Merry Christmas 2015

Not having written much this year (2015) I felt that at least I should wish the entire world a Merry Christmas.

The Christmas story tells us of the love of a God Who not only created a universe for His own pleasure, but having a desire to share that pleasure with someone, created beings in His own image. In the mystery of all of the reason for being, He provided a scenario in which His prime creation, Man, would lose that privilege and become estranged, requiring restoration.

I repeat, a mystery lies behind this. The Eternal One is described, in His own words, in Exodus 34, as

"The LORD, the LORD, God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth; keeping mercy unto the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin; and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children's children, unto the third and unto the fourth generation."[JPS 1917]

In order for His entire character to be displayed, there had to be a reason to show mercy. Mercy cannot be shown to anyone who has not been condemned. The recipient of mercy is chosen by the Merciful One, who decided in His wisdom that the being created in His own image, who would also be capable of showing mercy, would transgress, and due to the utter holiness of the Creator, be eternally separated from the pleasure of His presence.

Now someone who has been cast down from the presence of the Ever-living One has no power to raise himself back up. The dead cannot come back to life by their own power. The holiness of God is so far beyond the imagination of men that no dead man can lift another dead man to that height. God will by no means clear the guilty; He says so Himself. A living substitute could effect redemption, but no offspring of a dead creation could pay the price.

In that was the wisdom of God brought to the problem. God Himself -- sinless, living, loving -- would take upon Himself the nature of His creation, a created body, and offer Himself as the perfect substitute. The Christmas story is the story of that endeavor. By the power of the Holy Spirit of God, a child was conceived in the womb of a virgin. Because His Father was God, He did not inherit the estrangement of Adam, and because His mother bore Him as a human, he took on the flesh of the creature. He would be the perfect substitute, accepting the guilt of men without Himself being guilty, and redeeming those to whom mercy could then be shown.

And so we have Christmas.

"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."[Is 9:6, KJV] (...פֶּלֶא יוֹעֵץ, אֵל גִּבּוֹר, אֲבִי-עַד, שַׂר-שָׁלוֹם.)