The Childhood of Christ

Nancy: 

Apart from one incident at age of 12 (which we’ll look at tomorrow), there is almost nothing in recorded in Scripture about Christ between His birth and the age of about 30 when He began His public ministry. So in light of that silence, it's not surprising that some people over the years would have tried to speculate about what took place during those years.

For example, as early as the 2nd Century A.D., people were writing books about this, some of them are known as the Apocryphal Gospels. One called The Infancy Gospel of Thomas is very speculative and fanciful about some of the things that this author thought that Jesus might have been doing during His childhood.

I will tell you, there is almost no correlation to fact. These are almost entirely fiction. They are not the inspired word of God. Let me read to you some excerpts out of thisInfancy Gospel of Thomas written about the 2nd Century A.D.:

This little child Jesus when he was five years old was playing at the ford of a brook: and he gathered together the waters that flowed there into pools, and made them straightway clean, and commanded them by his word alone.

And having made soft clay, he fashioned thereof twelve sparrows. And it was the Sabbath when he did these things. And there were also many other little children playing with him.

And a certain Jew when he saw what Jesus did, playing upon the Sabbath day, departed straightway and told his father Joseph: Lo, thy child is at the brook, and he hath taken clay and fashioned twelve little birds, and hath polluted the Sabbath day.

And Joseph came to the place and saw: and cried out to him, saying: Wherefore doesn't thou these things on the Sabbath, which it is not lawful to do? But Jesus clapped his hands together and cried out to the sparrows and said to them: Go! and the sparrows took their flight and went away chirping.

And when the Jews saw it they were amazed, and departed and told their chief men that which they had seen Jesus do (II 1-5).

Now, the people who wrote these claimed that they were true. We know that they are not. We have the Word of God that tells us what we need to know about Christ, and there is very little in Scripture about the childhood of Christ—almost nothing. Which, by the way, is very interesting in light of this very child-centered world that we live in, where everything revolves around children. They think the world revolves around them as children. Some parents think the world revolves around their children.

Not to say that children are not important—they are. Jesus loved children. I think it's instructive that Scripture tells us so little about these years. They were years of obscurity. Not that Jesus didn’t have family and friends that He was known to, but he wasn't out doing spectacular things. First of all, remember when He came to this earth, He restricted the use of those attributes of God. He put on our humanity. It was important that He grow up and develop as a child the way human beings have to.

So let's take a look based on the Scripture, not some fictitious report. What do we know about Christ during this very silent period? First of all, we know that He had a childhood. You say, “What's the big deal?” Well, that is a major contrast—which would not have been lost on the Greeks of the 1st Century—to the Greek gods who were said to have come to earth fully grown and well-armed. Jesus did not come down to earth as a mature adult, but as a tiny, weak, helpless newborn baby.

I have a newborn living in my house. A set of young parents who have their first child, Addie Grace. While I’ve been studying this series, I've been looking at Addie with new eyes, looking at how helpless she is, how dependent, how tiny, how weak, and thinking that’s what Jesus became when He took on flesh. He didn’t arrive like these Greek gods, ready to hit the world and take over the world. He came into the world the same way we come into the world—weak, tiny, helpless, and dependent. He was a child.

Again, when you compare him to these Greek gods, He is the incomparable Christ. There is no one like Him, no other religious leader like Him. In this pluralistic world where people try to tell us he's just one of many and every god is kind of equal and on the same kind of footing, don't believe it. It's not true. Jesus is the one and only incomparable Christ. We see it in this little detail of the fact that He was born as a baby and had a childhood.

We also know from the Scripture that Jesus was born into a home here on this earth with devout, godly parents—Mary, His mother, and Joseph, His earthly father. We know that His parents were faithful worshipers and that they were committed to raise Him according to the commands of Scripture.

Luke chapter 2 tells us that when Jesus was born, “they performed everything according to the Law of the Lord” (v. 39). All the rituals, all the going to the temple and offering of the sacrifice, they did everything according to God's commandments.

Then we read in Luke 2:41, “His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover.” That's not just because they liked going to Jerusalem or celebrating the Passover—I assume they did—but that's because God had commanded observing Jews to do that very thing. So Jesus had parents here on earth that were obedient to the law of God. He grew up in that kind of home.

And yet, His childhood was not trouble free. Just because He was God, He was not spared adversity or challenges of living life in a fallen world. Think about some of those things. For example, His mother had an unexpected pregnancy, to say the least, that was surrounded by rumors and misunderstanding. There is no reason to believe that when Jesus was born that all of a sudden everyone believed that this was the virgin-born Son of God. I'm sure that there were people who still considered Mary defiled and outcast, so Jesus grew up in a home surrounded by suspicion, rumors, and misunderstanding.

His mother had been forced to give birth 75 miles away from home—walking that distance—in an inhospitable environment. Not a birthing center in a modern hospital but in a cow shed. So from the start, His life had challenges.

He was born into an era where there was a repressive, totalitarian Roman government. Not an east time to be alive. While He still toddler or younger, his life was threatened by jealous king, so His parents had to flee to Egypt. They were already away from home, and then they had to flee to Egypt 300 miles away and stay there for a period of maybe up to a couple of years until the threat had passed.

Then they moved back to Nazareth. We think highly of Nazareth, but in those daysNazareth was kind of a byword, “can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” It was not the kind of place you'd want to be from. It wasn’t a popular city. It wasn’t a commercial area. It was small. It was despised. It was not any great place to be from.

Jesus was born into a poor family. We know that because of the kind of sacrifices that his parents brought to the temple when He was born. So he wasn’t born into wealth and "pomp and circumstance." He was not born with a “silver spoon” in his mouth. Now, He made all the silver in the world. He was the creator of the world, but when He came to this world, He came to a lowly place.

