Questions about the Babe in the Manger (John 1)

Introduction: The Galleries of the King and the Uniqueness of John's Gospel

0:03 The following sermon was delivered on Sunday morning, December 18, 2005, at Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. In what I regard as one of the most profoundly instructive books I have ever read, entitled The Abiding Presence, a book written by a Scottish preacher and theologian by the name of Hugh Martin, who lived and preached and wrote in the 19th century. In this book, Mr. Martin calls the four gospel records, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the galleries of the King, and he likens them to four different picture galleries into which we may walk. And there have these verbal portraits of our Lord in the name of the Savior, Jesus Christ. God has left us no accurate representation of the physical appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1:14 An amazing providence. We have reason to believe that we have reasonably accurate resemblances of well-known figures who lived before our Lord appeared on earth, but God so ordered all the affairs of providence that we have absolutely no representation of the physical appearance of our Lord Jesus Christ. We have absolutely not one bona fide, accurate, physical representation of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We don't know if he was 5'7 or 6'4.

1:48 We don't know whether he was stocky of build or whether he was lean and lanky. We don't have any certain knowledge whatsoever. However, God has given us these four physical representations. We have absolutely no one bona fide, accurate, physical representation of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

2:02 God has left us no accurate representation of our Lord in these four picture galleries in which, by means of words, our Lord Jesus Christ is set before us in all of the contours of his glorious person essential for our salvation, for our

2:23 imitation, for the stirring up of our love and the strengthening of our faith in the One whom we call our Lord and Savior. And that is the work we are called to do. That is the work we are called to do. In the name of the Lord and of the Savior.

2:32 Jesus Christ. Now, most of you are aware that it is only in the picture galleries of Matthew and of Luke that we have what we call the birth accounts or the birth records of our Lord Jesus. They are not identical. They are complementary. But only in Matthew 1 and in Matthew 2 and in Luke 1 and in Luke 2 do we have a record of those events clustering around the conception of our Lord in the womb of Mary, his birth, and his early history. When we open up the Gospel of Mark, by contrast, our Lord appears to us as a full-grown man embarking upon his ministry as that ministry is preceded through the preaching of John the Baptist. However, it is in the opening chapter of the Gospel of John that we are given specific

3:37 information concerning the most profound, the most mind-blowing realities relative to the true significance of the touching manger scene. While the accounts of Matthew and of Luke give us some answer to the question, we are not able to find the answer to the question. We are not able to answer the question. We are not able to answer the question. We are not able to answer the question.

3:59 These questions, who is really there in the manger? Why is he there in the manger? Though I say both Matthew and Luke in their spirit-inspired birth accounts, in their particular picture galleries of the King, give us some answer to those two vital questions, it remains for John, by the inspiration of the Spirit, to answer those two vital questions. To address those questions in a far more profound and deeper manner. And so, this morning, as we anticipate next Lord's Day being the day for good or for ill designated as Christmas Day, I want you to consider with me three questions concerning the babe in Bethlehem's manger. Three questions answered for us in the first chapter. Question number one, and here I invite you to turn with me to John's Gospel, Chapter 1, the passage from which I read some minutes ago.

Question 1: Did the Babe in the Manger Exist Before His Birth?

5:10 Question number one. It is this. Did the babe in Bethlehem's manger exist before his birth in Bethlehem? Now you all remember the account in Luke 2, where Mary and Joseph had died because of the decree to register for a forth coming taxation, because they had left their hometown in Nazareth. They Lived horizontal, pair of his birth in Bethlehem. Now, if this question were asked of you or of me, it would be a no-brainer question. While we understand that biologically and theologically

6:14 our existence begins with conception in our mother's wombs, we have no real bona fide registered existence on earth until amidst birth pangs or by the surgeon's skillful use of the knife in the case of a C-section we are actually brought into this world and then a certificate called a birth certificate is registered somewhere in the town, in the hospital, or in the home in which you were birthed and no one would ever think of coming to you when you lay there in that little bassinet in the birthing session of that hospital where you were born and there standing and stroking his face or her face and say, I wonder if little Johnny had any existence before I saw him there. I wonder if he had existence in a prior form, in some previous world. Now, if you believe the nonsense of reincarnation, for that's what it is, perhaps that question might have some validity, but for me, it's not. It's not.

