:14, and he made this comment: "This is the ultimate episode of undercover boss." That is an amazing point. Ricardo was here this morning, and we were talking. He had Noah with him, and I had not seen Noah in what I would have thought had been months. But Noah is like a little human now — he's two and a half. Ricardo said he was talking to some friends the other day, and they said, "We don't like to go to that store, because the people that go there are so skanky and dirty, kind of the scum of the earth." He paused, and then he said, "I'm so glad Jesus didn't have that attitude toward us." That really is a great line.
So do you see what's happening here? God is going to become man. John 1:14, John MacArthur writes, is the most concise biblical statement of the Incarnation, and it is therefore one of Scripture's most magnificent and significant verses.
Philippians 2: The Attitude of Christ
Turn to the right to the book of Philippians — it's page 636 in the Bible we gave you — Philippians chapter 2, and we're going to begin in verse 5. Paul writes, "Have the attitude in yourself which is also in Christ Jesus." At this point, Jesus is our role model, and this passage is about humility. Paul has been speaking prior to this in verse 3: "Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility regard one another as more important than yourselves. Do not merely look out for your own personal interests."
There is a tendency, I think, to say, "Jesus is my role model, and the humility I model is the humility He modeled here on earth." Yes, but that is not where Paul goes with the role model. He doesn't say, "Jesus, who was a man who in homeowner associations never argued, who never said you're crossing my property line." That is not the illustration he gives. He says, "Have this attitude in you that was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but He emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant and being made in the likeness of man."
Have this attitude — this humble, come-learn-and-serve attitude. During the memorial service yesterday, I was listening to the kids talk and listening to other people talk, and I thought there is no way, realistically, that you can have that kind of effect and serve the way Tom served unless you have a spirit of humility, because serving other people is inconvenient. I had the chance afterwards to have a moment with his wife Susan, and I said that though this was a powerful testimony to him, I am smart enough to know he cannot live that way if she is not there serving him, supporting him, and encouraging him along the way. It is a powerful testimony to her. And in a funny way, maybe an even greater testimony of humility — because at her service, when that comes, as it will for all of us, those moments may not have the same flash that Tom's had. Isn't that interesting? Jesus says, "I came not to be served, but to serve," and both of them lived the same way.
Two Greek Words for "Form"
"Have this attitude in yourself that was also in Christ Jesus, although He existed in the form of God." There are two Greek words that could be translated as "form." One speaks of an outward form that is changing. I mentioned Noah — I remember when Noah was born, when he was a week or two old and Holly brought him to church in his little car seat. I remember when he got out of that car seat, when he could kind of move around. And now he is like a little human. That is one word translated "form."
The other word translated "form" carries no sense of change in it. It speaks of the essence, the matter that is never altered. That is the word used here. "Although He existed in the form of God" — the very essence of God — "He did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped." The idea there is to seize on something, to carry it off. But verse 7 gives a clear contrast: "But He emptied Himself." He emptied Himself of that advantage, that privilege of being God — not of the existence of God.
Five Things Christ Emptied Himself Of
John MacArthur lists five things Christ emptied Himself of when Scripture says He "emptied Himself of divine rights." Let me give them to you quickly, because they all tie together. First, He temporarily divested Himself of His divine glory. Second, He gave up independent divine authority — He is now operating in dependence upon God. Third, He emptied Himself of the exercise of some divine attributes. So, not the essence of deity, but He voluntarily placed certain limitations upon Himself. Fourth, He emptied Himself of His divine riches — "For your sake," Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 8:9, "Jesus became poor." And fifth, He temporarily emptied Himself of His unique, intimate, face-to-face relationship with God.
Think of Isaiah 6 — "Holy, holy, holy" — and that picture. He empties Himself of that position, not of His deity. And He takes on the form — the same word — not just an outward appearance of man, but He actually becomes human.