Just to be born as a human would be lowly enough, but the Scripture says, though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor that we through his poverty might be made rich” (2 Corinthians 8:9).

So He was born into a poor family. That means they had the challenges of having to make the ends meet. Just think about what it is like being poor today, living in poverty, scraping to have enough to feed the family.

Speaking of family, He was born into what became a large family, by our standards for sure. In Mark 6:3, four brothers of Jesus are named and at least two sisters who were born to Joseph and Mary after the birth of Jesus. So we see Him then as the first born of the half-brothers and sisters—at least seven kids in that family.

They were a poor, and they didn’t have these eight bedroom homes for six kids. We’re talking small homes—large family, poor family. He grew up in that.

It helps, I think, to picture some of His childhood. We think of Him as the King (and that He is), and Lord of the universe (and that He is), and the Lord of Hosts (and that He is). But He also came and was born into and grew up as a child in these simple, obscure, poor circumstances.

There is one verse in the Scripture, Luke 2:40 that sums up Jesus’ childhood years. I want to take a look at that verse for the next few moments. Luke 2:40 says, “And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favor [or the grace] of God was upon him." That verse, with the exception of the incident that we’ll look at in tomorrow’s session is all that we’re told about Jesus growing up as a child.

The Scripture says that the child grew. Don’t skip too quickly over that. That’s part of what it meant for Jesus to become a man and take on a human nature. It’s part of the humiliation of the Incarnation. He didn’t just take on a human body, but He took to Himself the complete human nature, including a human soul with mind, will, emotions, reasoning capabilities, etc. He had to go through the same developmental stages in every realm—physically, intellectually, socially, psychologically that we all have had to go through.

We talk about little children and how they are concrete thinkers, and then they learn to think more abstractly. Developmental stages. Jesus went through those stages as a human child—physically, intellectually, socially, psychologically. He had to do that in order to fully, truly represent us as our Savior.

As you think about the growth of the Lord Jesus as a child, let me just make several observations. First of all, it was balanced growth. It was growth in all areas, all realms—mind, soul, spirit, body. You see some kids today who are “super kids” in some areas. You’ll have some kids who are amazing athletes. They can do anything athletic, but they can’t read or write. Or you have some kids who have great social skills. They are highly relational, but they are weak in other areas and may be oblivious to what is going on around them, they are just so people oriented.

Well, Jesus showed the importance of growth in every area, as a whole person, integrated—body, soul, spirit. That’s the way we are supposed to grow. That’s the way we would have grown had it not been for the Fall. So He came here to live our life, but to model for us what true humanity was intended to be. Integrated growth. Physical growth. Rational/intellectual growth.

Now, that’s hard to understand how Jesus could have had to grow intellectually. As God, He was omniscient; He knew everything. But as man, He had to grow in knowledge. He had to go to school. Unlike the Infancy Gospel of Thomas which talks about Him going and yelling at teachers because they got something wrong, Jesus had to go and learn His alphabet. He had to learn how to put the letters together and how to learn how to read and write. He had to grow intellectually—in knowledge. That’s a mystery, but it is true.

He grew morally. Verse 52 of Luke 2 tells us that He “increased [or advanced or grew] in favor with God and man.” Even though He was God, there was some sense in which He had to grow in His moral capability, His moral functions—not that He ever sinned (He didn’t). But He had to grow in making wise, godly choices. He had balanced growth in every area, and that’s the way it should be with us.

His growth was gradual. There were no short-cuts! He didn’t skip any grades that we know of. He didn’t skip any stages of life. He didn’t go from being two to twelve. He went through those stages in a gradual period of growth. It took him twelve years to get to twelve years of age. You say, “Well, duh.” But I think it’s important to realize that when He took on our humanity, He took on our humanity!

He had to grow gradually the way that we do. There is a patience there. There’s no hurry there. No, like, “Hurry up so I can get to 30 and start my life work.” No, there is going through the stages to get there. It’s the process of growth. It doesn’t happen overnight for us. It doesn’t happen overnight for your children, and it didn’t happen overnight for Jesus.

It required time and training and a family with disciplines. He gained knowledge the same way we do—by observing, asking questions, being taught. This shows the humility of Christ. The incomparable Christ, that He would be reduced to this without sacrificing any of His God-ness. There was gradual growth as a man. Balanced growth. Gradual growth.

Then it was fruitful and purposeful growth. It was growth with an objective. It was heading somewhere. There was an outcome, and the outcome was maturity. Now, that is supposed to be the outcome of all growth, but sadly, for a lot of people today, they may grow up physically, but they don’t grow up intellectually or morally or psychologically or relationally. They get stunted in their growth. Jesus didn’t get stunted. He moved toward that point of maturity—physical maturity, spiritual maturity. It says he “became strong, filled with wisdom.” It didn’t happen overnight, but it happened. He moved toward maturity.

These childhood years were years of preparation for His life calling—learning the Law, learning the Word of God, learning the ways of God. He took on our limitations, our humanity. He went to Hebrew school. He was taught the Hebrew Scriptures. He learned these things. He learned obedience. Each step of growth was preparing Him to fulfill His Father’s eternal mission for His life. Balanced growth. Gradual growth. Fruitful or purposeful growth which was moving to an outcome of maturity.

There’s a patience throughout the childhood years. I think the fact that the Scripture doesn’t tell us much, it hardly tells us anything about these childhood years, and that is significant. It says that these are slow years. They happened in the process in which they happened, and you can’t skip over them.