7:26 For the most of us, it's a no-brainer. Were someone to ask of you or of me, did he or she exist before his or her birthday in whatever the place was where you were born, we'd say, of course I didn't. That was my birthday. I had my introduction into the world at that place at that particular time.

7:52 However, as we open up the gospel of John, we confront this question with these words that are God's answer. Look at them. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.

8:17 All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that has been made. In Him was the Word, and in Him was life, and the life was the light of men. Now, John begins his gospel with these two little words, en-ache, that is, in the beginning. And in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament Scriptures, when you would pick it up as a Greek to read it, and that was the working Bible of the world into which our Lord Jesus came, into which the apostles went with their preaching, you know what?

8:56 The first two words of that Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible were en-ache. In the beginning, both the Old Testament translation of the Hebrew Bible and John 1-1 begin with the same two words. They take us back to the beginning. That is, back to the point in which time is ushered into the realm of reality.

9:26 In the beginning, and then when Moses writes, in the beginning, he takes us forward. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, the first day, the second day, the third day. John begins his gospel with the words, in the beginning. But he doesn't take us forward, he takes us backward.

9:51 Look at the text, John 1-1. In the beginning, and your next word is, was. And here we need again a little Greek grammar. Not to be showy, but to understand the passage.

10:04 Four times in these first two verses, John uses a little two-word verbal form of the verb, I-me, which means to be or to exist. And the form he uses is the imperfect, which points to past, continuous action or existence. And so John writes, in the beginning, at the point where Scripture confronts us in Genesis 1-1, and we read the account of creation, at that point, something was already in place. In the beginning, the Word was ever in existence.

10:45 In the beginning was the Word. The Word had always been and continued to be in existence. In the beginning was, the Word. And the Word was with God.

11:02 And the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. Those four wases, W-A-S, all have the exact same form. They all point to the same reality of timeless, continuous, past existence.

11:24 And what are we to learn then, in answer to our question, did the babe in Bethlehem's manger have any existence before he appeared in that manger? Notice John tells us three very distinct things. Number one, the Word has existed from eternity. In the beginning was the Word.

11:48 He was and always had been in existence. To put it as simple as I know how, John is informing us, that there never was a time when the Word was not. Capital W. There never was a time when the Word was not.

12:16 Take your mind and use all of its powers to think back, back, back, and back, and back, and back, and back, as far as you can, to the vanishing sea. To the vanishing point, or to the point where you feel your brain is going to break under its attempts to think of never-ending existence. Existence that has no beginning. And at that point, the Word was.

12:46 There never was a time when the Word was not. In other words, had we been one of the shepherds who came and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in the manger, we would be gazing upon one whose existence is from eternity. In the beginning was the Word. Never was a time when the Word was not.

13:17 He has existed from eternity. Secondly, John tells us, he has existed from eternity as distinct from, and yet ever in close relationship to God. He has existed as distinct from, and yet ever in close relationship to God. Look at the text.

13:39 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was, the same verbal form, ever was, continuous past reality, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. With God. The Word was with God.

14:08 So we know that this One who existed from eternity, in the beginning the Word was ever in existence, and yet He existed distinct from, and yet in close relationship to. He is not all that God is. He is with God. He is distinct from, and yet in ever close relationship.

14:32 The preposition pros points to closeness, affinity, nearness. And so this One designated the Word, who was in the beginning. This Word was with God. Ever stood in this close intimate relationship with God, and yet thirdly, look at what John tells us.

14:54 He has existed from eternity, as a distinct person within the Godhead, possessing all of the stuff of deity. And the Word was, same verbal form, the imperfect of the verb I ME, and the Word ever was, never a time when He was not God. Well, we just said He was with God, so He is distinct from, and yet near to, and yet we are told by John, the Word was God. All that makes God, God the Word, more literally, and God ever was being. Now the Word by Himself, does not make up the entire Godhead, for how could He, if He did, be with God? If all that constitutes God, God is in the Word, there'd be nothing left for the Word to be with. Are you following me?

16:02 So He does not constitute all that the Godhead is, but all that makes God, God in Himself. The Word Himself does not by Himself, make up the entire Godhead. Nevertheless, the divinity that belongs to the rest of the Godhead, belongs to Him also. That's the way one of God's servants has so beautifully and accurately expressed it.