A Holy Mystery
Martin Lloyd-Jones writes this: "What then does all this mean? It means that there is no change in His deity, but that He took on human nature to Himself, and He chose to live in this world as a man. He humbled Himself in every way. He deliberately limits Himself. Now we cannot go further." I like that. Here is what he is saying: this is a mystery. We have pushed as far as we can. If we push any further, we are into speculation.
The Kenosis: God Empties Himself
We don't know how He did it. We can't fully understand it, but we believe this: in order that He might live the life of man while He was on earth, He did not exercise certain qualities of the Godhead. That is why He needed to be given the gift of the Holy Spirit without measure. One of the things I was reminded of this week is how dependent the Son is on the Spirit — to be filled with the Spirit, baptized in the Spirit, driven by the Spirit, guided by the Spirit. How He voluntarily yields to the Father. That is what He says: "Not my will, but your will be done."
See how this all ties together back into the first week, back to how we look at how God works? This is part of God's plan from beginning to end. He emptied Himself. He took the form on this earth of a bondservant — the lowest of servants, the servant who owned nothing, including his own life. Every resource he had was actually the ownership of his master, and anything he needed pertaining to life, or mission in life, or purpose in life, was given to him by the master.
Jesus Grew in Wisdom and Stature
There is a section at the end of Luke's Gospel — Luke chapter 2 — where Jesus has disappeared, they find Him, they present Him, they bring Him back. It says this in Luke chapter 2 verse 52: "Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature in favor with men and God." One author writes something I find remarkable: look at Jesus, that amazing Jesus, helping his father make a yoke in that little carpenter shop in Nazareth. This is the One who, apart from self-emptying, could have far more easily made the solar system of the galaxies.
Sometimes we forget that about Jesus — that He was this boy, and He grew. Yet this Jesus, who created all things and holds them together, has one day in His shop His father showing Him, "No, you don't nail it like that." I think this will be the greatest Antique Roadshow of all time, when they go live from Nazareth and someone brings in a table and says, "It's been in our family forever." They flip it over, and it says "Jesus." He was human, like us in every way except sin.
Part of God's Grand Plan
So God sets aside His glory — not His deity — and becomes a man like us. Why? Not just to show us how to live, though that is fine. Not just to be a role model, though that is good. Not merely to be a teacher. It is part of this grand story, part of God's grand plan. Remember a couple of weeks ago when we looked at creation, and then at you and I being made in the image of God, but we said there was a problem — we sinned.
In the middle of that sin, God becomes our prosecuting attorney and says to Adam and to Eve, "What is it you did?" But once they confess, the prosecuting attorney becomes the defense attorney in the sense that He now begins to proclaim the curses on man and on the earth, but He says to Satan, to the serpent: "I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed." We said at the time that this is the Proto-Evangelium — the first preaching of the gospel. It was at that moment that God gives us this promise, perhaps not totally clear there, but the promise nonetheless. Martin Luther says of Genesis chapter 3 verse 15: "This text embraces and comprehends within itself everything noble and glorious that is found anywhere in the Scripture."
The Omnipresence of Sin
Let me digress for a moment. I have been on vacation, and right before I left, the spring on my garage door opener broke, the garbage disposal broke, and right now it is 92 degrees in my house because the air conditioner is broken. The part they need is not available until Monday, so that is where things stand. Please do not feel like you need to fix this — I have it handled.
Here is what struck me during my time away, through the air conditioner, the spring, and the garbage disposal: the omnipresence of sin. You can go big, like the Casey Anthony trial. Apparently the only twelve people in the world who thought she was innocent were the jury, and everyone has something to say about it. But here is what I really care about: forty-eight days from today, football starts for the University of Iowa.
