A Savior, Christ the Lord

"For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord"

- Luke 2:11

    There are several things about the birth of Christ that strike the modern reader as peculiar. One is the fact that He was born in extremely humble circumstances, to a poor family, in a stable, and laid in a manger. And this for the Son of God, the Savior of the world! And then there was the announcement to the shepherds. One would have thought that for an event of this magnitude that a press conference in Jerusalem, or even in Rome, would have been in order. But instead the announcement was made to a humble band of shepherds out grazing their flocks in the open field.
    What the angel told the shepherds was this: "For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord" (Luke 2:11). What did the shepherds understand by this? Undoubtedly they would have understood it in a Jewish context. Unfortunately our translation here is a little misleading. The King James Version translates the last clause of verse 10 as "which shall be to all people," universalizing the message, making it applicable to the entire human race. The Greek, however, has a definite article, and so it should be translated "that will be for all the people" (cf. NASV, ESV, NIV), i.e., referring evidently to one specific nation or people, viz., the nation of Israel. Moreover, when we see the word "Christ," we are likely to think that it is a last name, like "Jones" or "Smith," when in reality it is a title. It is the Greek form for "Messiah" or "anointed One." Moreover, the angel mentioned "the city of David" as the place of birth. The Old Testament prophet Micah had predicted that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem, David's home town (Mic. 5:2). David, in turn, was the ancestor of Judah's royal line. Thus the angel was announcing the birth of Israel's long-awaited Messiah, Who would deliver the nation from oppression and usher in an age of peace.
    But for those of us who are not Jewish by birth or ancestry there is a broader significance here as well. The reign of the Messiah will affect the entire world. It will be a time of perfect peace and righteousness. But how will that come about? What we have today is a world full of exploitation and violence, and all of this can be traced back to a fundamental defect of human nature. Obviously something is going to have to change.
    There are two aspects to this problem. First there is the problem of our guilt before God. If God is just and holy, He must punish sin. But we are all sinners, and have already committed numerous sins in the past. If we are made to pay for those sins we are doomed. But in order for God to forgive those sins some sort of atonement must be made, and this is what Christ accomplished on the cross.
    The second aspect of the problem is primarily psychological. We sin because we are born with a human nature that is predisposed to sin. One older woman of our acquaintance put it this way: "I have been a mother and now I am a grandmother, and I have never yet had to teach a child how to steal cookies!" Stealing comes naturally, and parents have to teach their children not to steal. Unfortunately lots of other things come naturally, too – lying, cheating, fighting, gossiping, and all the rest. But somehow that must all change if we are ever to enter the Messianic kingdom.
    Salvation, then, also involves an inward change, and this is largely accomplished through the work of the third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. This work begins with the new birth, and continues through the life-long process of sanctification.
    As human beings we lead a profoundly dysfunctional existence. The birth of the Savior in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago promises to change all that. It was the first ray of hope in the dark night of sin and misery. The long war is by no means over, but the decisive victory has already been won.

The Son of God

Lorenzo di Credi, The Annunciation, ca. 1480-1485

"For to which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee?" -- Heb. 1:5

 
    As we noted in our last blog post, Jesus claimed to be the Son of God. But what exactly does that mean? In what sense can Jesus be called "the Son of God"?
    The question is not an easy one to answer, for we are talking about a relationship that is totally unique. There is nothing like it in heaven or on earth, and there is nothing else to which it can be compared. We find ourselves in the position if trying to scrutinize the nature of the infinite being of God.
    Nevertheless there are a few things that can be said. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews in the New Testament is making the point that Jesus occupies a position of preeminence over every created thing. He is superior to both prophets and angels. To support that assertion our author quotes a verse from Psalm 2, which describes the future reign of the Messiah. In the psalm God is pictured as saying to the Messiah, "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee" (Ps. 2:7). But what does that mean?
    First of all, it does not mean that Christ was a created being, something less than God. For just a few verses earlier the author of the epistle had just said that Jesus is "the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature" (Heb. 1:3; NASV). It is a little hard to understand exactly what this means, but the way the early church finally came to express it was that the Son was "begotten of the Father as only begotten, that is, from the essence of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not created, of the same essence as the Father . . . " (Nicene Creed). In other words, Christ shared the same essential being as God the Father: He was indeed true God. Our text in Hebrews goes on to say that Christ is "upholding all things by the word of his power." Christ is not a part of created reality; He is a part of what created and sustains reality. He is God.
    But then what does our text mean when it says, quoting the psalm, "this day have I begotten thee"? The answer of the church fathers is that Christ is eternally generated from the essence of the Father. That may be true, but that is probably probing more deeply into the nature of God's being than we are entitled to go. The context in Hebrews, however, points to a specific event, viz., the incarnation: "And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, And let all the angels of God worship him" (v. 6). And the angel Gabriel told Mary at the annunciation, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (Lu. 1:35). Jesus, as the unique God-man, was conceived in Mary's womb, at a specific point in time, and was born in Bethlehem. In that sense He really was "begotten."
    The babe in Bethlehem, then, truly was the Son of God. He came down to earth from the Father in heaven with Whom He had dwelled from all eternity. He came and lived among us as a human being, but He spoke with all the authority of God Himself. This is why we need to be careful heed to what He said.
        "Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things
         we have heart, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if
         the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every transgression
         and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; How shall
         we escape, if we neglect so great salvation . . . ." ? -- Heb. 2:1-3