16:31 Then in a master stroke of summary and affirmation, look at verse 2. The same, not some other, not someone like, but this very one, a demonstrative pronoun, this very eternal Word, was, here we are again, the same form, was ever in the beginning with God. Unless there be any sense that people would see in the Word some transferal of all being of God into the Word, and thereby deny the mystery of the reality that within the one God there is Father, Son, and Spirit. He comes back and emphasizes again, this very one was, ever, always, had been in the beginning with God. God, but with God. In the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God.

17:29 And the Word was God. Now as the chapter unfolds, and the whole Gospel record of John unfolds, this gallery that John paints by the guidance of the Holy Spirit has a distinct end in view. And John is conscious of it, and everything he writes, he's driving towards it. And what is that end?

17:53 He tells us in the 20th chapter. At the end he says, this is where I hope everything I've written will bring you. John chapter 20 and verse 30. Many other signs therefore did Jesus in the presence of the disciples that are not written in this book.

18:12 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, that is, that he is the Messiah in his office and function, God's final prophet to teach us, priest to forgive and intercede for us, king to rule over us, the Christ points to his office and his function, the Son of God points to his identity. He is God the Son in his person. And John says, I've written what I've written that you may come to believe these two realities, that Jesus of Nazareth in all that I've written of his actions and of his words would persuade you that he is indeed God's final anointed Messiah, he is the prophet, the priest and the king. He is in his person the Son of God and that believing what? Believing this, that indeed he is God's prophet to teach you, God's priest to offer a sacrifice for the likes of you, God's king to rule over you, and that believing this and that he is God the Son, that he is indeed nothing less than God incarnate, the Word made flesh. Believe in these realities, you may have life in his name.

19:37 And then we have the beautiful picture right in this chapter of someone who comes to this faith. You remember Thomas after the resurrection and he says, I will not believe until I actually see his so-called resurrected form. You're all telling me you've seen him. I've got to see, I've got to touch.

19:57 And then when the Lord presents himself what happens? Look up further in John chapter 20. Verse 27, Then he said to Thomas, Reach hither your finger, see my hands. Reach hither your hand, put it in my side.

20:11 Be not faithless but believing. Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God. This wasn't an exclamation like the people on Antiques Roadshow brought in what they thought was a piece of junk that they got for 50 cents in a yard sale and find out it's worth 50,000 and so many of them profanely say, Oh my God, oh my God. This is what the Russellites, the Jehovah's Witness, do with this passage.

20:39 Jesus would not pronounce blessing upon people who break God's commandment. Thou shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. Look what Jesus said to Thomas. Jesus said, Because you've seen me and have believed.

20:52 Believed what? That I am indeed the Lord from heaven. I am indeed your true and proper God. Blessed are you, Thomas.

21:02 You've seen and you believe. Blessed are those who've not seen and yet have believed. We open with this question. Does the babe in Bethlehem's manger have an existence prior to the manger?

21:19 And the answer of Scripture is unmistakably clear, yes. He has an existence from eternity, an existence as God Himself. Now that's the great offense. People cannot have a God who makes His entrance in a manger and makes His exodus by a cross.

21:46 They want something more grand, more suited to their taste of what God should be like when He comes among us. But the Scriptures tell us the eternal Word appears. He appears in a manger and He is ultimately hung upon a cross. This is why throughout His ministry Jesus had no trouble using this language.

22:13 John 6.38 I have come down from heaven not to do My own will but the will of Him that sent Me. In His high priestly prayer in John 17 He says, Father, glorify Me with the glory that I had with You before the world was. Jesus knew the truth of John 1.1.

22:34 He was there before the world was. He says, I had a glory with You in the beginning. The Word was and always had been in existence sharing the very glory of the Father. And without any presumption He prays that He may be restored to that state of glory.

22:53 You cannot fawn over the babe and say, isn't this touching, if you're not prepared to bow and worship Him as God. God doesn't need your fawning accommodation because it's Christmas time. And you like the thought of the manger scene. This is the eternal Word ever with God, towards God, God Himself.

23:20 Well, second question is this. If we've answered the first biblically and I believe we have, does the babe in the manger have an existence before the manger? Yes. The eternal existence of God Himself and the existence of God Himself.

Question 2: What Did the Eternal Divine Word Do to Be Found in a Manger?

23:35 Question two. What did the eternal divine Word do in order to be found in a manger at Bethlehem? What did the eternal Word do, this divine being, what did He do in order to be found in a manger at Bethlehem? Well, after telling us more about the Word in John 1, 3 to 5, then there is a shift of focus to a mere man.

