Supernatural in the Birth of Jesus

The World's Christmas vs. The Supernatural Birth of Jesus

0:04 The following message was delivered on Sunday, December 22, 1991, at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. The vast majority of us are gathered here on this, the Lord's Day, because it is the Lord's Day. And we know that as it is His appointed day, it is both our privilege and our duty to obey the injunction of Scripture, forsake not the assembling of yourselves together. However, it's clear from the many things most of us passed in driving to this place, in terms of the unusual light arrangements on people's houses, decorations on their lawns, and if you pass by any stores, shop decorations, that as we meet on this Lord's Day, at His own command and gracious invitation, with His promise that He will be in the midst, that we do so once again in the midst of that madness called the Christmas season. And while there are yet some remnants of connection between the Christmas season and the Lord's Day, we know that we are not alone. We are not alone. We are not alone. We are not alone. We are not alone. We are not alone. We are not alone.

1:26 And the birth of Jesus of Nazareth in the world's celebration of Christmas, a connection we see occasionally in a creche on someone's front lawn or in some public building, or in terms of some of the carols that are still sung that have a little more biblical content than Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, or I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus. And there are even...

1:56 Even in some of the artwork that is, there is in some of the artwork seen in Christmas cards, a connection between Christmas and the birth of Jesus. There are at least remnants of that left. However, there is in all of the world's consideration of Christmas, whether there is or is not much connection with the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, a studious attempt to ignore, to distort, or flatly to deny the elements of the supernatural which stand like mountain peaks in the Bible's account of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Now, by the term supernatural, I mean that which is above and beyond the natural, ordinary patterns of God's working in His world. The supernatural...

2:57 The supernatural is present when God sets aside His own instituted, ordinary means of doing things. And to show that they are just that, His instituted means, controlled by Him, He can suspend them, set them aside, and work in a way from those ordinary means. And when He does that, you have the miracle or the supernatural. And it is my assertion that when we talk about the supernatural, when we turn to the two gospel records which give us a birth account of Jesus of Nazareth, that the supernatural is not simply there on the fringes, alluded to and hinted at and suggested, but the supernatural intrudes itself upon us as a... in both birth accounts of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Three Headings: Conception, Person, Mission

4:00 And if that is so, trust to demonstrate that it is, then any contemplation of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth is far from the Bible and therefore far removed from reality unless the supernatural element has center stage in our thinking, in our religious experience, in our praise, in our worship, and in everything that pertains to our relationship to the one born in Bethlehem's manger. And therefore I want to speak to you this morning on the subject of the supernatural in the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. And I propose to do so under three headings. The supernatural conception, the supernatural person, and the supernatural mission. And I think some of you can already see the relationship between those three.

5:08 The result of the supernatural conception is that there was constituted a supernatural person who was given the name Jesus at his birth. And the conception which resulted in that person was to the end that he might accomplish a supernatural mission. Even the mission of saving men from their sins. And the mission can only be accomplished by that unique supernatural person.

5:45 And he has constituted that supernatural person by means of the supernatural conception. So that these things, though distinct, are utterly inseparable, in fact, in the real world, one can know of the supernatural mission. The mission of Jesus, apart from dealings with that supernatural person, and there would be no such person apart from the supernatural conception. So we begin then with the supernatural conception.

The Supernatural Conception: Matthew's Account

6:25 When we take up the biblical record, what do we find? Please turn now to Matthew chapter 1.

6:34 Matthew chapter 1. And without poetic embellishment, without...

6:43 Without answering the hundreds of questions which men have and continue to raise about so many things pertaining to the birth records found in Matthew and in Luke, the Spirit of God moves Matthew to write the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise. This is the way it happened. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before them together, before them together, before there was any consummation of the marriage, before there was any tomb, flesh, union, she was spirit. She rises up before us like a mighty mountain. God says, if you stumble, read no further, every predicated upon supernatural event, a woman who has had no sexual intimacy with a man, in the marvel of producing children,

8:08 that there should be as the fruit of... that union of the husband and the wife, the amazing process of conception, which though understood and analyzed and the rest, is still to the one who beholds it something that he's tempted to call a miracle.

