The Incarnation, Explained by Jesus

At Christmas we celebrate the incarnation of Christ. Most of us have probably wondered at some point where exactly did Jesus come from, and why exactly did he come?

Does his story have significance beyond promoting a season of giving and goodwill? Actually Jesus himself answered those questions and today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg points us to those answers. In verse 35, here in this little section that begins at 35 and goes to 40, we have a wonderful summary statement that Jesus provides. And in verse 38 here, Jesus gives us a summary statement. The temptation this morning is that—and it's a temptation primarily for myself, but it is that I take as light a pass as I possibly can over the material of the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, reasoning something like this. Well, these are dear people, and they came to church.

Therefore, reward them by saying hardly anything, and make it as easy as possible for them to listen and get on with their lives. I hope that the youngest child that is here will be able to walk away and say, Yes, I remember the questions, and I remember the answers. And I hope the person who is thinking deeply about the issue of the incarnation will also have enough to chew on when they go away.

And to that end, here are the questions. We're going to ask the question, Where did Jesus come from? Why did Jesus come?

And what, if anything, does it mean to me? Now, the words of Jesus here in this section are set within a context, and it is a long chapter. Chapter 6 begins with the feeding of the five thousand. It's followed by Jesus walking on the water. The crowds are coming to seek him. They find him, verse 25 tells us, on the other side of the lake, and when they get there, they begin to ply him with questions. Jesus says to them, I know you're here only because you saw the miraculous signs. If you were really earnest about following me, then you would listen to what I say, and you would put it into practice. And in the course of conversation, these people say, Well, you know, Moses gave his followers manna in the wilderness.

What miraculous sign are you prepared to do in order that we might have the confidence to believe in you? And in verse 32, Jesus says, I tell you the truth. It's not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. And listen to verse 33. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. So this message of Christmas is a message of life. We know that.

It's mentioned again and again. It is a message of light. Therefore, I put it to you as being a supremely relevant message.

Even at cursory glance, at the literature of recent days, the superficial perusal of contemporary magazines point to the fact that from a very secular point of view, we are greatly in need of a message of life in our world. For we live in a world in which it is not unkind to say that many are growing up and finding it to be almost totally without meaning. The world into which the message of Jesus comes is a world not only without meaning, but it is also a world largely without fulfillment.

There is nothing that can be given at Christmas that will answer the hole in your heart. For it is not a material hole. It is a spiritual hole. And until that spiritual void is filled, then we live in a world without fulfillment. We live, thirdly, in a world without freedom. Again, our young people are bright enough to understand that the message that is being conveyed to them is this.

Either they are a chance collection of atoms or they are chemically determined. And their whole existence in life is devoid of freedom. They long for a freedom, but they continue to play Pink Floyd, sensing that the lyric there is correct and that they are nothing other than another brick in the wall.

And consequently, it is no surprise to discover that for many it is a world without hope. Now sketch that by way of background, albeit briefly, simply to remind you of the supreme relevance of one who stands straddling, as it were, time and eternity, and he says, I am the bread of God that has come down from heaven, and I give life to the world. Well then, where did Jesus come from? It's the kind of question that children ask their grandparents when they're trying to stave off being sent up to their beds. And so just when you're saying, Come on now, let's get you up to your bed, because your mother will be home soon, you say, Grandpa, where did Jesus come from? And Grandpa says, From heaven. And the kid says, Where's heaven?

Simple answers are the best. Where did Jesus come from? Jesus came from heaven. Where is heaven? Heaven is where God dwells. Okay. Does it matter that Jesus came from heaven?

Yes. That's why it's emphasized so much, not least of all in John's Gospel. Look at the 13th verse of chapter 3. Jesus is speaking, No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven.

The Son of Man. Verse 31 of the same chapter, The one who comes from above, says John the Baptist, is above all. When you turn to the sixth chapter, from which we read briefly, you discover that this is mentioned all the way through.

In other words, it is a significant emphasis. This is not an extraneous piece of information. The fact that Jesus came from heaven is of vital importance.