24:08 Look again at our text, John chapter 1. Having told us about the eternal Word through verse 5, then we come to verse 6, there came a man. We've been dealing with one who is Theos, God. Now we come to one who is Anthropos, mere man.

24:29 There came a man. You see, the contrast is vivid, particularly in the original. There came one who was but a man, sent from God, but a mere man whose name was John. And we're introduced to John, and then we learn some more things about the Word and His appearance among men and how men responded to Him.

24:51 And then we come in verse 14 to this amazing Word. And the Word, the one described in the opening five verses, in the beginning with God, in the beginning towards God, God Himself, this Word became flesh and dwelt among us. This Word became flesh. And in this context, and in the writing of John, the use of the word flesh here means real, complete, ordinary human existence.

25:35 It means to possess, an ordinary, normal human body and an ordinary, normal human soul. Sin is not ordinary and normal. It's ordinary and normal for us because of its intrusion in the Garden of Eden. But when God made man after His own image and His own likeness, He made Adam and Eve with what the old writers would call a reasonable, a thinking, a rational soul, and a true body, and yet they were utterly sinless.

26:11 Sin, though it is a part of our experience, and we know of none around us without it, we must never think sin is normal. It is a wretched, twisted, perverse intrusion of abnormality into humanity. And when the Scripture tells us the Word became flesh, it is telling us that this eternal Word actually took to Himself all the components of a real, sure enough, flesh and blood, thinking, feeling, willing, rational soul and body. Unlike angels, who are described in Hebrews 1.14 as ministering spirits, to whom God gives human faculties and even human appearance for specific tasks, the Word did not take an angelic form for a time. You remember, when God wants to visit Abraham and talk to him about this whole matter of Sodom and the judgment, three men appear. And as far as Abraham knows at first, they're just three men. They are angels to whom God gives corporeal existence, seems to give them some temporary embodiment that for all intents and purposes, it's three men.

27:34 Now we discover later that one of them is an unusual angel. But nonetheless, this angelic form has all the appearance of manhood. But it's not their permanent possession. Angels are fundamentally ministering spirits.

27:51 This room has some angels. I don't know how many. I don't know particularly what their functions may be. But they are present, beholding us.

28:02 They are conscious of what we are doing. And if God wanted an angel to help take up the offering today, He could have given an angel a body that you would not go, like this. You just, oh, they got an extra usher there. I never saw that guy before.

28:16 Fine. Sometimes they take on such an appearance that is qualitatively different from ordinary humanity that startles and strikes fear. That's why so often when an angel appears, he's got to come with a message, don't be afraid. When the angel appeared, Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and to Joseph, his first words were, don't be afraid.

28:39 There's something intimidating when an angel is given an appearance other than an ordinary human being. Some kind of bright effusion of glory that bespeaks a heavenly visitor. But in the case of our Lord Jesus, the text says the Word became flesh. He took not temporary angelic life, but He took real human form, unadulterated, un-elevated, true humanity.

29:14 And we find this clearly taught in such texts as Hebrews 2.14, Romans 8.3. Let's look at them for a moment.

29:22 So you'll know that I'm not extrapolating more from John 1.14 than I ought to. Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 14. Since then, the children are sharers in flesh and blood.

29:40 He also himself in like manner partook of the same, that through death he might bring to naught him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all them who through fear of death for all their lifetime subject to bondage. What are we composed of? Flesh and blood. We've got real sure enough, touchable, tangible, healable humanity.

30:07 He partook of the same, became one with us in our humanity. Romans 8.3 says, For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of flesh of sin. In other words, there is a sense in which He takes not even what we would call the appearance of innocent, uncursed, Adamic flesh and blood, but He takes the likeness of sinful flesh, weakness, weariness, subjected to death, something that was not true of Adam in his innocence.

30:51 And though our Lord, and we must defend it with blood, was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, in the language of Hebrews 7, He takes a likeness to us in our present state. Or in the language of Philippians 2, let this mind, this disposition, this governing, ruling attitude of heart be yours that was in Christ, who, existing in the very form of God, fought not equality with God, a thing to be selfishly retained, but emptied Himself, taking, subtraction by addition, He emptied Himself, taking, and what did He take? The form of a servant. And being found in fashion as a man, taking the form of the servant, He places Himself squarely in our human condition. And this is why when the angel visited Mary and then spoke to Joseph, He used such language, you will conceive in your womb, He says to Joseph, that which is conceived in you.