It says that during this time the favor or the grace of God was on Him. That’s essential for growth. You can’t grow in the way God intended for us to grow apart from the favor or grace of God. You see in Jesus as a man a dependence upon the grace of God. In spite of His circumstances, some of them adverse as they were, in spite of the dysfunctions, some around Him and some in the world in which He lived, in spite of the challenges that He faced in that era, the favor and the grace of God was on Him.

He was God’s Son. God’s favor was on Him, and God was growing Him up even in the midst of this corrupt town of Nazareth, born to sinful human parents, born in a sinful, decadent world and era.

Some of you trying to raise children in this kind of world. Doesn’t it discourage you sometimes? You think, “How are these kids ever going to get it? The pull of this world is so strong." Remember that Jesus grew up in that kind of world. And the favor and the grace of God was upon Him. The favor and the grace of God can be upon your children and you as you seek to grow in this fallen, broken world.

His childhood was consistent with both His humanity and His deity.

• He went through ordinary stages of childhood.
• He had to learn, to grow, to develop.
• He was human.
• He had our limitations. He had our weaknesses.
• But He was also God. He never, ever sinned!

So Jesus’ childhood demonstrates some of the things that ought be true about our lives. The objective of balanced, gradual, purposeful growth. The goal to become strong and wise. What a goal for our lives! Jesus became strong and wise and spiritually mature and mature in every way—dependence on the grace of God. Regardless of what you read in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Jesus did not use His supernatural powers to make birds and to destroy people who didn’t agree with him. He laid that aside and He grew as we have to grow—in dependence on the grace of God

And for those of you who are Christian parents seeking to raise children for the glory of God, don’t underestimate the importance, the necessity, and the value of those childhood years. Don’t be trying to get your child to be twelve when he’s three. There’s a process. There’s growth. It take time and patience. Enjoy the season. Enjoy the moment. Some of you have grandchildren. Remember that.

Ask God to give you a vision, a sense of purpose for their childhood. That will help you to be intentional as you’re parenting as you realize that the patterns that are established in their childhood, seeds sown in their childhood, will bear fruit in their adulthood

What your children are doing at the age of two or three and six and eight and ten matters. It matters that they are growing, that you are being intentional in helping to steer and shape their growth in the dependence on the grace of God. Because they are being shaped in the person and the man or the woman they are going to be in adulthood.

As you pray for your children, don’t just pray for their safety and protection. You want that, but also pray and believe God for growth in every area of their lives—from infancy to childhood and into manhood for the glory of God.

Thank you Lord that You came into this world as a baby and You grew up as a child. You grew up into manhood to show us how we are to grow. I pray that You would do a work of grace, that Your favor and grace might be upon us as we seek to grow and upon the children represented in our homes and families and those that we love.

Oh Lord, may we see children growing up to be wise and strong as Jesus was. May we grow to be wise and strong as well. I pray in Jesus’ name, amen.

Leslie: That’s Nancy Leigh DeMoss providing insight on the childhood of Christ and perspective for parents and grandparents. That message is part of the series, The Incomparable Christ. If you have missed any of the message so far, you can hear them at ReviveOurHearts.com.

How did you start listening to Revive Our Hearts? Nancy’s back to talk about the way some women discovered the program. We hear from so many women who tell us how they “happen” to stumble upon the program while listening to the radio. Then they tell us about the changes that follow in their lives. That's exactly what happened to a woman name Tina. She began her email to us:

“I can’t tell you how much Revive Our Hearts has changed my life.”

Now, we’re always quick to say that it is God who changed Tina’s life, but He chose to use Revive Our Hearts in the process. Tina started listening to Revive Our Hearts on the radio several years ago. She says,

“I was a new believer, and I was just starting to grow. I was dealing with fear, anxiety, depression, and panic attacks.”

She goes on to explain how God used this ministry to connect her with the Scripture. All the struggles she had been dealing with were addressed as she got into God’s Word. The Revive Our Hearts broadcast is continuing to encourage Tina, and she and her husband have now stepped out in faith to become foster parents and are taking on a whole new set of challenges.

When you donate to Revive Our Hearts, you’re helping us to connect with women like Tina. When you support this ministry with your gift, you are helping us to stay on the air in your community and helping us connect with more women like Tina who “happen” to tune in to Revive Our Hearts perhaps while dealing with serious issues in their lives.

When you support Revive Our Hearts this month with a donation of any amount, we’d like to say “thanks” by sending you the book, The Incomparable Christ by Oswald Sanders. It’s the book that inspired our current teaching series and I think it will help you appreciate the life and the work of Jesus in a whole new way.

You can make your donation to Revive Our Hearts by giving us a call at 1-800-569-5959, and when you call, be sure and let us know the call letters of the station where you listen to this program. If you want to make your donation online, just go toReviveOurHearts.com.

Leslie: How do you impart wisdom to a teenager? Nancy Leigh DeMoss will show you how looking at the life of Jesus. That’s tomorrow on Revive Our Hearts.

Scriptures for Meditation

• Luke 2:39-40, 52—Jesus’ parents and childhood 
• Colossians 1:10, 28—We need to grow in Christ and in the knowledge of God.

Making It Personal

• Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man; His life was balanced. Consider your own life. How are you doing physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually? If your life is lopsided, what can you do to encourage balanced growth? What daily discipline or practice might you need to add? 
• If you are a parent, what is your vision for your child/children? How can you be more intentional in planting wise, godly “seeds” for growth into their lives?

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss is an outreach of Life Action Ministries. 

All Scripture is taken from the English Standard Version.