Why? Because it is affirming and confirming this essential truth—the truth of the pre-existence of Jesus of Nazareth—that when Christ was born as a baby in Bethlehem, in his incarnate state, he becomes, in that instant, a dweller in time. But prior to that, he has existed in all of eternity in his creative power and in communion with the Father and with the Holy Spirit. Now, this is of distinct importance, because it is orthodox Christianity, therefore distinguishable from Unitarianism, from Mormonism, and from Jehovah's Witnesses. For Unitarianism and Mormonism and the Jehovah's Witnesses and all the other cults teach that there was a time when Jesus did not exist.

And if you think that there was a time when Jesus did not exist, then you are not orthodox in your understanding of Christianity. And the Council of Nicaea in AD 325 met to deal with this, because it was quickly becoming a problem in the early church, and they affirmed certain truths—that the Father and the Son and the Spirit are of the same substance as one another. And they began to formulate, although not explain, what we refer to as the doctrine of the Trinity. And emerging from our study last week, it is clear to me that the difficulty that some had with it—apart from the difficulty that I brought to it as a result of inarticulation—the difficulty in hearing is on account of the fact that some of you do not have an understanding of the Trinity at all. And you look at your Bible, and you say, Well, the Trinity isn't in the Bible.

It's from Trinitas, the word for three-ness. And when you take the Bible and you unfold it, you discover this—that God is one and three. That each person of the Godhead—the Father, the Son, and the Spirit— are coequal and coeternal.

Each being I in relationship to the other two who are you. So that the Son may address God, the Father is you, and the Father may address the Son as you, and both may address the Spirit as you. And when you go back into your Bible, you will discover that the Trinity is at work—God the Father initiating, God the Son complying, and God the Spirit executing. Think about it in relationship to salvation. God the Father plans it, God the Son procures it, and God the Spirit applies it to our lives. So what God the Father has planned in all of eternity, in conjunction with the other members of the Trinity, is then carried out by the Son and then is applied to people's lives by the Spirit, who takes the Bible when someone is speaking or explaining and rings a bell inside of your head and said, You know, what this fellow is talking about is exactly what you require.

And all the elements of the Godhead are involved in that. Well, all of that simply to say that the child in the manger, the infant of Mary, is none other than the incarnate Christ. Veiled in flesh, says the carol writer, the Godhead see, hail the incarnate Deity, pleased as man with man to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel. He is God with us. Where did Jesus come from? He came down from heaven. Second, why did Jesus come? Why did Jesus come? He tells us in verse 38, For I have come down from heaven. And then he tells us what he didn't come to do, namely his own will, and then he tells us what he did come to do, to do the will of him who sent me.

Now, this takes us back to where we were last week. Because it is impossible to understand the work of Christ in relationship to the will of God unless we see it in terms of a pre-time, pre-incarnational agreement that takes place between the members of the Trinity, in which the Son agrees to complete a specific task and the Father promises to uphold the Son in the fulfilling of the task and then to reward him for having done so. Now, when you get to grips with that, then you understand what it is that Jesus is saying all the way through. For example, in the thirtieth verse of John chapter 5, Jesus says, By myself I can do nothing.

I judge only as I hear. My judgment is just, now here's the phrase, for I seek not to please myself, but him who sent me. John chapter 14 and verse 31, The world must learn that I love the Father, and I do exactly what my Father has commanded me. Now, when the work is accomplished, he is then able to return to his Father. That's the significance of his prayer in John chapter 17 and verse 4, where he prays to his Father, and he says, Father, I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work that you gave me to do. So when you think of Jesus, think of a man with a mission. Think of someone who, in growing into his manhood, exists to fulfill the plan and purpose of God. Indeed, even at the age of twelve, his parents are mystified—his mother Mary and his father Joseph, finding him in the temple, seeing that he is having these amazing conversations with the religious leaders of his day. They say to him, Hey, Jesus, we've been looking everywhere for you. And remember his reply? Don't you realize that I have to be about my Father's business? She still hadn't grasped it when, at the wedding of Cana in Galilee, she comes around to Jesus, and she says, Hey, Jesus, they're all out of wine.

