Why Did Jesus Become A Man - Part 1

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Please make your donation to Visionathon today at vision.org.au. Welcome to Turning Point. We can agree that there are things about this past year that we'd all like to forget. But the real meaning of Christmas shouldn't be one of them. So today, Dr. David Jeremiah begins a fascinating Christmas series, Why the Nativity, to answer some of the most important questions about the birth of Christ. Listen, as David introduces the first message, why did Jesus become a man? Well, you know, several years ago, I realized how many questions there were about Christmas and how easy it is for us to celebrate Christmas and never really understand what it's all about.

So I began writing these little articles about why. Ultimately, they became a book called Why the Nativity, and now it's this series we're going to do during the month of December to prepare your heart for Christmas. We're going to talk about why Jesus became a man, why Joseph, why Mary, why Bethlehem, why there was no room in the inn, why the shepherds, why the gifts of the wise men, why music is so important in Christmas, why they call him Emmanuel, why they call him Savior.

Those are the questions in the series, Why Did Jesus Become a Man? I know that many of you are ready to get started on this Christmas adventure. How many of you have children in grade school and you're getting ready to go to all the programs?

And there's usually a different program for every child, which means every night you're going to children's programs, and then those are just the schools, and then you add the church's programs. It's going to be a busy time, and it's interesting what happens with children. I read this week, somebody sent me an email about a Christmas program that actually happened where there were some children who were supposed to walk out on the stage at a particular time in the Christmas program with cards that spelled out the word star, S-T-A-R. Well, while they were in the back room, the kids got mixed up, and they got in reverse order, and when everybody was ready, the lights came on, and here were these four kids standing with the word rats.

They spelled the word star backwards, and that's rats. So be prepared for anything when you go to your Christmas program. It's a delightful time, and children make it all worthwhile, do they not? Well, as the moon lit the treetops and the evening breeze cooled her skin, Mary rested quietly, renewing her strength. She gazed in wonder at the tiny living gift that she held in her arms. Any child, of course, is a miracle from heaven, but the firstborn in particular. Even so, Mary understood that the child she held was set apart from any other that had ever been born in the history of the world.

She knew what the angel had told her and what her heart had confirmed. Here at my breast, she thought, is the Son of God. Those are the very words, the very designation that the angel had given her, Son of God. Yet surely she couldn't have been so much different than the rest of us.

She must have asked some questions too. Surely in the mind of Mary on that day was the word why. Why had Jesus come to this earth? Why had she been chosen as the vessel to bring him into humanity? Why was God becoming a man?

What purpose could there possibly be in such an unprecedented event? Why the nativity? While some of the answers to those questions appear in the gospel records of the Scripture, it takes all of the Bible to even get close to a full understanding. Today I want to begin unpacking some of the reasons I have discovered in answering that question, why the nativity? Why was Jesus sent to this earth? Why did Jesus become a man?

Why? Here are what I believe to be the five most important reasons for Jesus becoming a man. First of all, Jesus became a man to satisfy the prophecies of the Old Testament. In Luke chapter 24 and verse 44 we read, and these are the words of Jesus, all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms concerning me.

That's what Jesus said. Now Jesus said this to the two on the road to Emmaus who had just come out of Jerusalem and were discussing what had happened in the death of Christ and did not know that he had come back from the grave. And as Jesus began to talk with them, Jesus responded to them and it says here that Jesus said all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms concerning me. When Jesus made that statement, he encompassed the entire Old Testament. The prophets, the law, and the Psalms were the Old Testament as they were spoken of in that day. And what Jesus said was this, that everything that had been said about him in the Old Testament, all of it had to be fulfilled in his coming.

These words recorded by Luke remind us that when Jesus came to this earth to be our Savior, when God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, one of the reasons he came was to satisfy all of the prophecies that had been made concerning him in the Old Testament. Do you realize that it would be almost possible to write a complete Christology of Jesus Christ using only the Old Testament prophecies concerning him? The Old Testament prophets spoke frequently about a coming champion.

Every page from Genesis to Malachi trembles with the wondrous anticipation of the coming of this champion. The prophetic books were written by many different writers at various times over many centuries and yet together throughout the words of the prophets there were glimmers of a Savior, a King who would rescue his people and restore them to God. The prophets spoke of this one who was to come. In fact, there were more than 300 specific prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures about the promised Messiah.