Born of a Virgin

"Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." Isa. 7:14
    We are now at that time of year when our thoughts turn to the birth of Christ, the "reason for the season," as we like to say. But what exactly are we celebrating at Christmas? Who was Christ, and what does His birth mean for us today?
    Who was Christ? Even His own disciples weren't exactly sure. It was obvious that He was no ordinary human being. But who was He? Or more to the point, what was He? He claimed to be the Son of God, but what does that mean?
    During the coming month we will examine some of the these issues in order to gain a better understanding of the significance of the birth of Christ. We will look at a number of passages of Scripture that describe the Person and work of Christ. Significantly, many of these texts were employed by George Frederick Handel in his famous oratorio Messiah.
    We begin with the fact of the virgin birth itself. And here at once we encounter the chief difficulty that the modern mind has with Christianity. Modern man finds it difficult to accept the idea of the supernatural. And yet according to the accounts given to us in the gospels of Matthew and Luke Jesus was born of a virgin: He had no earthly biological father. He was born of a virgin; He performed miracles; He rose from the dead. And His miracles and resurrection, at least, were attested by eyewitnesses.
    Jesus could do all of these things because He was God incarnate. The universe is not a closed system with a uniformity of natural causes. It is the creation of an eternal, all-powerful Supreme Being Who retains ultimate control over His creation. And Jesus performed His miracles precisely to assert His deity. He is the Lord of heaven and earth, and His miracles were a vivid demonstration of His divine power.
    The virgin birth was critical to all of this. If Jesus were the natural offspring of two biological parents, then He would have been no different from the rest of us – an ordinary human being. And if that were the case He could not have been the Savior of the world. His death would have been no more significant than that of any other great man in history who was killed in a noble cause – Lincoln, Gandhi, Kennedy or King. But Jesus was no ordinary human being; He was "Immanuel," which in Hebrew means "God with us."
    Some have questioned whether Isaiah 7:14 really predicts a virgin birth. The New Revised Standard Version, for example, translates the verse, "Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel." It is true that the Hebrew word used here ('almah) generally refers to any young marriageable woman. Hebrew has a different word (betulah) to refer specifically to a virgin.
    The immediate context calls for a child born in Isaiah's own time. The nation of Israel at that time was divided into two separate kingdoms: the northern kingdom, usually designated as "Israel" or "Samaria," and the southern kingdom which was called Judah. In 735 B.C. the northern kingdom, Israel, along with its neighboring ally Aram (Syria), invaded Judah. The prophet Isaiah approached Ahaz, the king of Judah, and told him not to fear. The Lord would give him a sign: a child would be born, and before the child would be weaned the two invading kingdoms would be destroyed. Isaiah has relations with a prophetess (Isa. 8:3) and a child was born. In 732 the Assyrians under Tiglath-pileser invaded, and Israel and Syria were effectively destroyed.
    But it is evident that there is more to the prophecy than just that. For Isaiah goes on in chapter 9 to describe another child, a child that would become a ruler, whose name "shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace" (Isa. 9:6,7). Amid all the chaos and turmoil that beset Israel, Isaiah had a vision of a coming Messiah Who would rule with perfect peace and justice.
    When Matthew, then, in the New Testament describes the birth of Christ, he declares that this was the fulfillment of the prophecy made in Isa. 7:14 (Matth. 1:22,23; the Greek uses the word parthenos, which does mean a "virgin"). What we have, then, is a double fulfillment of the prophecy. The initial fulfillment took place in Isaiah's own time, when a young woman gave birth to a baby boy. But in a much more remarkable way it was fulfilled by the birth of Christ Who was truly "Immanuel," literally "God with us." God had fulfilled His Word in a way that far exceeded even Isaiah's expectation!