32:06 As our existence as human beings begins in our conception, He is so identified with us that in the mystery, and I cannot draw near to it without feeling such pressure upon my mind that I say, no Lord, I can't think upon it, yet I must. You will conceive in your womb. When were you conceived? When the little wiggly-tailed sperm invaded an egg, and that fertilized egg began to multiply in cells.

32:43 And over a period of nine months, and with the modern technology, the pictures that they have of inter-uterine development, amazing. Next time you see one of those books, say, Jesus was at that stage. Jesus was at that stage. Jesus was at that stage.

33:03 Jesus had an umbilical cord attached to Mary, and as she ate what she ate, nourished the eternal Word. He became flesh. That's why the Scripture says that she was great with child. Mary had stretch marks on her belly like any mother.

33:26 Mary felt quickening like any mother. Mary felt the punching. And the gymnastics in her tummy like any mother. The Word became flesh.

33:39 Came to us starting with our condition and our mother's wounds. And the Scripture says she brought forth her firstborn. She felt her waters break. She felt her contractions increase.

33:55 She groaned. She moaned. She may have cried out. And then she heard the infant wail.

34:07 And she rejoiced. The Word became flesh, folks. True humanity starting with conception. Yet look at the text back in John 1.14.

34:17 It is the Word that becomes flesh. Not something less than the Word. Not the Word stripped of something of all that He had ever been from eternity. But the Word in all that He is is God without diminution or dilution.

34:43 The Word in all of His Godness. He takes to Himself a true human soul. A true human body in the womb of the Virgin. So that while we read in John 1.1 all things were made by Him. Without Him was not anything made that has been made. What was in Mary's womb the Creator of all millions of galaxies. Now in Mary's womb nourished by an umbilical cord.

35:21 Hebrews 1 says describing our Lord upholding all things by the Word of His power. That little curled up object with little things like flippers at that early stage of development was upholding the universe. The Word became flesh. He didn't cease to be anything.

35:44 He had always He was as much the Word in Mary's womb as He was when untold millions of angels bowed and worshipped Him before He ever chose to come to Mary's womb and take our humanity into union with Himself. It is the Word that became flesh. And it is this wonderful mystery of the Logos, the Creator, assuming our nature, that our forefathers felt was so critical to the Gospel that they spent months hammering out what the Scriptures taught. They came up with such marvelous confessional statements and creedal statements such as the Nicene Creed and I quote, speaking of Christ, who for us men in our salvation came down from heaven, incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary and was made man. And then that great champion Athanasius against the Arians and I quote, He is God of the substance of the Father existing from all eternity. The original says that He was God of the substance of the Father begotten for the worlds, before the worlds,

37:13 a term that confuses some. Man of the substance of the Father of His mother, born in the world, perfect God and perfect man, a reasonable soul and a human flesh subsisting, equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, inferior to the Father as touching His manhood, who though He be God and man yet He is not two but one Christ, one, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the manhood into God, born all together, not by confusion of substance but by unity of person. For as the reasonable soul in flesh is one man, so God in man is one Christ. A.W. Tozer used to say nothing thrilled him more than reading those old creeds on his face before God.

38:09 That's who He is. When we ask the question, does the babe in Bethlehem's manger have an existence before the manger? Yes, as the eternal Word. Well, how does the divine eternal Word then end up in the manger at Bethlehem?

38:26 And the answer of John is the Word became flesh and so constitutes the One whom we identify as our Lord Jesus Christ, as much God as though He never took true humanity, as much a man as though He was not taken by true Godhead. God and man, as the Shorter Catechism so beautifully states it, who is the Redeemer of God's elect? The only Redeemer of God's elect is our Lord Jesus Christ who being the eternal Son of God became man and so was and continues to be both God and man in one person and two natures forever. Well, that brings us to question number three. Why? Why?

Question 3: Why Did the Eternal Divine Word Become Flesh?

39:21 Did the eternal divine Word become flesh and dwell among us? Why? Why such an astounding, mind-boggling, heart-overwhelming truth? Why? Why?

