From Heaven to a Manger to Heaven

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14 ESV)

The incarnation is an essential part of our Christian faith. If you ask why, some may say it is because we celebrate Christmas. Others might say it is because Jesus came into the world, or it was when Isaiah 7 was fulfilled.

Most of us miss the magnitude of Christ's incarnation. In his prologue, John explains precisely who Jesus is, was, and always will be, writing: 1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him, nothing was made that has been made.” Jesus is God.

Jesus is God, an uncreated holiness that existed before time. God is the great I Am; He was not created. You cannot refer to Jesus without referring to God the Father. Conversely, you cannot refer to the Father without referring to Jesus. Jesus and the Father are one. The Father made all things through Jesus. There is nothing that exists that Jesus did not create.

The incarnation is not about the birth of a child. Because of our darkened minds and our folly, as Paul put it, many do not realize that God the Creator came to earth in the incarnation. We come to him in salvation but soon realize, to our shock and amazement, that Jesus is not only our Savior but our Creator.

Jesus has not stopped creating. Yes, He came to save us and rejoin us to God through our justification. When this happens, we may fail to realize that we are created again through a temporal and spatial change. We are changed in the now with a regenerated heart, and we are removed from this world and become a part of God’s world, a place where only those who have faith in Christ and are born again can enter.

Within the incarnation, a child was born. But that child had lived before time, eternally, forever. Through his humbled self, a God became flesh and walked among his creation. Jesus experienced all we experience, and we read that in the Bible. As our mediator with God, Jesus carries those experiences, even one a God cannot experience but did: death.

This is why the incarnation is a critical Christian doctrine. It is the essence of the gospel, and it can be yours even if you do not have faith yet. Call out to Christ, professing your faith in Him as the Son of God who died and rose again so that you might have eternal life. Every day, God is great, and God is great every day.

Grace and Peace!