PEACE ON EARTH

The Angel Announces the Savior's Birth

"They shall beat their swords into plowshares, / And their spears into pruning hooks; / Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, / Neither shall they learn war anymore."                                                     – Isa. 2:4b; NKJV
    During this Christmas season several news items came to our attention. One, of course, was the horrific shooting incident at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. But there was also an article in the Dec. 10 issue of Newsweek magazine about "Moral Injury," and more recently USA Today carried an interview with Grover Norquist about his steadfast opposition to tax increases (12/17/12). They all, in a curious sort of way, are connected.
    The big question in the wake of the school shooting is how to prevent future tragedies like this occurring again. One proposed solution is to outlaw military style assault rifles like the one used in the incident. The NRA will undoubtedly argue that it is not guns that cause violence, but the people who use them, and in one sense this is perfectly true. However the rifle in question is a military weapon – it was designed specifically to kill as many human beings as possible. No one is going to use it for deer hunting, for target practice, or for self defense. It has no legitimate civilian use. It makes no more sense to make it available to the general public than it does to put tanks and fighter bombers on the civilian market.
    Obviously more needs to be done to bolster school security. How was a heavily armed gunman able to enter an elementary school? For that matter, why did the gunman's mother leave her gun cabinet unlocked when she knew that she had a mentally disturbed son? But probably the most important thing we can do to prevent future attacks is to improve our mental health system. Almost all of these attacks are carried out by young, emotionally disturbed males, and their acquaintances knew this long before the attacks. We need to find a way to identify these people and get them help before they commit an unspeakable crime.
    The Newsweek article discussed the diagnosis and treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Up until now the standard view has been that it is a fear-based disorder – they live in constant anxiety of getting killed. But the counselors who have spent time talking with these GI's and vets say that a different story has emerged. What these combat veterans are suffering from is guilt – guilt over having killed innocent civilians or not having saved the life of a comrade. This has forced the military to face a deeply troubling question: is there something about killing that violates the human conscience? For the Christian the answer is obviously "yes." Human beings "show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness . . ." (Rom. 2:14-16). Even a hard-boiled atheist cannot escape this basic fact of human psychology. Either he must admit that the pangs of conscience reflect some sort of objective reality, or else he must hold that the conscience is irrational and that there is nothing inherently "wrong" about killing other human beings.

    All of this raises a serious question about America's foreign policy. Soldiers find themselves in these morally difficult situations because of the nature of the assignments given them. We send them overseas to put down an insurgency. But once there they find that it is often difficult to tell friend apart from foe. They all look alike, they all dress alike, they all speak the same incomprehensible foreign language. In the heat of the firefight, when the bullets are flying, it is inevitable that innocent civilians will be killed. The GI has to live with this on his conscience potentially for the rest of his life. It is no wonder that he is emotionally traumatized.
    Which brings us to Mr. Norquist. He was asked by business journalist Maria Bartiromo how he could say that taxes should never go up. His answer was, in part, "The federal government has been taking about 18% of GDP in taxes for the last 20, 30 years. That is more than sufficient to run a reasonably sized government."
    That all depends on what constitutes "a reasonably sized government." Tax rates are considerably higher in a number of European countries. What Mr. Norquist fails to mention is what the US government spends that money on: most of the budget is devoted to defense, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. What does Mr. Norquist think we should cut? Does he really think that the elderly should not receive medical attention? Reforms obviously need to be made to the major entitlement programs (a point seemingly lost on Mrs. Pelosi), but the fact remains that the U.S. spends 5% of its GDP on defense, more than France (3.2%), Britain (3%), Italy (1.8%), or Germany (1.7%). Wouldn't it make sense to bring our defense spending more in line with that of our NATO allies?
    We got Osama bin Laden. Isn't it time to say "mission accomplished," and bring the troops home?

    Which brings us at last to "the reason for the season," why Christ was born. War, violence, and murder have unfortunately been a part of human life since Cain slew Abel. Human society is fundamentally disordered, and death is the price we pay for our depravity. The only real hope for mankind is divine salvation. We need forgiveness, reconciliation to God, and inward cleansing. And to accomplish this a babe was born in Bethlehem.

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