8:26 That, quote, miracle is God's ordinary way. But in this case, she is found with child not because of a relationship with Joseph, surely not because she was loose with a robe. She is found with a Roman soldier as some have blasphemously asserted, but she was found with child having conceived by a unique, once, only, nation of the Holy Spirit, never previously done, never subsequently done, the Holy Spirit.

9:01 Mary rises up like a mountain, and yet it's set forth in such a matter-of-fact way. The birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise. Mary betrothed to Joseph is found with child, of the Holy Spirit. And when Joseph becomes aware of this, and he's just troubled, wondering what to do, all he knows is that Mary is with child, and he wants to act righteously and sensitively to her.

9:33 The Lord appears unto him in a dream, verse 20, and what does he say? He explains his own action. Fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her, the holy or natural conception, God says what has happened. The angel echoes into Joseph's ears that that is precisely what has happened.

The Supernatural Conception: Luke's Account and Uniqueness

10:06 There was a supernatural conception. And the same emphasis is given to us in Luke's Gospel, chapter 1, in the passage read in your hearing, verse 26. The angel appears to a virgin in Nazareth, sent from God unto a city, the city of Galilee, named Nazareth, to a virgin. In the full, strict, technical sense of that word, a woman who had never been sexually intimate with a man.

10:43 And it says the virgin's name was Mary. Not just her name, but underscoring. It was indeed a virgin. And the angel speaks unto her in verse 30, Fear not, Mary, you have found favor with God.

10:58 You shall conceive in your womb, and bring forth a son. Then the angel tells her something about the uniqueness of that son she will bring forth. And Mary responds in verse 40, 34. Mary said to the angel, Me, seeing I know not a man, seeing I have not had sexual intimacy, I am a virgin, how shall I bear a son?

11:38 The most godly, knowledgeable Israelite would surely be aware of the unusual intervention of God in the birth of Isaac, through whom the promises made to Abraham found their next stage of fulfillment. And God did an amazing thing. Romans tells us Sarah's womb was as good as dead. She'd passed menopause.

12:01 She'd been menopausal for years. And it says Abraham's body as good as dead. Male hormones had shut down or what, I don't know. But it said, He could naturally father a child as much as a dead man pulled out of the morgue.

12:18 Dead womb, dead husband. What did God do? God performed the miracle of making Sarah premenopausal. Causing an egg to be fertilized, spurned.

12:37 Ah, but you see, it was God doing a miracle that His ordinary way of conception might occur in the case of Isaac. But never was it that God Himself came to a womb and by the Holy Spirit made conception without the two-one-flesh union. God had intervened and opened closed wombs in answer to prayer, the godly mother of Samuel. And in the case of her own cousin Elizabeth, she had the nickname, Barren.

13:10 It was a reproach in Israel to be barren. And her nickname was Barren. When she'd hear people refer to her as Barren. Who's coming to tea?

13:21 And God had done an amazing thing. Though they were well advanced in years and the hint is that she was probably postmenopausal. And a very miracle occurred in which God marvelously quickened the womb of Elizabeth and made it capable of receiving the sperm of her husband Zacharias and got John the Baptist. Miraculous intervention.

13:51 But God used His ordinary law. Once He elevated their powers that that law would be effective. But here, totally unique, and Mary's conscious of that. How?

14:10 She glanced and said, The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. Wherefore also the holy thing which is begotten shall be called the Son of God. In a unique way, in which no one else can be designated Son of God. The operation of the Holy Spirit in the mysterious, hidden dark depths of Mary's womb.

14:44 God did this most amazing thing He had never done before, had never done since. God Himself effected in Mary's womb the act of conception. Now with no obscure, mysterious or ambiguous language, both Matthew and Luke record the facts of a supernatural conception. And when we try to think of them in their simplest, most biblically accurate way, what should our perception of that supernatural conception be?