The Incarnation of Christ

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: Today we’re going to look at what one theologian has called "by far the most amazing miracle of the entire Bible—far more amazing than the resurrection and more amazing even than the creation of the universe.”¹

Leslie: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss for Monday, March 14.

As Nancy continues the series The Incomparable Christ, she’ll tell us about the most amazing miracle in all the Bible.

Nancy: Well, what’s that all about? Let me ask you to open your Bible, if you have one there, to the Gospel of John, chapter 1. I want to read two verses from that chapter, verse 1 and then verse 14.

John chapter 1, verse 1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

Then verse 14: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Now, as you know, we are spending several weeks leading up to the Passion Week and Easter, during what some would call the Lenten season to ponder Christ, to consider Him. We’re using as a track to run on a book called The Incomparable Christ, a book by J. Oswald Sanders. It’s a book that’s been a blessing to me, and we’re walking through this book on the life and the work and the passion of Christ.

If you want to follow along in the book, it’s not too late to order a copy yourself, just give us a call or go online. You can read the chapter and follow along.

Today we’re looking at chapter 3 in this book, The Incomparable Christ. Even if you’re not following along in the book, you can go online and see which chapter we’re looking at each day and some of the Scripture verses that you can meditate on in relation to that chapter.

Today we’re looking at the Incarnation of Christ, what this theologian called "by far the most amazing miracle of the entire Bible.”¹

The word incarnate comes from a Latin term that means "to make into flesh, to become flesh." Now the word itself—incarnation—is not found in the Bible, but it’s a term that’s been coined to describe the fact that Jesus was God in human flesh—the Incarnation—when the Word, God, was made flesh.

It’s that point in history when the Son of God was miraculously conceived in the womb of a virgin. Don’t try and understand that. You can’t. But you’ve got to believe it. It’s true. He was conceived in the womb of a virgin. He became a man and took on a human nature.

In his book called Systematic Theology, Wayne Grudem says, “The fact that the infinite, omnipotent, eternal Son of God could become man and join himself to a human nature . . . will remain for eternity the most profound miracle and the most profound mystery in all the universe.”²

When I was a kid, my parents got to know a man named James Irwin, who was one of the U.S. astronauts who actually went to the moon. He’s now with the Lord, but on his return to earth after walking on the moon, Astronaut Jim Irwin said, “The most significant achievement of our age is not that man stood on the moon, but rather that God in Christ stood upon this earth.”

This is yet another way that Christ is incomparable, and in each of these sessions over these weeks, we’re looking at Christ and saying, “How is He unique? What makes Him incomparable?”

When it comes to His incarnation, His becoming flesh, we have to agree that there is no one else like Him in all the universe, past, present, or future. The Incarnation is what we celebrate at . . . what time of year? Christmas. Many of our Christmas carols reflect this mystery, this miracle, this amazing thing that God would become a man.

We sing “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” One of the stanzas in that Christmas carol by Charles Wesley talks about the Incarnation:

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail the incarnate Deity,
Pleased with us in flesh [as man with man] to dwell,
Jesus our Emmanuel.

God taking on flesh, pleased with us to dwell in the flesh. He came to dwell with us . . . Jesus, our Emmanuel.

So as we contemplate the Incarnation, we see the majesty, the power, and the greatness of Christ, who was born of a virgin—that’s miraculous. No human being could be born that way. He is God.

We see His power and His greatness. But we also see His meekness, His humility, and His love as He made Himself of no reputation, Philippians 2 says. He came to this earth to become one of us, to take on flesh. We see His greatness, His exaltation, and we see His humiliation all in the incarnation of Christ.

Now, you have your Bible open there to John chapter 1. Look again at verse 1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This is incomprehensible to us.

• Christ is infinite.
  • We are finite.
• He is holy.
  • We are sinful.
• He has pure, unbroken fellowship with God.
  • We are alienated, enemies from God because of our sin.

But in eternity past, this Word who was with God and the Word who was God, in eternity past God designed a plan through this Word, Jesus Christ, to reconcile us to Himself.

That’s when we come to verse 14: “The Word [Christ Jesus] became flesh and dwelt among us.”

He left the palaces, the ivory palaces, the glory, the splendor, the riches of heaven. He left that amazing presence of God, and He came down to this earth. He pierced the time barrier, pierced the geography barrier. He came to this earth. He became flesh, and He dwelt among us—among us, human beings.

That word dwelt is a word that could be translated, “He tabernacled; He pitched His tent” down here among human kind.

• The infinite became finite.
• The immortal became mortal.
• The Creator became as one of His creatures.

He came to live where we live. He pitched His tent among us. He camped down here on earth for 33 years.

Matthew Henry, the great old-time commentator said, “The everlasting Father became a child of time. . . . The Ancient of days became an infant of a span long.”³ It’s amazing!

Philippians 2 tells us that "though He was in the form of God, [Jesus] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped." He didn’t cling to His rights as God, but He "made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men" (Philippians 2:6-7).

So He emptied Himself at the Incarnation. When God took on human flesh, He emptied Himself. Not by laying aside His divine attributes—He was still God—but by taking on our humanity and voluntarily restricting the use of those divine attributes.

At the Incarnation, by becoming a man, He took on our human weaknesses, our frailties, our limitations. Just think about it. (It’s been a joy for me, by the way, in this series to have lots and lots of time to just ponder these amazing realities.)

• The One who never sleeps, became tired—as a man.
• The Creator of the oceans of water—all the bodies of water on the earth—became thirsty.
• The one who fed His people with manna in the wilderness became hungry.
• The one who flung the stars into space slept under the stars.
• The one who inhabited heaven’s ivory palaces was born in a borrowed cattle shed.
• The omniscient God had to learn how to talk and walk as a child, as a baby, as an infant, as a human.
• The eternal Word of God had to learn how to read.
• The Helper of His people became helpless and dependent.
• The beloved Son of God became the rejected Son of Man.
• The one who created angels had angels come to His aid during His temptation in the wilderness, and again in Gethsemane.

