Around this time of year, in the Christmas season, we reflect on the Christmas story – the birth of Jesus, the baby in the manger who was so much more. It is one of the two major Christian holidays, the other being Resurrection Day (Easter).
The Christmas story is a wonderful story, that has been told over and over and in many ways. But here I don’t want to just tell the story, but go into why the Son of God had to come as a tiny baby.
A Suitable Mediator
Job 9:2 2 “Truly I know it is so, But how can a man be righteous before God?
Job decries the condition of man after the fall; how can we stand before the Holy God blameless? Even if we fill our life with good deeds, every one of us has been infected with that spiritual disease, sin.
Job 9:32-33 32 “For He is not a man, as I am, That I may answer Him, And that we should go to court together.
33 Nor is there any mediator between us, Who may lay his hand on us both.
On the one hand, we have the holy God. Sin cannot live in His presence.
On the other hand, there is us – created in the image of God, but corrupted by sin.
Job decried the fact that there was no one who could relate equally to both sides, that could be a mediator.
The Jewish high priest could not be the mediator – he had his own sins to deal with.
Angelic beings could not be the mediator, because they have little in common with man.
If Job could see into the future, he could see that there would be a union of God and Man, embodied in Jesus Christ. There is a theological term for it, the hypostatic union. What that means that Jesus was not half God and half man, but fully God and fully human, with neither His Godhood or His humanity diminished by the other.
The Word Became Flesh
John 1:1-3 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
John in the first few verses of his gospel establishes the deity of this being he calls The Word. The Word was the Creator.
But then miracle of all miracles, we have this:
John 1:14 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
“Became flesh”. We have a word for that, it is incarnation, which literally means to take on human flesh. The second Person of the Trinity took on a tent of human flesh and became one of us. How was that accomplished?
First, we need to look at what is a human? We are a three part being, a trinity so to speak, consisting of spirit, soul, and body. At the time of conception, a human spirit is created and associated with that tiny zygote. Even if never brought to birth, there is a new human there. That one fertilized egg cell splits, and multiplies over and over and develops into a human body that is eventually born of a woman.
In the case of Jesus, as soon as Mary answered the angel Gabriel “Be it done to me according to your word”, the Holy Spirit miraculously supplied the DNA to an egg in Mary’s womb. And then, rather than a human spirit being created, the Second Person of the Trinity, the personality of the Son, became the spirit associated with that fertilized egg. Gabriel explained it this way:
Luke 1:35 35 And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.
Jesus became human by taking the path every one of us did – he was born of a woman. He “entered through the door”.
John 10:1-2 1 “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.
2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.
Jesus entered the earth the legal way – by being born a human. Remember, God gave mankind dominion over the earth in Genesis.
Who was the thief and robber that entered by another way? That was the devil.
So Jesus was fully God because He was the spirit of the eternal Son of God.
He was fully human because He was born one just like every other human.
Isaiah 9:6 6 For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
This famous Christmas verse speaks of Jesus’ dual nature.
The Child – Jesus – was born. His humanity.
The Son – the Son of God – was given. His deity.
Isaiah 7:14 14 Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.
The angel Gabriel not only had a message for Mary, but also for Joseph.
Matthew 1:21-23 21 And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”
22 So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying:
23 “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.”
God with us. That is the miracle of the incarnation.
Emptied Himself
So how could God be contained in a human body?
Philippians 2:5-8 5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,
6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God,
7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.
8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
NASB: …He emptied Himself…
NLT: … He gave up His divine privileges…
AMPC: … He stripped Himself of all privileges and rightful dignity…
Jesus gave up all the “omnis” – omniscience (all knowing), omnipotence (all powerful), omnipresent – that we associate with deity. He gave up all of His divine power and limited Himself to only that which was available to human beings filled with the Spirit. He said so, that He Himself could do nothing, that it was the Father in Him that did the works (John 5:19, John 14:10).
And taking on human form was not some crippling liability that he would shed as soon as He was resurrected and ascended into heaven. He is now, and will remain for all eternity, a Man.