39:40 Well, many answers are given in the Scriptures and the answer to that question is not simple but complex. It's not a one stranded answer but a many stranded answer but the foundational answer to which all others relate and out of which all others flow is the answer given to us in John chapter 1. John chapter 1. Remember the two dominant figures in John 1 in the opening part of that long chapter?

40:11 The eternal Word and the man sent from God named John. And John is introduced in verse 6. Then in verses 19 to 28 we read it this morning. John bears witness about himself, who he is, who he is not.

40:28 He's very clear about who he is. But then we read on the next day, verse 29, John sees Jesus coming to him and said, Behold, look up, fasten your attention upon the Lamb of God that takes away, that picks up and carries and thereby takes away the sin of the world. We read in verse 35 again, on the morrow, John was standing and two of his disciples and he looked upon Jesus as he walked and said, Behold, you missed it yesterday, I give it to you again today, the Lamb of God. The question, why did the eternal divine Word become flesh and dwell among us? The answer is the Word made flesh is made thus to be God's Lamb. To bear away the sin of the world. There is no biblical rationale for the manger apart from the cross.

41:35 It is only the cross that exegetes the manger. The Word is made flesh to what end? That He might be the Lamb of God to bear away the sin of the world. John is speaking to Jesus, for whom the concept of sin and Lamb was indelibly embedded upon mind and spirit.

42:04 The whole Jewish religious worship system centered around the offering of lambs and of other animals, but supremely lambs. Lambs to whom the worshipper would symbolically transfer the guilt of his sin by laying his hands upon the head of the Lamb, confessing over it his sin, and then the priest would slit the throat of the Lamb and take its blood and do the appropriate actions. Lamb of God embedded in the minds of these Jews was the concept of bloody sacrifice as the bridge between sinful man and a holy God. Embedded.

42:47 So when John pointed to Him and said, Behold, look at, consider, let your gaze be filled with this one who is the Lamb of God who bears away the sin of the world. It conveyed but one thing, that Jesus was God's final fulfillment of that towards which every bleeding, bleeding Lamb pointed throughout all the centuries of their experience from the time God gave them the sacrificial system. It was pointing to the blessed reality that in Jesus God would bear away, look at the text, it doesn't say the Lamb of God who bears away the sins, plural, but the sin. It views human sin as one mountain of accumulated guilt and wrath deservingness. And this one Lamb will bear it away for whom, look at the text, the sin of the world. Not just the sin of the repentant believing remnant in Israel, but the sin of the world.

43:56 If anyone in the world will ever have his or her sin righteously taken away according to God's provision, it will be taken away by this Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. Now John has a strong note of what we would call particularism with respect to the atonement of Christ in this very Gospel. He records the Lord Jesus saying, I lay down my life for the sheep, and shortly thereafter saying to the same people in the same group, some of you are not my sheep. Yes, there is a particularism taught in John's Gospel and in all of Scripture, but this text says, behold the Lamb, God's Lamb, who bears away the sin of the world. In the same way, John writes in 1 John 2, 1 and 2, My little children, these things I write unto you that you may not sin. If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, and He is propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but for the sins of the whole world. That is, there is no one in the world whose sin will ever be righteously taken away apart from God's Lamb, God's propitiatory offering, God's offering that turns away

45:24 His wrath. And John points those who are in His presence to the incarnate Word. And there we have the answer to the question, why did the eternal Word become flesh and blood and dwell among us? He did so primarily that He might be God's Lamb to take away human sin, and that's why we read in Hebrews 2.14 that He took upon Him flesh and blood like us. Why? That through death He might destroy him that had the power of death and deliver those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. You read Hebrews chapter 10, and I like to think of them as the last words Jesus spoke when He left the immediate presence of the Father.

46:15 It says, quoting from Psalm 40, A body you have prepared me. A body you've prepared for me. He is conscious that the Father is preparing the body in Mary's womb. To what end?

46:29 That He might do the will of God. And what was the will of God? That He lay down His life in the fullness of the time. Christ came.

46:38 Why? Galatians 4 tells us that He might redeem them that were under the law. And how does He redeem? Chapter 3, Christ redeems by becoming a curse for us, God's Lamb, to whom our sins are imputed.

Summary of the Three Questions and the Eternal God-Man

46:54 And when they are laid to His charge, God comes forth, robed in all of His glorious robes of perfect justice. And in court, God deals with the Lamb, and His fury is vented upon His Son, until the Son cries amidst the blackened heavens, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? So there's our three simple questions standing by the manger. Did the baby in that manger exist before His birthday in Bethlehem?

