“Why God Became Man” (Part Two)

We are looking at Biblical reasons for Christmas, theology-practical behind the miraculous incarnation of our Lord, the eternal Son.

Monday the three were to understand our life, to reveal God to us, and to be our example.

We are checking reasons to see Christmas for all that it is.

This one is perhaps thought of more than others:

1. Salvation/Justification:  To defeat sin for us (Hebrews 2:17; II Corinthians 5:16-21)

There are two huge issues here – Jesus came to live a life above sin while still walking through the jungles of temptations and tests that we all are in.  Secondly, He came to take on the penalty of sin for anyone who could not make it through the jungle with perfection.

That would be all of us.

We know God is holy, but we would sit here and always wonder if He could have handled life in the true flesh.  In a real body.  With all the tests and complications of life that we are challenged by.  We would probably form sides about whether or not God would be able to do this perfectly well or not.

But much more important than that, we would never have the luxury of knowing that sin could be overcome and of course that the perfect one who would overcome it would do it for our sake!  It is the great evidence of God’s love and His power at once, that He in the person of the Son would take on human flesh and in a different way take on sin and defeat it.  Overcome it.  Never give in to it.  Never yield one inch of obedience to sin.

And He did it perfectly.

From His human beginning He was called the “holy offspring” (Luke 1:35).  He lived each day “tempted in every way, just as we are – yet was without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).  Peter watched Him constantly and said clearly that Jesus “committed no sin, nor was any deceit found in his mouth” (I Peter 2:22).

So we could be bought back by His saving work and power, “with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect” (I Peter 1:18, 19).

Christmas is about a gift all right.

“Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!” (II Corinthians 9:15)

Therefore He is the perfect Son of God, while also the Lamb of God; and therefore He is qualified because He is both God and perfect human to declare that He would take on the penalty of sin but do it as a gift for us.

His death would count for us.  His paying the penalty would be for our sins.  “And not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world” (I John 2:2).

Merry Christmas!

And how much more joyful it is when we understand really why God came to Bethlehem in the person of the Son, or, more scientifically, to become embryo and true child in the miracle of the virgin birth.

So He comes to the cross without any sin on His own back, and it is the cross that God is seeing in a different way than the soldiers and the Jewish leaders and the onlookers were seeing it.  (And many theologians and individuals today, of course!)

God is seeing this as the way of atonement for the whole world.  It is the fulfillment of His plan that way back before the foundations of the earth is the reality behind the shadows of the Old Testament.  It is the true sacrifice that was forecast every time a father told his son or daughter, “Put your hands on the head of the lamb,” in the Old Testament sacrifice time.

So Jesus dies for our sins with no reason to die for anyone’s sins except His love, and no sins of His own to die for.

And that’s the second part of this major reason that God became a human being – to defeat sin by living above it, but also to defeat sin by paying its penalty so that sin would not have victory over us.

You can’t divorce that from the resurrection, because His rise was the completion of this successful atonement for our sins.  But we can understand that He was truly dying not as a case of “cosmic child abuse,” as some have so irreverently called it recently, but as a substitute lamb – “the ram in the thicket,” as seen in the story of Abraham and his son Isaac when they went to the altar.  So this is beautiful theology.

Jesus died to pay the full penalty for our sins.  And as the perfect lamb of God He can make this count for all of us.

Isaiah had prophesied what would happen: “The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).  The New Testament repeats the explanation: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (II Corinthians 5:21).  The sin that made Him be sin (not a sinner) was ours, which was “laid” on Him.  He took it and suffered its penalty – separation from God the Father.

This is all part of what we celebrate at Christmas, or should.  It is not just about a baby or the miraculous incarnation.  It is about the extraordinary purpose.

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed” (I Peter 2:24).

It’s hard for us to believe this.  It’s such a long time ago and it’s such a distant thought for us, that the eternal God of the universe, our creator, could in His own way and in His holiness provide a correct and just way for our sins to be wiped out.  The penalty paid for!

And it’s pretty evident that this is hard to believe, from these quotes, for instance:

“I sort of believe that Jesus died for my sins, but I can’t possibly believe that I know that for sure or that this gets me into a clean standing in front of our holy God.”

“I honestly believe God is punishing me for my sins by these bad things that have happened in my life recently.”

“I have committed so many sins that I could not possibly ever pay for them or ever hope to have them forgiven.”

These are actual quotes I have heard.  A cousin quote, more for a smile than a proof of anything, is what I heard from a man who was probably in his 50s and who spoke to me when I was a young pastor about 27 years old: “Young man, you’re not old enough to have sinned enough to help me.”  As if somehow I had to have been through enough sin before I would be able to tell him about someone who had no sin of his own but had paid the penalty for my sins and this man who was refusing my suggestion to consider Christ.

Our theology or study of God would tell us that God cannot die.  The Son had to take on human flesh so that He could be one of us and face Him and also be one of us and die.  Die as the propitiation or full atonement or sacrifice lamb or substitute for all of our sins.

“Behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29).

Behold, Merry Christmas, with good reason!