15:21 Well, let me state it in two very simple propositions. Number one, that a woman named Mary, who had had no sexual intimacy with any man in general, or Joseph, her husband to be, in particular, will conceive a child in her womb. That's what God announces. That a woman named Mary, who's had no sexual intimacy with any man in general, how shall it be, seeing I know not a man, husband to be, Joseph in particular, he's ready to put her away because he knows that whoever is the father of that child, he's not.

16:02 So the Scripture makes it clear, no sexual intimacy with any man in general or Joseph in particular, yet the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit will come upon her and she will conceive a child in her womb. And the second thing that the passages make clear is this, that this conception will be the result of the direct agency of God by the Spirit without any human intervention of any kind whatsoever. The conception will be the result of the direct agency of God without any human intervention of any kind whatsoever. She was found with child using the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit plus the Holy Spirit, period. The power of the Most High upon thee, that which is begotten of thee shall be called Son of God. The conclusion we are driven to in the light of this Biblical material, simply this, that the conception of our Lord Jesus Christ was a supernatural conception. That we, the fabric of our salvation,

17:28 the firsts of it in space, time, God, supernaturally, that is, pervades, stumbles, women, boys and girls, is such a mammoth undertaking that God elevation, it will be supernatural from beginning to end. And therefore, when God breaks into human history to bring the Savior among us, He does so in a manner that announces the whole salvation. It will be a supernatural salvation from its beginning to its end. And so the Christmas story, according to the only way where we can learn it, if we let it speak its own message in its opening paragraph to the fact of a supernatural conception. But then secondly, it points us to the supernatural person

The Supernatural Person: Emmanuel, Son of God, Eternal Word

18:54 conceived in Mary's womb. The supernatural person. The identity of that person is clearly established before He is born. It is established at His conception.

19:08 In Matthew 1, it is established that this person conceived in Mary's womb will be none other than God, which truth is embodied in that particular name assigned to Him by the prophet Isaiah, Emmanuel. Verses 22, and 23 of Matthew 1, Now all this is come to pass that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel, which is being interpreted God with us. Pointing to this which is reflected in that name of a virgin's womb impregnated by the power of the Holy Spirit. The supernatural conception producing the supernatural person who is none other than Emmanuel, God with us. Not with us by presence alone or with us in His immediate presence

20:36 by the Spirit, but with us in flesh and blood that can be touched and felt and eventually spat upon us and run and bruised and pricked with the crown of thorns and impaled upon a cross and laid in a dark, damp, borrowed tomb. God with us in true humanity. That He is a supernatural person is clearly asserted in Matthew's Gospel. He is Emmanuel, God with us.

21:09 He is according to Luke 1.32 Son of God. Luke 1.35b Let the language be more explicit.

21:21 The Holy God in the these shall be called the Son of God. The angel is not saying well people will be so amazed at His power and His miracles that they will think He is the unique Son of God. So that's what they'll call Him. Just like they call someone with red hair, other people names by what they appear and become.

21:47 No, no. The angel is saying He shall be designated this because that's what He is. Not He should be designated that because that's what people will make Him in their esteem and their affections. No, before there was any esteem or any affections directed to Him.

22:04 Before He is even formed in the womb the announcement is made. He shall be called, He shall be designated who He is. He is the unique Son of God. The eternal Son now made flesh.

22:21 This is borne out by John chapter 1. I want us to turn over, not to another birth record, but to a pre-birth record of this supernatural person. John 1 in verse 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.

22:44 The Word was in the beginning with God. To the echoes of Genesis 1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. In the beginning that God was simple, His own mysterious.

23:06 That God. Persons for lack of a better term we use the term persons. In the. And that God.

23:22 Created according to John 1.1 is the God who exists not only as the Father but as the eternal Word. In the beginning not the Word became but the Word was. And the Word ever was with God and the Word ever was God.

23:40 Was in the beginning with God. Things were made through Him and without Him was not anything made that hath been made. In Him was life and the life was the light of men. Now look at verse 14.

23:55 And the Word without ceasing to be anything He had always been. Eternal. Became. The Word.

24:13 Essential deity. God. Became something He had never been. He became flesh.

24:30 And dwelt. And we beheld His glory gotten of the Father full of grace. And truth. Now what do these passages tell us then about the constitution of His person?