It's a faux pas here. They are done with wine. Can you do something? You remember Jesus' reply? Woman, my time has not yet come.

Why? Because he was a man with a mission. He knew that the issue was not that they'd run out of wine. He knew that the issue was that they needed the wine of cleansing, that they needed the water of life, that the real thing that they required was not that their party keep going but that they might meet him, who was himself the incarnate Christ. So don't think for a moment that you can so quickly sideline Jesus and push him away, as it were, with the Christmas ornaments and say, Well, that's enough for a while, because he doesn't allow us to do that.

He won't allow us to wriggle away so easily. In fact, the statement, I have come down from heaven here in John chapter 6.38, the statement, I have come down from heaven, if that had a full stop after it, without the explanatory phrases which follow—namely, not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me—then, frankly, it would remain a marvel, but it wouldn't make any sense. And that's where many people are with Jesus. First of all, they're not sure that he ever did come down from heaven. But if you can bring them to believe that perhaps he did come down from heaven, they have a full stop after heaven. Jesus came down from heaven.

Huh? Well, why did he come down from heaven? Not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me. I mean, is it really feasible to think of a Christmas which emerges as a result of Jesus coming down from heaven in order to teach everybody to be kind to one another and enjoy a spirit of goodwill for a few days? Isn't it God left eternity to come to time to say, hey, have a nice time?

That's what people want us to believe. Well, why would you make such a fuss about Jesus? I mean, Jesus is somebody that's there in a cradle or crib or whatever it was, and basically you try and be nice for a while and give a few gifts and get on with your life. And after all, he's just one amongst many. There's Buddha, there's Muhammad, there's Krishna, goodness. We've got gods everywhere now in America.

We have all kinds of people we can turn to, all kinds of things we can plug into. We've got a spiritual panorama before us. You're really going to make such a fuss about this Jesus.

Put him away, put him away. No, you can't do that, you see, because he came down from heaven as a man with a mission. And what was his mission? Verse 39 and 40 tells us, the will of God, which he came to fulfill, the will of God who sent him, is that he would lose none of all that the Father has given him, but instead raise them up at the last day. In other words, the coming of Jesus had a definite and well-defined objective—namely, the actual, complete, and sure salvation of all whom the Father has given to the Son. This is the doctrine of election, that God has purposed from all of eternity to put together a people who are his very own. That's what the Bible says.

That brings me to my final question. Where did Jesus come from? From heaven. Why did Jesus come? To do the will of the Father, to fulfill his pleasure.

And what is that? Well, it is the salvation of men and women. Well, then, here's the final thought. What does it mean to me?

Or perhaps better to ask the question, Where then do I fit into the scheme of things? Because if I listen to what you're telling me, Alistair, it goes something like this. That God is a self-existent God. From all eternity he is everlasting. He is pure, he is holy, he is just, he is love. And this God exists apart from man and doesn't need any of us. So God is altogether distinct from us, inasmuch as we need everyone and we need others. But God within the communion of Father, Son, and Spirit—one God, coequal, coeternal, distinct in persona, same in substance—that this God exists in and of himself. He's in need of nothing and in need of no one.

How are you, we might ask? And his answer would be, for whom I say so reverently, absolutely fine, thank you very much. Then the question ought to be, Well, God, what are you doing here in Bethlehem? Lord Jesus, what are you doing here upon this cross?

And what is the answer to that? It is that God, in all of his holiness, cannot bear to look on sin, cannot be indifferent to sin. And there from eternity he purposes to send someone to be the sin-bearer, so that sin will be punished, and justice will be fulfilled, and righteousness will be extended to those who believe.

And God, in the immensity of his being, determines that Christ will fulfill this objective. In his love, which is unlimited, he looks and he sees our guilt. He looks from heaven, and he sees our humanity and our misery. He sees our unhappiness and our wretchedness. He sees the state of the world this morning as it is in the results of sin. And that's why Jesus is born.

