HOLY THOUGHTS AT CHRISTMAS TIME
“And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory” – Paul, 1 Timothy 3:16.
God is not going to fit into our test tubes. He is not going to be understood by our logic. He is transcendent. He is made of nothing, for He is not made. He exists! He has always existed. He will always exist. He exists now as He has always existed: omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent! He has never changed. He will never change. He was Almighty, He is Almighty, He will be Almighty. He is “I Am.”
He owes nothing to anyone. He is not obligated to answer any question or suffer the rebellion of a rogue creation. Being merciful, He is always generous and gracious. He is always redemptive, even at the expense of His own suffering. He is the most complicated being in the universe, but He is the most simple. His essence is revealed and manifest, not in the science lab or the schools of higher learning, but in the hearts of men and women of faith.
How sad that multitudes of Christians will live their whole life on earth without once having had a life-changing moment of worship in the presence of God. Few have sat beneath His creation to consider the power of the Godhead or contemplated the significance of man, causing God to leave His holy celestial throne to redeem and rescue such an ungrateful creature. Our lack of regard for the God who made us has come at a steep price, and today, we are witnessing it in real time – the absolute collapse of our society.
We trifle with such unspectacular playthings when the Spectacular is all around us being revealed and disclosed. We are so occupied with reaching the stars that we don’t see the One who made the stars. We are so obsessed with green energy that we have robbed ourselves of the energy and power that created everything. We are occupied with building a better telescope to discover something about the dirt on Mars when the incomprehensible, unfathomable, self-existent One is waiting for us to believe that He is. Yes, send your telescopes into space, but not to examine dirt – discover the Creator. Stand in awe of His power.
God is everything and man is nothing. Our insistence in changing the incorruptible God into the likeness of corruptible man is to lose all light, all understanding, and all hope. It is catastrophic when we indulge ourselves in the false worship of God: we trade light for darkness, we lose the Voice of moral clarity, and we redefine the reason for our existence. Through false worship, we change God, not actually, but in our minds and our worship. We change His truth to suit our desires. Eventually, we have a god in our image and create worship that pleases us.
It is insane for men to change the image of God in their worship. They do this to their own demise. Man is but the echo of the original Voice. Take the Voice away, and we have nothing to say. Man is but a reflection of the uncreated Light. If we lose the light, we can no longer see. God is everything. Man is anything at all because of God. God is the cause. Without God, man is not. Without man, God is. He is unchanged, undiminished, completely perfect.
Man is nothing without God. Jesus said without me, you can do nothing. Everything we have is borrowed, from the air we breathe to the intellect we boast of. For all his genius, man is but an echo of the original Voice, a reflection of the uncreated Light.
This God came to us. We sat in darkness, and the light arrived. Finally, we could see. It is time to look upon Him.
JESUS IS GLORY
“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” John 1:14.
Jesus Christ is the final exegesis of all truth. He is all that we need to know about God, and He is all that we need to know about man. He is the appointed heir of all things. He is the final and all-inclusive Word of the Father. Begotten not made. Incarnate but not incapacitated. He is the Creator of the heavens and the earth. He is the BRIGHTNESS OF THE FATHER’S GLORY but not excelling the Father and not more than the Spirit. He is the EXPRESS IMAGE of the PERSON of God.
A number of prominent literary men were assembled in a clubroom in London one day a number of years ago. The conversation veered to a discussion of some of the illustrious figures of the past, and one of the company suddenly asked: “Gentlemen, what would we do if Milton were to enter this room?”
“Ah,” replied one of the circle, “we would give him such an ovation as might compensate for the tardy recognition accorded him by the men of his own day.”
“And if Shakespeare entered?” asked another. “We would arise and crown him master of song,” was the answer.
“And if Jesus Christ were to enter?” asked another. “I think,” said Charles Lamb amid an intense silence, “we would all fall on our faces.” – King’s business.
JESUS IS TRANSCENDENT
Jesus is transcendent, as is the Father and the Holy Spirit, for God is One. He is the expressed image of the Father. This means He is beyond and above the range of exceptional and supernatural. He is the Great Existence, existing apart from and not subject to anything else and deriving His essence from no one, nowhere, at no time, existing apart from time, space, and matter. He is, therefore, Immanent, meaning He is pervading and sustaining the universe but not sustained by it.
He is Surpassing – not just above, not just beyond, but ultimately other. Indescribable, incomparable. Unlike anything. Unrivaled. Unchallenged. Unshaken. To whom will you liken me? To whom will you make me equal? No one, Lord. There is none like you. You are incomparable, incomparable in glory, in nature, in power.
JESUS IS MAN, AND GOD REVEALED
Jesus is man in perfection – God in humility. He was in the beginning – God. He is now God. He will forevermore be – God. He was in the past, man. He is now – man. He shall forevermore be – man. He is no more than His Father. He is no less than the Holy Spirit. Though incarnate as man, Jesus is eternally God, equal, co-existing with the Father and the Spirit.
He was perfect in a fallen world. He was pure in an impure world. He was meek in a harsh and quarrelsome world. He was last when everyone else wanted to be first. He served when everyone else wanted to be served. He sought only God’s will when everyone else sought their own will. He laid His life down when everyone else was trying to save theirs.