The Incomprehensible Mystery of the God-Man

24:47 Here we encounter the incomprehensible the profound the impenetrable mystery. And as I reflected on it again this week and sought to do some extensive reading on the matter that I had not done before in some books that have been sitting on my shelf I was struck again with the fact that no wonder Paul said great is the mystery of godliness He who was manifested in the flesh. When you and I can with these little minds of ours comprehend the constitution of the person of our Redeemer when we can fully and fully encompass it with our grace then I'll believe you when you tell me that you just fit the Atlantic Ocean into your water pitcher that sits on your dining room table this afternoon. You kids say pastor that's ridiculous you can't put the Atlantic Ocean in a water pitcher and fill up or empty the ocean into one water pitcher. No you can't and neither can you take the ocean of the immensity and the magnitude of this mystery and fit it in your little pitcher head. But hold whatever you can and then behold the ocean with wonder and with praise and adoration and worship.

26:10 For as someone said faith and wonder in worship may swim where reason may only wade. Wade it as far as you can go and then swim in wonder in worship and in praise. But as best we can state it in the light of the biblical materials what do we say about this supernatural person Emmanuel God with us? Well let me again state it in two simple propositions.

26:48 Number one someone came to Mary's womb who existed from all eternity. Someone came to Mary's womb who had existed from all eternity. Who was that someone? The word was on which we in all God does not prove existence God does not explain God doesn't bother questions He does on the opening words of Genesis in the beginning God. Self existence self contained self fulfilled. From all eternity. Well as long as was God the word was the word.

27:55 In the beginning was the word and the word was with God the name flesh. Someone came into Mary's womb who existed from all eternity. Someone came into Mary's womb. Though there was a real conception and though there was all of that which if we could have examined it under a microscope would have matched the development prenatal development conception implantation the development of all of the various systems there would have been nothing to it that there was anything there but an embryo. But we know from Scripture you see I can in wonder that's why the Bible can speak about God not making His Son in the world but sending Him into the world. Galatians 4.4 When the full come

29:16 His made under the law God did before He was sent for the eternal word. God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin. Romans 8.4 And Jesus was conscious of His pre-existence.

29:44 John 17.5 Father glorify with the glory that I The man kneeling up his eyes to heaven in John 17 if he were kneeling says he lifted up his eyes doesn't say he kneeled and he prayed Father glorify with the glory which I into the world either he was a demented egomaniac or he had personal existence from eternity with the Father and there's no middle ground so don't say he was noble humanity and great teacher No! a demented egomaniac unworthy of respect let alone worship and adoration not to speak of following his words and his teaching that's why he could say again in John 6.38 I came down from heaven not to do mine own will but the will of Him that sent me he didn't say I had existence from heaven he said I came down from heaven that's pretty plain isn't it? I I was a person

31:11 existing conscious of my existence came down I went from one place to another with a distinct purpose not to do mine own will but the will of Him that sent me someone who existed from all eternity is none other than God the Son the eternal word the second person of the glorious mysterious God who is one in three and three in one and as you think of the Biblical account of Christmas the birth of Jesus fasten your faith on this simple statement someone came into Mary's womb who existed from all eternity then match it with this second statement someone came forth from Mary's womb who had no existence until the supernatural conception by the Holy Spirit and you say Pastor you're really getting me confused you say someone came and now you say someone didn't exist follow now I hope I've proved from Scripture the first one someone into Mary's existed from all eternity someone came forth from Mary's womb who had no existence until the supernatural conception by the Holy Spirit and that's true because what happened is

32:39 the eternal Son of God in Mary's womb took to Himself a true humanity a real human soul and a real human body were taken not in heaven but in Mary's womb and so to the eternal word that from the conception onward I say it reverently there was an alteration a most that hitherto had never never existed it existed in the mind of God in the purpose of God there were little foreshadowings of it the angel of Jehovah with good reason many believe those are pre-incarnate manifestations of the second person of the Godhead but that one of the persons of the Godhead should take to human soul human body so unite them for all eternity this is something that never existed until the conception in Mary's womb so what came out of Mary's womb well it says she brought forth first born sin in a manger what she brought forth