That's why he's born. My song is love unknown, says the hymn writer, my Savior's love to me, love to the loveless shown that I might lovely be. You see, this message is not to the glory of man, it's to the glory of God. I really detest the kind of preaching that starts off with, You know you're a wonderful group of people, and I want you to know how wonderful you are, and you'll know how wonderful you are, because here is Jesus, and he came to see you because you're such a wonderful group of people. Therefore, just put your shoulders back and get on with your life. That is all to deify man and to denigrate God.

The message of the gospel is to the glory of God, that he who needs nobody wants to have a relationship with you, that he who is in total perfection is prepared to make a friend of sinners. Now, do you feel smart, smug, proud, or humbled? He gives grace to the humble, and he resists the proud. So you sit there, or I stand here.

We say, You know, I really deserve this. Oh, I can see why. I can see why this is working out. After all, you know, I may not be the best, but I'm a cut above most, and I know why it is that he would include me in the group. If he's got a group, as it appears to be here, I can see why I'm in it. After all, I've been in most sports teams, and I did quite well in my fraternity house, and I've done pretty well in business as well. I'm not surprised if I'm in this group at all.

I can pretty well guarantee you you're not. Because he sends the rich away empty, and he brings the proud down from their thrones, and those who say they are full and in need of nothing go away totally hungry. But the individual who is prepared to say, You know, as I think about this story of a God who came from heaven to fulfill a plan from all of eternity that includes my name in it, I can do nothing other than just thank him from the bottom of my heart and say, I want to love you, and I want to live for you. Do you love God, and do you live for him? Have you ever actually said that?

Have you ever come to that place in your life? You see, faith is not ultimately a condition of salvation. Faith is really an evidence of salvation. For the very faith by which we believe is a gift from God himself.

Therefore, the question is, not how much faith do I have, but is my faith placed away from myself and in Christ? Not whether I am able to stride out with great confidence towards him, but even if I come on bended knee or on my hands and knees, not if I'm able to grasp a clear picture of him, but if at least I'm able to look to him for everyone who looks to him, everyone who comes to him, he will never drive away. Where did Jesus come from? Well, he came from above. He came from heaven. Why did he come? He came to do the Father's will. What's the Father's will?

That he would lose none of those that he had given his Son. Well, does that mean then that my confidence has to do with a doctrine? No, because we're not called to look to a doctrine to be saved. We're called to look to Christ and be saved. The Christ who said, And whoever comes to me, I'll never drive them away.

Which is really quite remarkable. When you think how many applications we've made for things and got one of those letters back—sorry, no can do, sorry, no entry, sorry, not smart enough, sorry, not rich enough, sorry, not popular enough, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry—we understand that. What kind of society is this that is for the poor, the wretched, the lonely, the sinful, the screwed up, the messed up?

You say, I don't want to be in that society, because I am none of the above. Your condition is graver than you understand, sir. Oh, the love that drew salvation's plan. Oh, the grace that brought it down to man.

Oh, the mighty gulf that God did span at Calvary. You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. Well, today's message wraps up a series called Navigating the Nativity. If you enjoyed this brief study and you'd like to listen to more of Alistair's teaching about the Christmas story, visit our online store where you can purchase a collection of eight Christmas series on a single USB for just five dollars.

Search for the Miracle of Christmas USB when you go to truthforlife.org slash gifts. And while you're on our website, if there are people on your Christmas shopping list for whom you would like to find gifts, browse through a collection of quality Christ-centered books in our online store. We have a bundle of three board books for preschool-aged children. There's a hardcover book for older children that teaches 22 of the parables of Jesus. And there are books for adults as well. And we sell everything at cost. So the books are a great deal, most of them under $10, and they come with free shipping in the US.

Visit the full selection at truthforlife.org slash gifts. Thanks for studying with us today. Tomorrow we begin a series called For Goodness Sake. What does it mean to be good? What's the purpose of our good works? Join Alistair Begg as he answers these important questions. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.