God could look upon all the men of all the generations, and only in that ONE MAN could God see His perfect reflection! Jesus was God walking among men. Jesus was the man acting like God amid men who act like the devil. Here was a man who is equal with the Father in terms of His substance, His eternity, His love, His power, His grace, His goodness, and all other attributes of deity!
Jesus is not a passing fade. He is not a fairy tale. Jesus is the center of all history. He is the image of the invisible God. He is the Son of Man. To be stunned by Jesus is to be stunned by God.
One Solitary Life
Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He worked in a carpenter’s shop until he was 30, and then for three years he was an itinerant teacher. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never owned a home. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never traveled more than two hundred miles from the place where he was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but himself. He had nothing to do with this world except the power of his divine manhood. While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied him. He was turned over to his enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. His executioners gambled for the only piece of property he had on earth while he was dying – his coat. When he was dead, he was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.
Nineteen wide centuries have come and gone. Today, he is the centerpiece of the human race and the leader of the Progress column. I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that ever were built, and all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life.
JESUS IS LOVE DISPLAYED
What is God like? What kind of God is He? What would it be like to behold a being Who is uncreated, unfathomable, and unsearchable? Who could stand in His presence? What would seeing Him do to us? What would we say? What would we do? We would worship! We would fall on our faces and rejoice with unspeakable joy and glory. Well, those closest to Him fell in love with Him. He embraced them as friends, as brothers and sisters. They adored Him. They gave Him their lives. The children enjoyed Him and sought His presence. The sinners found hope in Him.
Jesus is love. His love is captivating and astounding. He gripped the hearts of people from all walks of life. Since His arrival on earth, multitudes have flocked to Him.
From every race, people, tribe, and tongue, they have surrendered their hearts to Him. They gave Him their lives, their hearts, and their worship. They forsook fortunes and fame. Great men and women followed Jesus, men and women who changed history and sired nations. They were eyewitnesses of His majesty.
Supposedly, Napoleon Bonaparte said of Jesus, I see in Lycurgus, Muna, Mohammed only legislators who, having the first rank in the state, sought the best solution of the social problem, but I see nothing there which reveals divinity. On the contrary, there are numerous resemblances between them and myself, foibles and errors which ally them to me and to humanity.
Everything in Christ astonishes me. His spirit overawes me, and his will confounds me. Between him and others in the world there is no possible term of comparison. He is truly a being by himself. The truths which he announced, his manner of convincing, are not explained either by human organization or by the nature of things. His birth and the history of his life, the profundity of his doctrine, which grapples the mightiest difficulties, and which is, of these difficulties, the most admirable solution, his gospel … his empire, his march across the ages … is for me a prodigy, a mystery insoluble, which plunges me into a reverence which I cannot escape … a mystery which I can neither deny or explain.
Here, I see nothing human. His religion is a revelation from an intelligence that certainly is not that of man. There is a profound originality which has created a series of words and maxims before the unknown. Jesus borrowed nothing from our sciences. One can find nowhere but in him alone, such a life as his … I know men, and I tell you that Jesus is not a man. Superficial minds see a resemblance between Christ and the founders of empires and the gods of other religions. That resemblance does not exist. There is a difference between Christianity and whatever other religions: the distance of infinity. … I search in vain in history to find the equal of Jesus Christ.”
Jesus is the image of the invisible God. He created all things; all things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist. For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself. And all of us, who deserted, appalled, and devastated God, who were alienated and enemies in our minds by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present us holy, and blameless, and ABOVE REPROACH in HIS SIGHT – WOW!
By Him and through Him, I no longer belong to a race of dead and wicked men. Through His blood, I have been adopted into the family of God. Because He lives in me, I am holy, justified, and glorified. By His power and presence in my life, I can now live to the pleasure of the Father. But it is not I; it is Christ who lives in me.
Make no mistake, only Jesus has and forever will please the Father. The whole of Christ is given to us to enjoy. His wisdom is our direction, His knowledge our instruction, His power our protection, His justice our surety, His love our comfort, and His mercy our solace. He holds back nothing from us – “Everything is ours!”
I could never adequately nor comprehensively describe all that Jesus is and has
done. I know I am forever grateful for His endless pursuit of me. I am beyond composure when I consider the day I see Him for the first time and feel His embrace. He alone became the hope for the human race. In Him, the Father found the man He forever desired. In Him, I have found the God who is altogether lovely and worthy.
Thank you, Jesus, my Lord, my love, my life. Forgive me for the shallowness of my presentation of Your supreme greatness. I long to learn you more as I sit, by the Spirit, at Your feet. My heart wants only to magnify how wonderful and transcendent you are. Often, Your Apostles grieved You, but You did not tell them of the hurt. I shudder to think of the many times my ignorance has wounded You.
You answered their sins and ignorance without condemnation but with unfailing infinite kindness and love. Patiently, You would repeat Your lessons until, little by little; the tuition bore fruit. I pray the same. Teach me about Yourself, for You alone are truth and life!