34:07 was the God of man what the theologians call the theanthropic person taking the two Greek words theos for God anthropos for man and they put the two together theanthropic one person nature yet one person and that not just for a year two ten thirty forever and forever never never to going back to being just the unincarnate word never shed that humanity but forever this redemptive activity and there's a beautiful statement of this in the shorter catechism what are some of the benefits of the shorter catechism and any good catechism this is one of them it takes great truths and states them with precision and question twenty one of the shorter catechism is who is the redeemer of God's elect and the answer is the only redeemer of God's elect is our Lord Jesus Christ

35:26 who became natures in one person forever that's it and you go beyond that and you're speculating fall short of that and you don't have the biblical doctrine of who Christ is the redeemer of God's elect the only one who could redeem us was this supernatural person this person our Lord Jesus Christ who being the eternal son of God became man in two distinct natures in one person and that forever the supernatural person someone came into Mary's womb who existed from all eternity someone came forth from Mary's womb who had no existence until the conception that is the God man Christ Jesus that's the result a supernatural person who is on the one hand just as much true man as though there were no elements

36:56 think of it as much a man as though there were no element of deity or divinity present that's why the bible is careful to emphasize the Lord could have cause to be conceived in Mary's womb an eight month fetus to give her a month to get used to that and get prepared for birth no the one who was conceived that which is conceived all the multiplication of cells that form the limbs and the blood system and the brain he passed through every stage therefore the bible says when they had to make their journey to Bethlehem she was great with child and when the time for her to be delivered came she was able to mark out her nine months on the calendar like any other mother and when she brought forth her newborn son and wrapped him in and laid him in a manger and tried to think how I could make this clear to you kids suppose there was a little Hebrew boy out taking a walk that night with his daddy before he went to bed and the crowds are milling remember there was no room in the ordinary hotel in the town so they had to go into what was probably a cave where they would keep the animals and there in the silence of that cave she brought forth her child this little boy was walking by

38:23 and saw some candlelight coming out of that cave and stopped to look in what would he have seen he would have said hey daddy look there's a young mother in there it would have been no halo to say oh look at that little baby ma'am how long you been born oh two hours look at him daddy he looks six months old that's the way most of the pictures present no he would have looked in there and said boy dad that's something imagine having a baby in the stall there with the cows and the goats that's something isn't it daddy and as they start walking away little piercing wail of the crying all the little boy would have seen is a baby only a baby just a baby nothing about him that would indicate that it's anything other than a young woman's baby that's what you would have seen and as he grew up if he stumbled out in the parking lot scraped his knee he had to come running in for a bandaid like any kid he didn't scrape off half his kneecap and didn't bleed so people look he didn't bleed he must be something special no no indication that's only found in what's called the apocryphal gospels people who took their fancies and wrote all this nonsense about Jesus doing all these weird things as a little boy that would bark him out as no there was nothing about him

39:52 that would give you any hint but that he was an ordinary man except it began to be evident very early he was no ordinary child an ordinary yes but no ordinary as he grew in wisdom grew in stature amazed the doctors of the law and the teachers in the temple and then Mary pondered pondered pondered reflected on the visit of the angel the announcement of her conception by the Holy Spirit that what she was bringing forth was the Son of God the heir of the throne of David Jesus who would save his people from sins and as Mary and Joseph compared notes surely they knew yes everything about him seems to be ordinary ordinary Hebrew childhood yet there is at work in him and manifested in him something that goes far beyond it he never fought with his brothers and sisters never snatched their toys away was never impolite never failed to express good manners never failed to express proper and appropriate social decorum but in terms of blood coursing through his veins development of his mind of his body of his spiritual and social grace as the scripture says he continued to grow and go on in advance in wisdom and stature in favor with God and man just as much a true man