Jesus is that perfect Mediator between God and Man, that Job had lamented the lack of.
Since He was God from eternity past, He could relate perfectly to God.
Hebrews 4:15 15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Since He was human and in human flesh, He was subject to the same pressures and temptations that we are. The difference being is that He never gave in to those temptations.
1 Timothy 2:5 5 For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus,
So notice how it calls him the Man Jesus Christ? He still is a man! Albeit He is now in a glorified body, but again that is not anything outside of human possibility, because we will all gain glorified bodies also.
Equally import that Jesus is God, is the fact that Jesus is a man.
Jesus as the Son of God could not just get rid of the devil – who entered the earth through a “legal loophole” created by Adam when he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It was to mankind that God gave the dominion of this planet – and Jesus as a human was heir to that dominion.
The very first prophecy of redemption, right after the fall –
Genesis 3:15 15 And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.”
Galatians 3:16 16 Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as of many, but as of one, “And to your Seed,” who is Christ.
Jesus was the “Seed of the woman” who would bruise Satan’s head.
It was Jesus as humanity that purchased our redemption. The eternal Son of God could not die for our sins. But the Son of God clothed in human flesh could.
Hebrews 2:14-15 14 Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil,
15 and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.
Necessity of the Virgin Birth
Satan was not afraid of the Son of God coming as the Son of God to defeat him, but as the “seed of the woman” – a man.
However, it was a very special man – a sinless man. Every human ever born is under the dominion of the devil, because of sin. But a sinless man would not only have the authority on earth as a human being, but also the devil would have no control over Him.
John 14:30 30 I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me.
Death and sin was passed from Adam through the fathers.
Romans 5:12 12 Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned–
If Jesus had a human father, he would have inherited the sin nature, and unqualified to be the spotless lamb of God to take away our sins. It’s an interesting fact that the baby’s blood type and characteristics come from the father’s genes. The baby’s and mother’s blood do not mix. Jesus’ blood had the characteristics of His Father.
Jesus was like Adam – He did not have the sin nature in Him, yet He did have the ability to sin. He is called the last Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45).
We already saw in Hebrew 4:15 that Jesus was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin. He could have. His hardest battle against temptation was in the garden of Gethsemane. He fought so hard that He sweat blood.
Do we discredit Jesus by saying He had a struggle to fight temptation? No, it makes our redemption even more wonderful.
If you take away the virgin birth, you remove His divinity. Remove His divinity, and He was just another good man and teacher.
Son of God, Son of Man
Jesus didn’t go around referring to Himself as the Son of God, but as the Son of Man. There are certain things that are attributed to Christ’s divinity, and certain things to His humanity.
John 20:30-31 30 And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book;
31 but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.
Peter in Matthew 16:13 had the revelation that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God. It didn’t take a revelation to see Jesus’ humanity, because it was standing in front of them. And it is believing in His divine origin that is a necessary part of our salvation.
John 8:23-24 23 And He said to them, “You are from beneath; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.
24 Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am [He], you will die in your sins.”
Jesus actually said, “unless you believe that I AM, you will die in your sins. He was relating to the name that God revealed to Moses at the burning bush: YHWH, I am that I am.
You’ll notice that many of these scriptures about Jesus’ divinity come from the gospel of John. John says that the things He wrote about was to convince us that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God.
John 5:25-27 25 Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live.
26 For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself,
27 and has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man.
Jesus’ power to resurrect believers and unbelievers comes from His divinity. But the authority to judge was given to him because He is a son of Man.
Remember in Luke 5 when Jesus healed the paralyzed man they let down through the roof? The first thing He said to him were “Man, your sins are forgiven you”. The Pharisees got upset about it. Who can forgive sins except God alone?
Jesus replied, “So that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”, and speaking to the paralytic, “Rise, take up your bed, and go home”.
Conclusion
So the next time you see images of the little baby Jesus lying in the manger, remember that it was an essential part of God’s plan of redemption.
Want to learn more about why God planned things the way He did? See my book, The Why Behind Redemption.
