The Crux of Christmas (2 of 2)

It may seem strange to be talking about Christmas in August, but today on Truth for Life that's exactly what we're doing as we feature a message from last December as part of our Encore 2021 series. Christmas is described as the most wonderful time of the year, but do you ever really wonder why this holiday is so important? Well if you have your Bible turn to 1 Timothy chapter 2 and let's listen as Alistair Begg describes the great mystery and incomparable victory that is the crux of Christmas. I don't want us to get off on the wrong foot, as it were, in our Advent celebrations. I want us to make sure that we are bowing underneath the explanation of God himself in Scripture concerning his plans and his purposes. There is a sense in which, to a certain degree, I'm seeking perhaps to rescue Christmas—not from a kind of antagonistic secularism but to rescue Christmas from our own potentially diminished and trivialized perspectives.

So I suggest to you that if we're going to make sure we make progress in this regard, we must allow the Bible to correct any of our faulty thinking. Now, it is in light of that that I have just three words for us. The first word is history, the second word is mystery, and the third is victory.

All right? History. History. Here Paul tells us that what God has done in Jesus is provided for us a ransom, which is the testimony given at the proper time. Given at the proper time.

When Paul writes to the Galatians, he summarizes it wonderfully when he says, But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son. The history involves us in mystery. Well, let's turn to mystery. Mystery. I love mysteries. A large part of my reading is mystery. It's always mystery. I love having to keep reading and reading, and finally, all the lines eventually come together. It's a great moment.

It's a great moment. What of this mystery? Well, the mystery is not just mystery, it's unfathomable mystery. You have the mystery of God's eternal being—the reality of the eternal being of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one in three and three in one, coequal and coeternal, entering into a covenant in eternity for the accomplishing of his plan to save a people that are his very own. And along with that, the added mystery of the incarnation itself. And when you wrestle with these things, what you realize is that you don't go, as some would like us to be able to go, to a page in the Bible, you know, like page 75, and then on the top it says Trinity, and then underneath Trinity you have this great explanation of the Trinity. Or incarnation, and then you have it there. You don't.

Why not? Because the way in which the people of God came to an understanding of these things was the same way in which we're supposed to come to an understanding of these things. And how is that? By reading your Bible. By reading your Bible and realizing that the very commencement of the Bible is plural.

Let us make man in our image. Well, there's the first hint. That the Spirit of God breathed over the waters, over the chaos, and over the darkness.

Well, I better factor that in. When I come to the beginning of the Gospel of John, where John decides not to start with the birth narratives, nor even with John the Baptist, but back in eternity. And what does he say? It's mysterious. In the beginning was the Word, the logos, the way by which God spoke the worlds into being. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God.

Wow! So how could you be with God? And the Word was God.

Mystery! You see, at best what you have, the work of all the councils in the early centuries of the church, was the work of godly men who were thinking these things through and were ruling out all false options. So they realized that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. That in the baptism of Jesus, you have the Son of God in the water, you have the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on the Son of God, and you have the Father in heaven declaring, This is my beloved Son.

You see, it is these things—these amazing things, these mysterious things—that are at the heart of it all. This is how the Westminster Confession puts it, concerning Jesus. Here he says, The Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, being truly and eternally God, of one substance and equal with the Father, did, when the fullness of time had come—that's Galatians 4—take upon himself man's nature, with all its essential properties and common frailties, yet without sin. Now, says Paul to Timothy, there is one mediator between God and man.

There is only one channel, there is only one gate, there is only one way. He might have said, as Peter preached post-Pentecost in Acts chapter 4, there is only one mediator between God and man. Muhammad doesn't fit. Buddha doesn't fit. The devalued nonsense of Jehovah's Witnesses does not fit.

There is only one mediator between God and man—the man Christ Jesus. That the Lord of eternity is the Christ of history. That's what's being said. And, loved ones, this is not some kind of arm's length theological construct. Can I say to you, this matters immensely.

This matters. It's all about the children. Well, to this degree it is about the children. Because we want to bow down to our children and teach them the wonder of the love of God in Jesus. That Jesus is the one who makes it possible for us, even though we're naughty, even though we're bad, even though we're selfish, even though we're scared, even though we're messed up, that it is in Jesus that we may come directly to God the Father through Jesus and know that there is no condemnation to us—not because we're sinless but because Jesus, the one mediator, has borne our sin. That, loved ones, is at the heart of it all. The Word was with God, was what was God. He was not only the only mediator between God and man, but he was at the same time both God and man. One of my friends says, how hard it is to grasp even the edges of this astonishing fact.