41:21 as though no aspect of divinity were present but then we must balance it with this second statement he is and was and continues to be just as much God as though no aspect of divinity were present just as much God as though no aspect of humanity were present that's why Hebrews 1.6 says when he brings his first begotten into the world he said let all because thou shalt worship the Lord thy God in him only shalt thou serve he is afforded the worship of angels the angels themselves said unto you is born this day in the city of David a Messiah a Savior who is Christ Messiah it is none other than Jehovah incarnate and although veiled yet there are hints given some months later there are those hints that this is no ordinary child what did Joseph and Mary feel when the Magi came when Jesus was a young boy probably 18 months or so old and they've come all the way from the east following a star and receiving guidance by the word of God and they fall down

42:47 and they do homage to him they worship him they knew that this was no ordinary boy yet everything about him indicated he was an ordinary boy well he was just as much God as though no aspect of humanity were present and therefore that worship was received by him with the good pleasure of God and is recorded in scripture and when he grows into manhood he does things which even his fears said only God has a right to do that he forgave a man his sins and they said who can forgive sins but God only little did they know that they were making the confession of his Godhead long before the disciples did demons confessed it what have we to do with thee Jesus son of God have you come to torment us before our time they recognized in him the judge of the world the God who would dispose of them in hell in the day of judgment you see he did not cease to be what he had always been when he began to be what he never had been is it fast even now talking double talk he didn't cease to be what he always had been God when he began to be what he never had been true man he takes up he loses nothing of his Godhood it is veiled

44:14 the exercise of many prerogatives of it are voluntarily restrained but none of the essence of it is relinquished for God cannot be God if he changes in any facet of his own essential being I am the Lord I change not if he were to change he'd have to go from something good to bad or bad to good or from something good to something better and in any case such a being would not be God God is essentially and only good he can't improve and being good and being God he will never cease to be anything less than that and he is the fullness of all goodness and therefore he cannot increase to be something more than he always has been and if we can just take hold of those two simple statements we have the heart of the biblical teaching the one who came to Mary's womb is just as much God as though he had never taken humanity he is just as much a man as though he were not the incarnate God but then very quickly now these two birth accounts not only point us in the direction of a supernatural conception leading to the constitution

The Supernatural Mission: To Save His People from Sins

45:40 of a supernatural person but they make it very clear that he came on a supernatural mission and that mission is clearly identified with his personal name you see because we live in a totally different social structure with different backgrounds such things as names have a totally different significance when we're picking names we're either thinking of some uncle or some friend or something that rhymes or sounds good with our last name but rarely do we think of the name as being the distillation or the embodiment of the character we hope will be manifested in the child or the destiny of the child or something connected with the child's past but not so in the Hebrew setting the name had great significance when God changed many often changed their names to indicate that Jacob becomes Israel Prince with God no longer heel snatcher supplanter always finagling and wheedling and maneuvering and jockeying to get his way but he now wrestles with God and is overcome by God and made mighty with God and God says that other name will never do we've got to make him Israel now Prince with God well in this passage we read both passages both to Joseph and to Mary the Spirit of God through the angels said the same thing

47:09 she shall bring forth a son Matthew 1.21 shall call his name Jesus for that personal name a common name but he shall be given that name and in him supremely the significance of that name will find its unfolding and its realization call his name Jesus or he shall save his people from their sins the same thing is given to us in Luke 1.31 and in Luke 2.10 the Savior is Christ the Lord and Jesus simply means Jehovah saves or Jehovah is salvation or Jehovah saves and so had that name and many subsequent to our Lord would have it in him alone does that name find its truest, highest, noblest, valid expression he is what he is that he may do what he's come to do and what he came to do was to rescue his people what? not from the tyranny of Roman rule not from the inequities of the system of Roman slavery not from the horrible empire not from the wickedness of Roman paganism as a social movement to elevate society

48:33 the greatest enemy he shall save them from their sins not rescue them in but rescue them out of their sins he in his own person will do this work and the emphasis in the original is clear he it is not his church and certainly not people themselves with his help he shall rescue his people from their sins he it is that shall effect this super natural mission this mission rescuing people from their a real mission effecting doing it in what I like to call kingly grace and royal pardon he'll do it as the one who sits on the throne of David the savior according to angels is Christ of becoming our sovereign and he becomes our sovereign in the way of saving us from our sins but you say pastor why did it have to be a divine human person to do the saving