The hints were tantalizing. Isaiah said that this special deliverer would be miraculously born of a virgin and that his name would be called Immanuel. Isaiah wrote this not one year before it happened, not ten years, but hundreds of years before it took place.

In the words of Isaiah 7, 14, therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign, behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and you will call his name Immanuel. Hundreds of years before that event took place, Isaiah prophesied that it would happen. Micah offered a prediction that was both specific and startling. He said that the King would be born in Bethlehem and that he would come from the distant past. When you open your Bibles to Micah chapter 5 and verse 2, you read these words. But you, Bethlehem Ephrata, 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, whose goings forth are from old, from everlasting. Micah said that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem and that that would not be his beginning, but he would have existed long before that. He had come from the past and he had been born, but he did not begin in Bethlehem. Hundreds of years before Joseph and Mary made their little trek the 110 miles from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, hundreds of years before that happened, and Bethlehem was hardly in existence.

It was just a little stopping place. The prophet Micah said, it's going to happen. It's going to happen here. And when it happens, it won't be the beginning of his existence. He will have come from the past from eternity. Jeremiah, perhaps the greatest prophet of the Old Testament, Jeremiah prophesied that the birthplace of this coming one would suffer a massacre of infants. In the film, the Nativity story, one of the most moving scenes is when the soldiers of Herod swooped down upon the city of Bethlehem with the intent of destroying all of the male children in the city. Jeremiah prophesied it would happen in chapter 31 of his prophecy in verse 15. We read, thus says the Lord, a voice was heard in Rama, lamentation and weeping, bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted for her children because they are no more.

Rachel's tomb, according to tradition, is located near Bethlehem, and her weeping represents the overwhelming sorrow of the families of these slain infants. Perhaps you're not a veteran student of the Word of God and you think, well, that's a very obscure passage you chose from Jeremiah, Dr. Jeremiah. Why would you choose such a passage?

Are you really sure that's what it means? Well I've chosen to trace this one a little more carefully than the other two so that you will understand how carefully this all fits together, this book we call the Bible. Look with me at Matthew's account of this tragic moment in the history of Israel. For in the New Testament, in Matthew chapter 2 and verses 16 and 18, we have the story of what happened when the wise men were told to come back and tell Herod where Jesus was and remember, they were warned not to do that and they didn't go back. So beginning in Matthew chapter 2 verses 16 and following, and I want you to follow this story carefully so you can connect it with Jeremiah in the Old Testament. Then Herod, when he saw that he was deceived by the wise men, was exceedingly angry and he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and all its districts from two years old and under according to the time which he had determined from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by Jeremiah the prophet saying, a voice was heard in Rama, lamentation weeping in great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted because they are no more. The New Testament draws a straight line back to Jeremiah and says, this is what the prophet was talking about in Jeremiah 31, 15, written hundreds of years before the massacre in Bethlehem. Why did Herod have all those babies killed?

Because he feared that among them was a king who would become his rival and the best way he knew to obliterate that possibility was just to kill all of the male children two years old and under. Can you see the picture that's emerging? It was as if many artists had drawn strange squiggles on paper separately only to find out that when their fragments of art were put together on a single canvas, there was this portrait of a king who would come to this world and would be known as Jesus Christ.

It was as if the picture was painted back here of what was going to happen over here. Nearly all the more than 300 prophecies of the Old Testament have already been fulfilled with a few left to be fulfilled in Jesus' second coming. But every prediction concerning the first coming of Christ, every prediction concerning his birth and his childhood and all that would happen to him, every single prediction has been fulfilled in minute detail and no one has been able to disprove it from that day until this.

A mathematician calculated that the possibility of all of these Old Testament prophecies being fulfilled in one person is one in 83 billion. So Jesus came to be a man, to be the fulfillment of all of these things that were spoken of him from the Old Testament. But secondly, Jesus became a man to show us the Father.

Now stay with me on this one and watch carefully. On one occasion, Philip was talking with Jesus in John 14 and he said, Lord, show us the Father and it will be sufficient for us. And Jesus said to Philip, Philip, have I been with you so long and yet you have not known me? Now listen to what he says at the end of this, Philip, he who has seen me has seen the Father. One of the most misunderstood things about this season of the year is the nature of the person who is actually being celebrated as far as his birthday is concerned.