On my phone I follow several news feeds, and USA Today has a subset covering NCAA football. Let me read you the headlines, all in sequence — I am not skipping any. "NCAA interviews LSU coaches concerning involvement in a fraud deal." "Georgia Tech stripped of the 2009 ACC title win due to NCAA violations." "NCAA tells Auburn's coach that they have an ongoing investigation." "Former Georgia football coach accused of Ponzi scheme." "Records show Tressel" — this is Ohio State — "had a history of compliance issues." "Records show Tressel rated poorly in reporting violence." All I want to do is watch the game, and you know what all of that is? Sin.
One hundred and seventy-eight students, teachers, and principals in the city of Atlanta —
The Cost of Sin
Ten million of the greatest generation are double-dipping on Medicare and Medicaid. Thirty percent of your health care costs in Medicare is fraud, stealing, and cheating. Look how expensive sin is, even in a purely pragmatic sense. You cannot get away from it.
The NCAA has rulebooks this thick. They don't need another rule. The tax code is this thick. Every test you come up with, all it's going to do is expose the sinfulness of man. That is our problem. Our problem is sin, and we cannot solve it.
That is why the Word became flesh and dwelt among us — so we could live, and so He could die in our place. That is why Jesus came to this earth, born of a virgin.
The Virgin Birth: Matthew 1:18
Let's look at the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 1, verse 18. This is a passage that, out of ten Christmases, nine of them we seem to go to and read.
"The birth of the Lord Jesus is as follows. Mary had been betrothed to Joseph. Before they had come together, she was found to be with child." There had been no intimacy between the two of them, and yet she was pregnant. "Joseph, her husband, being a righteous man, not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly." Joseph does not want to humiliate her, but he is going to break off the engagement.
"At that moment, while he was considering this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, 'Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the Child'" — and in this translation that word is capitalized, because the angel is speaking of Jesus — "'the Child has been conceived in her of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus.'" Here is the whole point of the incarnation: "'for He will save His people from their sins.'"
"All this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 'Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and you shall call His name Immanuel,' which translated means, 'God with us.'" The Word became flesh and dwelt among us — tented, tabernacled, dwelt among us. "Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel commanded, took Mary as his wife, and kept her a virgin until she had given birth to a Son, and he called His name Jesus."
Mary's Own Question
We know from Luke's Gospel that the very first person to question the virgin birth was Mary herself. When the angel appeared to Mary and told her she would be with child, she said, in effect, "Hold on. I may have gotten a C in biology, but I grasp the big concepts. There is no way I am going to have a baby — I have never been intimate with a man." Jesus is born of a virgin. Jesus is fully God and fully man, like us in every way except sin. There is no sin nature in Him.
Why the Incarnation Matters
Why is the incarnation important? Because without the incarnation, there is no crucifixion, and without the crucifixion, there is no resurrection.
As part of God's divine plan in creation — knowing that we would sin — there was a moment where God could have said, "I am justified in sending everyone to hell," or He could send everyone to heaven, or He could save some. We can tell from the unfolding of God's plan that He decided to save some. But He was also constrained in the way He could save them, because the only way to accomplish it was through a perfect sacrifice, a perfect atonement. In reality, then, the incarnation is about the atonement. I cannot pay the price for my own sins, let alone yours.
A Quiet Morning and a Carol
Yesterday morning I went over to the church to study before an afternoon funeral, but the air conditioning was not on in the office. I was working out of five, six, or seven books, and rather than spread them all out, I had photocopied the pages I needed and laid them around me. I was sitting in a chair that was a little low for me, and I knocked over my coffee. You know how your reflex is to grab for it? Apparently I am so apathetic that I knocked it over and then simply observed it. It was a strange moment. I just watched the coffee flow across all those sheets of paper.
I am particular about the carpet back there, so I spent twenty minutes cleaning it up, went and copied everything again, and sat back down. It was quiet, so I picked up my phone to find some music. I ended up on Jim Brickman and Christmas music. The first song that played said this:
*O little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie. Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by. Yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light. The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.*
That is the incarnation.
The Real Reason for the Incarnation
The real reason for the incarnation is the atonement. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 4 tells us it is impossible for the blood of goats and bulls to take away our sin. There is nothing I can do. That is so important.