50:01 you've said that the conception led to the constitution of the supernatural person and that it took a supernatural person to effect that supernatural natural mission that's right you see if he were not God with unoriginated uncreated deity there would be no power to rescue a whole multitude whom no man can number out of every kindred tribe and tongue and nation only God can have an arm strong enough to rescue man from his sin only God has unlimited power only God has God-like grace and pity which it will take if any of us is going to be spared the terrible fires of hell it'll take more than man's love it'll take divine love and divine power to be operative and therefore the redeemer must have all of unoriginated uncreated deity but if he's to rescue us he's got to come where we were if we are ever to be credited with a perfect righteousness in heaven someone in our condition must perfectly obey the law if we're to be rescued from the just desert

51:23 of our sins and the punishment which justice demands someone must bear that punishment in our condition on our behalf in our place and that's why the scripture tells us he partook of flesh and blood he partook of the likeness of sinful flesh Paul says to what end that he might condemn sin in the flesh that is in his own flesh he might bear our sins Peter says in his own body up to the tree that he might in Romans 5 19 by his obedience effect the righteousness for us it had to be a human condition for the redeemer that he might in that condition keep the law on our behalf in that condition he might die on our behalf in that condition he might gather up a whole reservoir of what it means to be in the human condition and carry that reservoir of felt experience up into heaven that he might be a sympathizing high priest for in that he himself had succored being tempted he's able to succor those that are tempted to be a perfect savior he had to become a true man but to be an able savior he had to be true God

Application: Exposing Self-Help Religion and Calling to Christ

52:49 and thank our savior is both perfect and able and he's come on that supernatural mission to save a people from their sins well we've considered the biblical material that points us to the supernatural conception constituting the supernatural person who is here to effect the supernatural mission now then in my closing words of application I want to ask and then answer the question so what? what's all this say to me? well I want to make just two focused words of application and the first is this the facts we've considered this morning expose the sham and the worthlessness of all fix yourself up religion you hear me? the facts! we've been looking at facts this morning historical data witnesses who heard expose the sham and the worthlessness of all fix yourself up religion now the world today is full of fix yourself up religion people who undergo rituals and feel they're alright

54:16 people who are told look inward to yourself all of this glut of eastern religions dressed up in all kinds of fancy terms showing up in corporate boardrooms where eastern meditation is cloaked in all kinds of euphemisms and the thing that it has in common with all of it it means you just let it out tap into it lock into it get adjusted to it release it all of this it makes mockery of the manger they hails within you such indignities it self-harries whom

55:35 in a little throw out on channel third spewing out self-help fix yourself up religion under the name of pop and listen you can't have it both ways be prepared to walk out of here today and say everything pertaining to the birth and life and death of Jesus Christ is irrelevant nonsense I'll be my own savior but remember you gotta be ready to live with the consequences of that the consequences of finding if you're honest you can't be your own savior there's a God shaped hole in you that only God can fill and death is coming and judgment will follow death and you'll meet that risen Christ on the throne and then my friend it'll be all over the only other alternative is to say oh God if you went to all that trouble to effect that supernatural conception resulting in the constituting of that supernatural person who in turn lived

57:02 that supernatural life and died that horrible death and underwent that supernatural resurrection and ascension to the right hand of God then God you must take my sin very seriously if you went to all that trouble to deal with it righteously and justly and my friend you better accept God's estimation of your sin rather than your own or the world's because it's with God's estimation you'll have to do in the day of judgment and once a sinner begins to see what he really is as a sinner then what I've preached this morning is not detached theological abstraction to say there's hope for me how could it be that I who have defied God and disobeyed God and lived in indifference to God how can a holy God welcome the likes of me into his presence and the message of the manger is that God in love has come down to us in the person of his son having come down to us where we are that he might take us to where he is I was listening to a sermon of A.W. Tozer's the other day and one of his many striking statements he said now there are people that want to think themselves to God he says you can as well think your way up to God as you could climb to the moon on a moonbeam well I really got my head going I said can you picture this poor guy he sees a moonbeam