Yeah. The confession goes on, In this way two whole natures, the divine and the human, perfect and distinct, were inseparably joined together in one person without being changed, mixed, or confused. Well, you say, That's mysterious. Yes, but don't you live in the realm of mystery all the time? Now, depending on your mental faculties, for me, my whole world is mystery. So why would I imagine that in embracing Christianity I would be removed from the realm of mystery? No, I'm taken into the realm of mystery. Now, John Murray, the late Murray professor at Westminster, says of these things, These are high and heavenly doctrines. And for that reason—listen to this—and for that reason of little appeal to dull minds and darkened hearts. These are high and heavenly notions. To a dull mind and a darkened heart, the response is, Hey, please, could we go back to the sugary stuff? It's a lot easier to comprehend. It's much more accessible.

Answer, Sorry, no. Why? Because this is what Paul says. He goes on into chapter 3, and he says here, The great is the mystery. Great indeed we confess.

This is verse 16 of chapter 3 of 1 Timothy. Great indeed we confess is the mystery of godliness. The mystery of godliness. Some of you are waiting to trust Jesus to finally get all your those jolly mathematical equations working—all the bits of the periodic table of the elements that all go together that make things happen—and you're stuck there. Cast yourself on Christ. You see, believe in Jesus. Great is the mystery we proclaim.

What is it? He was manifested in the flesh. People said, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the waves obey him?

The Jews knew that only God controlled the waves. So if he could stand up and say to the waves on the sea, Peace be still! They said, Wait a minute!

What is this? Paul now writes to Timothy. He says, He was manifested in the flesh.

He was vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed in the world, taken up into glory. I want to preach on that, actually. That's good. You say, Well, you should have, because this isn't so good so far.

Well, it's too late now. Great indeed is the mystery. The second person of the Trinity did not cease to be what he was eternally, but by the incarnation he began to be what he was not. In that passage that we read, he emptied himself taking.

He made himself of no reputation taking. It wasn't the absence of something, it was the presence of something that was in the humiliation, to become a man—even the best of men, to come down into this environment. Meekness and majesty, manhood and deity in perfect harmony, the man who is God. But there is one other aspect of this mystery, and it is at the very center of all of this.

And to this I want to give a moment. And that is not simply the mystery of God's eternal being, nor even the mystery of his becoming man. This is not the story of man becoming God. This is the story of God taking on humanity. But the great mystery is that he came to give his life as a ransom for many.

That the great mystery is in the mystery of his work. Now, this picture of ransom or redemption is a central picture throughout all of the Bible. When the Egyptians held the people of God captive in Egypt, they were redeemed by an outstretched hand. And God gave instruction that it would be by the shedding of blood that the people would be redeemed, that the angel of death would pass over there, and those who had done as had been said in relationship to the taking of a lamb without blemish and the sprinkling of his blood and so on—there would be no death in that home.

They would be ransomed. They would be redeemed as a result of the shedding of blood. When you come to the New Testament, that is exactly what we find is true of Jesus. You see, again, this is why theology is so important. God cannot arbitrarily just say, You're forgiven. He cannot arbitrarily overlook sin.

Because in the perfection of his being, sin has to be punished. And in the wonder of his love, in the person of his Son, the ransom is paid by Jesus so that we, who ought to be the ones paying, are set free on account of his grace. When we study the Ephesians, this was again at the very heart of things. I hope that these things have lodged for us in our hearts as well as in our minds, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the beloved. That's verse 6 of Ephesians 1.

Here we go. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, history, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him we have redemption through his blood. And the point that Paul is making here in this verse is, in him and only in him.

There is one mediator, and what the prophet predicted, Christ has fulfilled. He became a servant. Well, he was gracious in the way he served others, but the servanthood of Jesus is a servanthood whereby he serves the Father. John tells us he came down from heaven not to do his own will but the will of him who sent him, that the death of Jesus was an act of obedience. It was a death like no other death. Sometimes when we say to people, you know, and Jesus died for our sins, people say, I know, everybody dies.

But no, this death was a unique death, an unrepeatable death. How else do we explain his cry from the cross? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The death of Jesus makes no sense as a sort of example of selflessness, whereby, oh, look what Jesus did now. Why don't you go and do something, you know, sacrificial as well?

That's to miss the point entirely. Baring shame and scoffing rude in my place. Condemned he stood and sealed my pardon with his blood. You see, the great mystery of it is that when you look into the cradle in Bethlehem, you gaze into the face of the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. I say just to you, that really is the crux of Christmas. The final word, and our time is gone, is just the word victory.