So why did He do it? Why did He do that? He did it to bring us to God. We were rebels. We were separated from God by our sin. We were under His wrath. We were subject to the righteous judgment of God on sinners.

So 1 Timothy tells us: “Christ Jesus came into the world [why?] to save sinners.” (1 Tim 1:15)

John 3, verse 17—John 3:16 is maybe the most famous verse in the Bible . . . “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that if anyone would believe in him, he would not perish but would have eternal life.” The very next verse, “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. (John 3:17)

You see, in order to save us, Jesus had to be born. He had to live. He had to die as a human. He had to take on human flesh. He voluntarily chose the pathway of humiliation, condescension. Stepping down, crossing that infinite gap between heaven and earth, between God and us, all for our sakes, all for love’s sake.

So what? What does that mean for us? Why does it matter? How much does it really matter? Well, it’s only our eternal salvation that is at stake, but think about it:

What if there had been no Incarnation? What if Jesus had not come to this earth? What if God had not given His Son for us? What if Jesus, the Word, had not become flesh?

Well, we could not know God as Jesus has revealed Him to us. John 1 says, “We have seen God’s glory.” We’ve seen the glory of God because we’ve seen Christ. In the face of Christ, we have seen God. We’re able to know God because Jesus has come to this earth and revealed Him to us.

If there had been no Incarnation, we could not be reconciled to God. We would be eternally separated from Him and under His righteous judgment. There would be no way to atone for our sins. We would be without hope. We would be eternally lost. We would live a few years on this planet and then die and be eternally separated from God.

It’s something that most people don’t think about, but we need to think about it. We need to think about where we would be if there were no Incarnation.

The Incarnation means:

• Jesus lived our life, though without sin.
• He perfectly obeyed the Father.
• He died our death in our place.
• He paid the penalty we deserved for our sins so that we could be forgiven, so that we could be released from the penalty of death.

Then, by becoming a man and sharing our flesh and blood experiences, Jesus has become a merciful Savior, a merciful High Priest who can not only save us from our sin—as if that weren’t enough—but He continues to be able to meet us at every point of need because He has been one of us. He has lived our life.

You see this concept in the book of Hebrews, chapter 2, beginning at verse 14:

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, [He became flesh and blood] that through death [by dying on the cross] he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil (vv. 14-16).

The power of the devil to keep us in bondage, to make us die eternally, that power was broken when Jesus died as the sinless Son of God, as the substitute in our place on the cross.

Verse 16 of Hebrews 2:

For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. [Jesus came to earth to help us, to be our savior.]

Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people (vvs. 16-17).

That’s a big theological word that means He satisfied the wrath of God against our sin because He died the death that we deserved to die for our sin.

Some of you, by the way, you’ve heard these things so long that the spectacular has become commonplace in your thinking. Some of you, you’ve not heard this before, and you’re going, “Really? Wow!” But some of us need to see these things with fresh eyes, hear them with fresh ears, as if we’d never heard them before.

Some of us have lost the wonder. You’ve been around this Christian stuff all your life. You’ve been in church all your life. It’s just, “Oh, yeah, ho hum—the Incarnation—yeah, what, what, what.”

No! Not “What, what, what.” Yes! It is the most amazing miracle in the history of the world in all time and eternity, that Jesus would have come to this earth to save sinners. He couldn’t save us without coming.

And not only does He make propitiation for the sins of the people—back to Hebrews 2—but verse 18: “Because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted."

He’s a merciful, faithful High Priest who continues to serve us, to act on our behalf, to minister grace to us in our point of need. When we’re tempted, He’s able to help us because He’s been tempted. He’s been there, and He never sinned once. So He lives within us to enable us to say, “Yes,” to God and “No,” to our flesh. He is an ever-present help in time of need, all because He came to this earth.

It’s important to remember that the Incarnation is not just past tense. It’s not just something that happened 2,000 years ago or so. The Incarnation, think about this, did not stop when Jesus left this earth and went back to heaven.

It has value for us today because the God who became flesh, who came to set up His tent among us, who dwelt here on this earth for 33 years. . .He was crucified; He rose again; He ascended to heaven, and today He is seated in His glorified human body at the right hand of God—the God-Man. And from that place in heaven, He is our Advocate today, and He intercedes for us before the throne of God—today—the Incarnate Christ.

I think sometimes we get this picture that Jesus was born; He lived His life; He died; He went up to heaven, and He’s gone. He is no more. Yes, He is! He is still the Incarnate God-Man, God in the flesh, God sitting on the throne in heaven, the Son of God, the Incarnate Christ, ever living to make intercession for us. The Incarnation matters hugely.

Some of you are familiar with the Valley of Vision, which is a great devotional book. It’s a collection of prayers taken from the Puritan Era. One of those prayers is called “The Gift of Gifts.” It just summarizes the heart of what we have in the Incarnation, the gift that is ours because Christ came to earth.

Let me read just a portion of that prayer to you:

Herein is wonder of wonders;      He came below to raise me above,      Was born like me that I might become like him.

Herein is love:      when I cannot rise to him he draws near on wings of grace,
     to raise me to himself.

Herein is power:
     when Deity and humanity were infinitely apart
     he united them in indissoluble unity,
          the uncreated and the created.