58:28 he says oh I'm going to climb to the moon I'm going to get up on the moonbeam oh I'm slipping off I'm going to how ludicrous to think you could do that he says you can climb to the moon on a moonbeam he says you can no more climb to the moon on a moonbeam than you can think your way to God but then my mind got going I said yeah but suppose there were creatures on the moon and they had the ability to take out of the bowels of the moon's surface the kind of materials that would make the most unusually strong advanced aluminum titanium ladder of some kind and they could actually make a ladder that could stand the stress of reaching from the moon to earth and I could climb to the moon put on a suit that would give me oxygen but I could climb to the moon on a ladder made of substantial stress restraining or stress maintaining metal and you know that's the gospel you can't climb to the moon on a moonbeam nice wispy thoughts about God and heaven no no but God has come from the moon to us and that ladder is his son who had the substance of real flesh and blood taken in Mary's womb and he is that ladder and that's a biblical imagery henceforth you shall see the angels of God ascending and descending upon the son of man I'm not climbing to heaven on a moonbeam I'm going to heaven

59:53 on a ladder made of the flesh and blood of the incarnate God flesh and blood and body in which he affected my salvation oh my unconverted friend it's time to blow away all of the mist of trying to somehow get on the crest of the Christmas spirit and milk a little sweetness out of the season your situation and mine needs much more than that it needs an enfleshed God bless God who from your sins if you'll go to him and have dealings with him away from all your sins will you save me that's the great message and the last is to you the Lord's people when's the last time these facts excited you to wonder to gratitude to love and to praise oh don't let the Christmas season pass and be so taken up in the legitimate concerns

61:13 of making the family happy and bellies filled and closets full of clothes and boxes full of toys that you don't pause to think the supernatural conception oh that supernatural person oh the mystery of his being the God oh the wonder of his supernatural salvation there was a hymn writer by the name of E.L. Schlecht I wouldn't know him if he was raised from the dead and stood before me but I know him in his words he caught something of the wonder of it he wrote my God my creator the heavens did bow to ransom offenders and stooped very low the body prepared by the Father assumes and on the kind Aaron most joyfully comes oh wonder of wonders astonished I gaze to see in the manger the ancient of days the angels proclaiming the stranger forlorn and telling the shepherds that Jesus is born for thousands of sinners the Lord bowed his head for thousands of sinners he groaned and he bled my spirit rejoices the work it is done

62:40 my soul is redeemed my salvation is won dear Jesus my savior thy truth I embrace thy name and thy nature thy spirit and grace and trace the pure footsteps of Jesus my Lord and glory in him whom proud sinners abhorred my God my God is returned to glory on high when death makes a passage then to him I'll fly and join in the song of all praise through his blood to three who are one in the essence of God and I am personally convinced that one of the mysteries that will stretch our minds through all eternity as God will let it out little by little by little is what happened in Mary's womb what now baffles us how can God take to himself a true human soul and body and God is still God and the man is man in two distinct natures yet united in one person forever yet Jesus bows his head and dies

63:59 oh my friend don't get hung up trying to press the Atlantic Ocean into your water pitcher embrace him as he's revealed in the gospel love him serve him be more devoted to him than ever before that others may know of his grace and salvation let us pray our Father again we stand amazed and even filled with a sense of holy confusion and yet we feel comfortable with that confusion for it reminds us that we are but creatures and sinful creatures we whose minds are dark and dim and yet we bless you for the revealed mystery and that faith may lay hold of it and find the forgiveness promised the salvation offered and oh God use your word today to blast at the dream bubbles of those who are enmeshed in self-help religion oh Lord bring them out to feel their nakedness their vulnerability to your wrath may they see there's nowhere to go but that refuge that is the cross

65:27 draw them to that cross today and we pray for your people that we would be filled with a renewed sense of how much we owe to him who though being rich yet for our sakes became poor that we through his poverty might be rich seal your word we pray to our prophet and to your praise we ask in Jesus name Amen