A funeral I attended yesterday really impacted me. It was a model of a life well lived — clearly an amazing human being. But as amazing a human being as he was, it is not good enough to get anyone to heaven. There is not enough church attendance, not enough good works.
Two Groups in Every Room
Right now, in this room, you have two groups of people — it is really that simple. You have those who know Christ, and those who do not. Some do not know Christ and do not care. Some do not know Christ and it is really clear they do not. Some of you, and this is true every Sunday, are just steeped in your sin — I would call you a sinner and you would say you have the legal bills to prove it.
But others of you are in the harder category. You are going, "I am really a good person. I pay my taxes, I drive 55, I am a good mom, I am a good dad, I go to church — look at this, I have endured you now for almost 45 minutes. I am a good person. I am bound to go to heaven." And the answer is no. If it were possible for good living to save us, Jesus would have never come.
What the Scholars Say About the Incarnation
I want to close by reading you some quotes in succession. My whole point is to show you how big this is. Listen for words like "essential" and "central."
Ray Stedman writes: "John's gospel begins with these 18 verses as an introduction. It is the theme question — who is Jesus really? Where did He come from? What is represented in the remarkable manifestation that was the life of Jesus of Nazareth? This prologue, these 18 verses, at the heart of them verse 14, contains a summary of John's most profound convictions about our Lord. It focuses on the central fact of the Christian faith. Christianity is not a philosophy — it is about a person, and that person is central to the Christian faith. Take Jesus out of Christianity and it would be like taking the numbers out of mathematics."
R.C. Sproul writes: "Faith in the deity of Christ is necessary to begin to be a Christian. It is essential. In the teaching of the New Testament and in church history, there have been four centuries in which the confession of the deity of Christ has been crucial or stormy — inside the church, not outside. Those centuries are the fourth, fifth, nineteenth, and twentieth." Sproul wrote that some time ago, but he was right to add that we are living in one of those centuries where that heresy assaults the church. It is urgent that we safeguard the church's confession of Christ's deity, and I think we can now say the twenty-first century belongs on that list as well.
John MacArthur writes: "The incarnation is the central miracle of Christianity, the most grand and wonderful of all the things God has ever done."
J.I. Packer writes: "The incarnation, this mysterious miracle, is at the heart of historic Christianity. It is central to the New Testament witness."
The Heart of the Christian Faith
You cannot say it any stronger than that. We are talking about the answer. There are things we disagree about — we can talk about them, debate them, maybe argue, maybe kid, maybe get bent out of shape. But at the end of the day we say, "Whatever — we will agree to disagree. It does not really matter. It is a nuance. We are not going to divide over this." But we divide over this. This is the heart of the Christian faith.
John, the same author who wrote the Gospel, says it this way in 1 John 3:8: "The Son of God appeared for this purpose, that He might destroy the works of the devil." And that is what Jesus did — look at it next week, on the cross, and subsequently God's amen to Jesus, "It is finished," in the resurrection.
This is the core of Christianity. Take this away, and whatever you have, you can call it whatever you want, but whatever you have, it is not Christian. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us for a specific purpose — a part of God's grand plan — and that purpose is ultimately to die, to die for our sin.
Responding at the Table
We are now thrust to the cross as we come to the time of communion, and then we will close our time worshiping through song, and then leave this place knowing that our worship continues all through the week until we gather here again.
Father, thank You for this amazing truth. Words like "central," "essential," "necessary" — God, we are reminded over and over again that this truth is at the core of the Christian faith. If we take away the fact that Jesus becomes man and dwells among us, we have no Christian faith, we have no sacrifice, there is no redemption. God, thank You for Your love, manifest in the cross. Thank You that we, as Your people, can see and understand that truth because You opened our eyes to see it. Father, we thank You, praise You, and worship You. In Christ's name, Amen.