Herein is wisdom;
     when I was undone, with no will to return to him
     and no intellect to devise recovery,

he came, God incarnate, to save me to the uttermost, as man to die my death, to shed satisfying blood on my behalf, to work out a perfect righteousness for me. . . . In him thou hast given me so much
     that heaven can give no more.

Ladies, God doesn’t have anything more to give you. There is nothing more that He could give than what He has given for you in Jesus Christ. I know that in many of our hearts, as we’re talking about the Incarnation of Christ, there’s a fresh sense of gratitude, appreciation, love for Christ, just focusing on the wonder, the marvel that He would leave heaven and come to earth for us. It’s good to think about these things, to be reminded of them, to be refreshed in our love for Him and our appreciation of what He has done for us.

But I know there are some listening to me today who have never experienced a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Maybe it’s never dawned on you until today why He even came to earth, what that’s all about. You may be a church member; you may listen to Christian radio every day; you may love Revive Our Hearts, but you don’t know Jesus. You don’t have a relationship with Him.

I hope today that God has opened your eyes and your heart and your understanding to realize why Jesus came. He came for you.

• He came to bridge that gap between heaven and earth that we never could have bridged.
• We could have never had fellowship with God.
• We never could have had life.
• All we would have had to look forward to was judgment and the wrath of God forever and ever had Christ not come to earth.

I wonder if the Holy Spirit has not been tugging at your heart and saying, “This is true. I did this for you. Now put your faith in Me.”

I want us to bow our hearts in prayer for just a moment here. I’d just like to invite anyone that God has been speaking to, and you realize that you’re not a child of God, you’re still separated from God, but today God has opened your eyes. He’s opened your heart. He’s given you faith to believe that Christ is the Son of God, come to earth, and that He came to live and to die for you in your place. And you just want to receive Him, to trust Him.

Would you right now from your heart just say, “Lord Jesus, I believe. I’m not worthy that You should come to earth and die in my place, that You should stoop to become a Man for my sake, but You did, and I believe it, and I receive You. I receive You as my Savior. I want You to be the Lord of my life, not just the Lord of this creation, the Lord of this world, but the Lord of my life. I turn by Your grace. I repent from the sin that separated me from God. I want to be a child of God. I trust You to save me, to come into my life, to forgive my sin, and to make me the person You created me to be.”

It’s not so important what words you just said, but if your heart has been expressing to the Lord the desire to be His, to receive Him as your Savior—and God knows your heart—and by faith you can believe that He has heard and answered that prayer.

I want to encourage you, if you trusted Christ as your Savior today, to contact us here atRevive Our Hearts. Let us know that you have received Christ. We’d like to send you some information to help you get started in your faith, to help you grow as a child of God.

Oh, Lord, how I thank You for the mystery, the wonder, the miracle of what You did those thousands of years ago when You put on human flesh, when You came to this earth to save us from our sin. Thank You, Lord, thank You, thank You. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Scriptures for Meditation

• Matthew 1:18-25—Read the simple Christmas story.
  
• Philippians 2:6-7—Think about what Jesus left behind—and what He took on—when He came to earth.

Making It Personal

• There are so many beautiful carols we sing at Christmas. If you have a hymnal handy, sing all the verses of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing”today, to celebrate Christ’s coming. Or sing another song that helps you focus on Jesus, like the simple chorus, “Oh, come let us adore Him . . .  Christ, the Lord.”
  
• The Christmas story doesn’t just include a cradle; it looks forward to a cross. The Bible teaches that Jesus came to be our Lord and Savior. Consider what your life would be like if God had not sent Jesus. Where would you find hope in the dark times? Where would you find forgiveness? What reason would you have for joy? What would eternity hold? Thank you God, for giving us your Son.

The Preexistence of Christ

Nancy: Ever since I was a little girl I have been a huge fan of biographies. I love reading biographies. I have a big collection of them, and have read many of them over the years. One thing that I have learned is that most biographies start out with the era or the circumstances into which the person was born. Most biographies start around the birth of the person that the book is about.

We’re talking in this series about the incomparable Christ; there is no one like Him. We want to look today at another thing that makes Christ unique.

He is unique among other founders of religions, other people who might have biographies written about them, because if you’re talking about anyone else who’s had a biography written, their existence began when they were born—not so with Christ.

Jesus Christ did not come into existence when He was born of Mary in Bethlehem. I don’t know if you’ve thought about this, but He existed long before that night that we celebrate at Christmas, long before His incarnation and His life here on this earth. In the beginning of time, He already was.

Now, we’re going to be talking today and throughout this series about some things that are really hard to wrap your mind around, things that you can’t really understand, but you take them by faith because we’re dealing in supernatural realities, things that our rational minds cannot fathom. But when time began, Jesus was already there. He already was. In the beginning, He was. He always existed.

There are some cults and false religions that deny His eternal existence and claim that He was a created being. That’s one of the ways you can know whether the religion you’re studying measures up to the Scripture. Do they believe that Christ was always existent?

Today we’re looking at chapter 2 in The Incomparable Christ. It’s a chapter called “The Preexistence of Christ.” Now, no other biography starts out with a chapter on the preexistence of that person because they didn’t exist before they were born. But Christ always existed. He eternally existed, in time past and also for all of eternity will exist. This is the testimony of the Old Testament prophets. They talked about the fact that Christ was in existence before the worlds began, before He came to Bethlehem as a baby.

For example, in Micah 5:2, a verse you will often hear quoted at Christmas time, it says,

But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah  though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to Me the One to be Ruler in Israel [Who’s it talking about? Jesus], whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting (NKJV). 

He will come forth, but He has always been. He is from of old—the eternal preexistence of Christ.