And I must leave you to follow this through on your own. But it's there because what the Bible makes clear to us is that what Jesus set out to do, he accomplished. He accomplished it. In providing his own atoning sacrifice, becoming sin for us so that we may be set free from our sins, he was reconciling the world to himself.

He was dealing with our alienation. You remember I said at the very beginning, you know, a kind of sugary Christmas will not be able to answer the question, Who am I? What am I? Where do I go?

How do I deal with my story? And so on. No, we need a victorious Savior. Mary Macdonald is a common name, especially if you live in Scotland. Mary Macdonald lived in the nineteenth century, at least. She was a Gaelic speaker. She wrote in Gaelic. She wrote poetry and songs. Her name was actually Mary MacDougall, and her dad was a farmer, and she worked, and she used time writing different things. And one of the little poems that she wrote was then subsequently translated into English, giving to us one of our well-known Christmas carols. And just imagine a farmer's daughter. What kind of preaching and teaching was she under that she could write this carol?

Listen to this. Child in the manger. Good start. Infant of Mary. Good. Outcast and stranger. Lord of us all. Here we go. Child who inherits all our transgressions.

Now, where in the world does a farmer's daughter come up with something like that? Unless somebody had explained to her that at the heart of the incarnation is the death of Christ in the place of the sinner. He who inherits all our transgressions and all our demerits on him fall. All his merits—credit to my account—all my demerits, born in his own self. Once the most holy child of salvation, gently and lowly, lived here below. Now, as our glorious, mighty Redeemer, see him victorious over every fall. I sent you earlier a quote in from Murray that these doctrines, this doctrine, is heavenly and it's high, and it is of little significance to the dull mind and the darkened heart. But it is, at the same time, the delight of the enlightened mind and the humble soul.

Okay. But think about it. Remember when Simeon took Jesus in his arms, and he says, You know, this child is destined for the rising and falling of many.

In other words, people will either trip over him to their own destruction, or they will take their stand upon him to their own liberation and security. And here we are this morning. I know some of you, I don't know all of you, none of most of you. What could I ever know? But God knows.

Can I ask you, how does this ring? I'm not asking, Was this a six out of ten talk, or a two out of ten talk, or did you like the talk? No, this is what I'm asking you. Quite honestly, in your heart of hearts, do you have a dull mind and a dark heart that is able to pass this off and say, Let's get pancakes? Or in the mercy of God, do you have an enlightened mind and a humble soul that says, You know, I ought to walk out of this building and walk away and bless God that the Messiah died for me, that he lives for me?

Well, may God grant that we are in the latter and not in the former category. The heart of the Incarnation is the death of Christ in the place of sinners. That's Alistair Begg with a powerful reminder that the lowly child in the manger is also the victorious Christ on the cross. You're listening to Truth for Life, and we hope you'll keep listening. Alistair joins us again in just a minute to close in prayer. Today's message reminds us how important it is for us to know and share the Gospel. If you're not clear about what the Gospel means or why it's important, I want to invite you to visit the Learn More page on our website.

We have a couple of short, helpful videos there. There's a brief message from Alistair explaining the Gospel, and another video titled The Story That Explains God's Plan for Salvation. Simply visit truthforlife.org slash learn more. Another benefit of understanding the Gospel is it helps us face death with hope. Today we're recommending a book that pulls back the curtain to give us a little more insight on what happens after we die, what heaven will be like.

You may have heard me mention this book earlier this week. It's called Heaven on Earth, What the Bible Teaches About Life to Come. The author is Derek Thomas, and he searched the scriptures to address many of the misconceptions people have about the afterlife.

If you're a believer, you'll be greatly encouraged by what heaven on earth unpacks about what our lives and our bodies will be like in heaven. And if you have an unbelieving friend, sharing this short 100-page book with them might open the door to a Gospel conversation. To make a donation and request your copy of the book Heaven on Earth, simply tap the image in the mobile app or visit our website truthforlife.org slash donate.

Or you can call us at 888-588-7884. Now here is Alistair to close with prayer. Our gracious God, we thank you that we can bow down before you as our good God and ask that the Holy Spirit will apply in a way far beyond our imagining the truths of your Word to our lives. God grant that we may not remain in the darkness of our own intellect or pride or sense of failure. Shine your light into our hearts, we pray. Help us to ponder the wonder of it all. And we pray in Christ's name. Amen.

I'm Bob Lapine. Most of us would never think about defending a lion. A lion can defend himself. Tomorrow, Alistair Begg explains how the Gospel is a lot like a lion. You can listen to find out how. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.