47:29 And the answer of Scripture is unequivocal, yes. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Question 2, what did the eternal divine Word do in order to be found in the manger? Verse 14, the Word became flesh.

47:49 Think of it. He took to Himself our humanity, never, never to relinquish it. While the Word continued to be what He ever had been, in Mary's womb He begins to be something He never had been, the God-man. But having become the God-man, He'll never relinquish that identity.

48:12 And so when John has his vision of heaven and eternity, what does he see? He says, I saw the throne of God and of the Lamb. And if the glory of God is revealed in the face of Jesus Christ, and I don't want to tread where Bible doesn't lay my bricks, but if God is a spirit in His very essence, and the Father has no physical form, and the Scripture says we shall look upon His face, and the glory of God is revealed in the face of Jesus Christ, could it be that in the eternal state when we have our glorified bodies with eyeballs and retinas and optic nerves, no degeneration in them, no macular degeneration, no torn retinas, no eyeball surgeries, but there'll be eyeballs with retinas and optic nerves registering on resurrected glorified brains, what will we see when we behold God's glory? I'm prepared to say I think essentially what we'll see is the glorified God-man Jesus. And in Him, all of the effulgence of God's glory will break in upon our renewed and perfected minds and souls and bodies, and we shall worship God

49:41 and the Lamb forever. The Word became flesh. The old writers used to say there's a man in the glory who carried with him up to heaven all of the memories of what it was like to be a man on earth in a body like unto ours, susceptible to weakness and weariness and hunger, a soul like ours, susceptible to grief and joy and pity and disappointment and excitement, all of these emotions described as you walk through the galleries of the King. And there in heaven, what did John see in that vision in Revelation chapter 5? He said, I saw a Lamb in the midst of the throne as it had been slain. The Lamb lives, and yet it's a Lamb as though it had been slain. Could it be that the only scarred body in heaven is going to be that of Jesus?

50:44 That forever and forever we'll be able to look upon the marks by which our redemption was secured? No wonder Luther wrote, by this our love is won. He takes what he didn't need. What did he stand to gain?

51:01 Leaving the presence of the Father, one with the Father in the Spirit in all of his eternal, delightful, inner Trinitarian communion and love and fellowship, the object of the adoring worship of innumerable angels and cherubim and seraphim and archangels. What in the world did he stand to gain? To stand to gain by coming to Mary's womb and to Bethlehem's manger? It's the only way he could gain us.

Pastoral Application and Call to Faith

51:36 Not only is it true God so loved, but the eternal Word so loved that he does all of this that he might become the Lamb that takes away the sin of the world. Oh, my friend, sitting here this morning, if the Spirit of God does not set before you the wonder of this and you say, what a stupid fool I've been, what in the world am I living for? What in the world am I giving my time and my energy and my life for? Well, there is one so worthy of my trust and my love who loves so much that he would come from heaven, take to himself a true human soul and body, subject himself to privation and poverty and misunderstanding and cursing and beating and death and then the wrath of God himself all for what? In pursuit of the salvation of sinners the likes of you. And through his Word and by his servants he says to you personally, come unto me and I will give you rest. Him that comes to me I will in no wise cast out.

52:50 May God grant that at this season of the year when we are forced to some degree to think in some way or another about the babe in Bethlehem, Bethlehem's manger, it will stop and ask those three simple questions. Did he have any existence before then? Yes, he did. How did he get that existence?

53:14 The eternal Word became flesh. And why did he do it? That he might be the Lamb to take away the sin of the world. Let's pray.

Prayer

53:25 Our Father, when we try to think, let alone attempt to speak of these mind-stretching, heart-humbling realities, we feel that we stumble and we mutter and we babble. But, O God, may your Holy Spirit take your Word and by his mighty energy open eyes and open hearts to behold something of your glory in the face of Jesus Christ. And may there be some who this day like those shepherds of old, be found worshipping, like the magi worshipping the young boy in the house several years later. O God, may we all be found in that posture, worshipping, praising, pouring out heart in adoration and devotion, an unreserved surrender to him who is born a King. Seal your Word then to our hearts and may your name be praised as you work in us.

54:47 By that Word, for Jesus' sake. Amen.