Then we come to Isaiah 6. This is a passage that’s familiar to many of us. The prophet says,

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said, "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD [Jehovah the Lord] of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!” (verses 1-3). 

Now this was hundreds of years before Christ was born, and Isaiah saw the glory of God, Jehovah, but as we get to the New Testament, it’s clear that Isaiah was seeing Christ. He was seeing the Messiah seated on that throne.

In John 12, you have to kind of follow this logic here, but in the 12th chapter of the Gospel of John, John quotes a passage from Isaiah 6, the same chapter that I just read from. He quotes a passage from Isaiah chapter 6, and he applies it to Jesus.

He says, “I’m talking about Jesus.” And then he says in John 12:41, “Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory." Whose glory? Jesus’ glory. "He saw his glory and spoke of him.” Isaiah saw Jesus sitting on that throne. It was the glory of Christ. It was the glory of God. It was the glory of Christ—one with the Father.

So Christ was in existence hundreds of years, thousands of years, in fact for all of eternity before He came to this earth as a man.

Not only did the Old Testament prophets give testimony to the preexistence of Christ, but as we come to the New Testament, John the Baptist gave testimony of the preexistence of Christ.

John 1:15, “John bore witness about him [about Christ] and cried out, ‘This was he of whom I said, “He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’””

Now, that sounds a little convoluted. “He who comes after me was before me.” Well, John was born six months before Jesus, and in His human nature, Jesus came after John. John was before Jesus. But as the eternal Son of God, Jesus existed eternally before John. So John says, “He who came after me—He who was born after me—was before me. He was preexistent in eternity past.”

Now, it was not only the testimony of John the Baptist about Jesus, but it was the testimony of Christ about Himself on numerous occasions. John 3:10, Jesus said, “No one has ascended to heaven but He who came down from heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in heaven” (NKJV). Jesus is saying, “I’m here on this earth; I came down from heaven; I came from heaven.”

Now, we say little girls and little boys come from heaven, but they don’t come from heaven. God creates them, but they weren’t existent in heaven before they came to earth. Jesus was existent in heaven before He came to this earth.

In John 6:33, Jesus says, “The bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” Then He goes on to say, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven.” Jesus says, “I was somewhere before I was here. I came from somewhere before I came here. Where did I come from? I came from heaven.” Jesus says, “I was around. I was in existence before I came to this earth. I came down from heaven.”

Here’s another passage: John 8, which again is a little confusing, but let’s see if we can grasp it. Beginning in verse 56, Jesus said, “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day.” Now, Abraham had lived thousands of years earlier. He looked forward to, anticipated the day when Christ would come to earth. He saw it by faith and was glad.

"So the Jews said to him, 'You are not yet fifty years old.'" Jesus, in fact, was still in His early 30s. "'You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?'" who lived thousands of years earlier (verse 57).

Jesus said to them—now imagine how this must have struck them listening to it that day. "Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was, I am'” (verse 58). Now they must have been scratching their heads. "Is this man nuts?"

No, He’s not nuts! He’s the incomparable Christ. He came to earth. He was born at what marked the hinge of the whole human calendar—before Christ and after Christ—born around the B.C./A.D. marker—but He was in existence before that. Before Abraham was—thousands of years ago—Jesus says, "I am."

He doesn’t say, “I was.” He says, “I am.” He is the eternally existent I Am. He was always I Am. He is I Am. He always will be I Am. Always was, always is the eternally existent Christ. There is never a time when He did not exist in all His fullness.

Now, having established that, what is intriguing to me is to consider what do we know about the life of Christ before He came to this earth? Well, let’s go to John 1:1. This is a passage we’ll look at numerous times during this series, but John says, “In the beginning was the Word.” Now, we know that the Word is referring to Christ—the expression of Christ; Christ the Living Word of God.

"In the beginning was the Word"—not the Word began, but the Word was already there; Christ was already there—"and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

So what do we know about Jesus’ life before He came to this earth? Well, first of all we know that He was with God. He had close, intimate, personal communion and fellowship with God. He was with God.

John 1 goes on to say in verse 18: “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” Who’s it talking about there? Jesus Christ, the only God. He is God, but He’s also at the Father’s side. He has made God known to us.

In some of your translations, it will say that Jesus is in the bosom of the Father. He’s at the Father’s side. The NIV says, “He is in closest relationship with the Father.” He’s at the Father’s side. He is with the Father. For all of eternity past, Jesus has been close to God. He has been with God. They have intimate fellowship. Now that’s going to be important as we realize why Jesus Christ came to this earth.

But not only was He with God, He was God. He has been eternally one with the Father while being distinct. He is a distinct Person—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—three distinct Persons and yet one. Now, we’re not going to go into all the Trinity here, and we would lose our minds if we tried to understand this, but we know that He is eternally one with the Father.

He always existed in the form of God as Philippians 2 reminds us: He is equal with God. He is God.

Hebrews 1 tells us "He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature" (verse 3).

Now, I will be the first to say we are delving into mystery here. There is no way we can fathom this. We’re just putting our toe into the depths of these waters, but He has always been with God, and He has always been God. He’s the imprint of God’s nature. He’s the radiance of the glory of God.

So He was with God. He was God before He came to this earth. Then what was He doing? Well, as we study the Scripture, we learn that He has always been active. He’s always been at work. Not only just when He came to this work did He do great works, but He was always at work during eternity past. He was at work creating the world. He’s the uncreated Creator.

John 1:3 tells us, “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” He’s the Creator. You see this coming all the way through the New Testament record.

Colossians 1 says, “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him” (verse 16). He was busy creating all things.

Hebrews 1 says that “[God] has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom he also created the world” (verse 3). Jesus was actively involved with the Father in creating the world, but not only in creating the world. He was actively involved in sustaining the world.

Colossians 1 tells us that “He is before all things"—the preexistence of Christ—"and in him all things hold together” (verse 17). He is the glue of this universe. If it weren’t for Christ holding this universe together, things would just spin out of control.

He’s not a God who just created the world, flung it out there into the universe, and then stands by passively to just let it go on. He is actively involved in holding our world together.

Hebrews 1:3 tells us that “He upholds the universe by the word of his power.” He’s actively involved in sustaining His creation.

Let me ask you to turn for a few minutes here to Proverbs 8. This is an Old Testament passage that I think gives us a really neat glimpse of what Jesus was doing before He came to this earth.

This chapter is a personification of wisdom. Wisdom is considered to be a person in this chapter. The whole chapter talks about Wisdom does this; Wisdom does that. But many commentators believe that this refers to Christ who is the Wisdom of God. So wherever you read the word wisdom in this chapter, you can think of Christ. As we read several of these verses, I think you’ll agree that this is a picture of Christ.

Beginning in verse 27, we’re jumping into the middle of the passage. It’s talking about the creation. Wisdom said,

When he established the heavens, I was there [Jesus speaking of being there at creation];

When [God] drew a circle on the face of the deep, when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep, when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master workman (verses 27-30).

Jesus says, “At creation, I was there. I was by the side of My Father, like a master or a skilled workman.” Some translations will say, “Like an architect.” The word actually in the Greek version of the Old Testament says, “I was arranging. I was by His side; I was arranging.” He was actively involved with His Father as a master skilled workman, arranging the pieces of the universe.

So when God created the world, Jesus was with the Father, beside Him, not as a passive spectator or bystander, but actively working with His Father. And it’s the same when God devised the plan of salvation in eternity past. Jesus was there with Him devising that plan with Him.

Then we see, as we move on in Proverbs 8, that through all of eternity, Jesus was joyful—the joyful God. It says,

I was beside him like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of men (verses 30-31).

“I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always.” Jesus was never anything but joyful.

It’s a picture, if I can say it without being in any sense trite or disrespectful, a picture of a happy God, of a joyful Savior. The Father and the Son took great delight in each other. The Father was delighted with the Son, was pleased with His work. “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). Remember that?

“I was daily his delight.” And the Son was rejoicing in the Father and rejoicing in His work. “Delighted to do his will.” This mutual enjoyment of each other—a joyful God.

And then we see in this passage a relational God. They enjoyed each other. They enjoyed being together. They had daily unhindered, unbroken fellowship and communion with each other. But Jesus . . . and this is what will blow your mind if you stop and think about it. Jesus not only delighted in His Father and enjoyed His Father’s company, but He was also in eternity past delighting in us—delighting in humanity.

“I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man” (verse 31). You see, Jesus loved His Father, loved to be with His Father, so He also loved human beings who were made in the image of His Father and delighted in us.

Now this is a whole different picture than some people would have us think about God. We think of God as being stern, impossible to please, not taking delight in us at all but looking at how He can make our lives hard.

There are aspects of the character of God and the heart of Christ that are difficult, especially when we sin. When we’re proud, He humbles the proud. But if you step back and realize that God starts out being a God who delights in us, a joyful God, that Jesus Christ, for all of eternity past, was delighting in us. He was rejoicing in God’s inhabited world.

And Jesus wants us to be with Him and with His Father, to live at the Father’s side with Him, to rejoice in Him, to delight in Him, to delight in serving and blessing others. He wants us to be able to enjoy the same kind of relationship with the Father that He has enjoyed for all of eternity. He wants us to share in the joy that They experience as Father and Son.

That’s what Jesus says in John 15: “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.” That’s what Christ wants for you. He wants us to have that fullness of joy and relationship that He had with His Heavenly Father.

Now let me just mention one other thing: We know that before Jesus came to this earth, He was rich. He was glorious. He had glory with the Father. He lived in this amazing sin-free environment because Jesus prays in John 17, at the end of His earthly life, “Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed” (verse 5). 

So Jesus left all that, emptied Himself of all that glory that He had in heaven, to come down to this earth. He chose to leave it all behind. Why would He give all that up—that fellowship, that communion, that joy, that celebration, that rejoicing, that delighting? Why would He give all of that up and come down to this messed up prodigal planet?

Well, He did it in obedience to the will of His Father. “I delight to do Your will.” But He did it because of His great love for us.

The old hymn writer said it this way:

Out of the ivory palaces,
Into a world of woe,
Only His great eternal love
Made my Savior go.
"Out of the Ivory Palaces" by Henry Barraclough)

It was His love for you; it was His love for me, His delight in us that made Him want to come to this earth. He was sent to earth by the Father on a divine mission. The eternal Son, eternally preexistent, the One who always was, broke into time, came to this planet—and we’ll talk about that in our next session.

And why did He do it? He came to make it possible for us to experience the fellowship, the joy, the oneness with the Father that He had enjoyed with the Father for all of eternity.

Scriptures for Meditation

• John 8:56-58—Jesus declared that He existed before Abraham.
  
• John 1:3; Colossians 1:16; Hebrews 1:2—Jesus is the uncreated Creator of all we see.
  
• Proverbs 8:22-31—Jesus, with the Father, in eternity past

Making It Personal

• What does knowing that Jesus existed even before His birth on earth reveal to you about His basic nature?
  
• All things were created by Him and for Him, and He sustains the universe. Look out the window or step outside, and reflect on the beauty of His creation. Does your heart overflow with amazement and gratitude?