This is not just a wonderful man we're talking about. No, Jesus was God in a body. Jesus was God walking around in flesh and blood.

The incarnation means that God was poured into the flesh of humanity. And so when Jesus came to this earth, he came for the purpose of showing us who God was. Now how do you understand God if you cannot know any more about him than the Old Testament's description of him as God is spirit? You can know about him through the Scriptures. Hebrews tell us that the prophets spoke of him, but the word which is Jesus has come to reveal to us who the Father is. If you want to know who God is, you need to know who Jesus is, because Jesus teaches you who God is.

Lee Strobel says that what Jesus was telling Philip was this, Philip, when you look at the sketch of God from the Old Testament, you will see the likeness of me. When Jesus became a man, he proved that God is not merely a principle, but that God is a person. Jesus was not just some idea about God, not a picture of God, but God himself in human form. If Jesus had not come to this earth, we would never have had a correct understanding of God. We could not know what God is like, and he sent us his own son to reveal himself to us. He took pity on our ignorance and our inability to comprehend him, and he said, if you want to know what I am like, I will pour myself into humanity that you understand, and as you watch him, you will see me. So when you read the gospels and you learn of Jesus and you study his life, you are taking a course in who God is, for Jesus came to reveal him to us. Colossians chapter 1 verses 15 and 19 support this truth in a marvelous way, he, Christ, is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation, for it pleased the Father that in him, in Christ, all the fullness should dwell.

Almighty God poured the Godhead into the body of Jesus. Jesus is God. The apostle John, I think, explains it best when he writes these words in the prologue of his gospel. He says it this way, listen, in the beginning was the word. In your Bible, you will notice the word is capitalized.

That's a word that speaks of Jesus. In the beginning was the word, and let's just put the word Jesus in there so we understand it clearly. In the beginning was Jesus, and Jesus was with God, and Jesus was God.

And Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. In the beginning was Jesus, and yet Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Don't let anyone ever tell you that Jesus began in Bethlehem.

He did not begin there. He had existed from time past, but he came into this form of humanity when he was born in Bethlehem. Historian William Barclay is in awe of this truth, and in one of his books, he writes these words. Here was the shatteringly new thing, that God could and would become a human person, that God could enter into this life that we live, that eternity could appear in time, that somehow the Creator could appear in creation in such a way that men's eyes could actually see him. Jesus did not come to talk to men about God. He came to show men what God is like so that the simplest mind might know him as intimately as the mind of the greatest philosopher. When John says that Jesus dwelt among us, he uses a word that means to live in a tent. Military people would say he came to bivouac with us, or as theologians define, he came to tabernacle with us, and that's what Jesus did, isn't it? He came to be one of us.

He came and moved in among us. So Jesus came to be a man, to show us God as he really is. Once again, Berkeley explains that before Jesus came, men could only grasp and understand God's nature and his ways in part. It was only when Jesus came that they saw fully and completely what God has always been like. Jesus is telling us that God was and is and ever shall be like Jesus, but men could never know and realize that until he came.

Why did Jesus become a man? So that those of us who are men and women, who understand other men and women, would be able to understand God. When you see Jesus doing what he did in the gospels, you are watching God at work. Do you want to know God?

Get to know Jesus. That's why the only way you can become a Christian is to know Jesus, because Jesus is the way that you know God. That's why Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but through me.

If you want to know God, you have to know Jesus, because Jesus is God's revelation to you about himself. Well, first of all, Jesus became a man to satisfy the prophecies of the Old Testament. Jesus became a man to show us the Father, thirdly, Jesus became a man to save us from our sin. I love what Paul wrote to Timothy in 1 Timothy 1.15. He says, this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, Paul wrote, and I'm the chief of them. Now, I've got to tell you something, if Paul is the chief of sinners, we're all in trouble, amen?

That means that if Jesus came to save Paul and Paul considered himself the chief of sinners, then all of us here, we need to be saved, every single one of us. Well, that's the first part of the answer to the question, why did Jesus become a man? And I hope that you will be with us tomorrow as we finish up our discussion of that question. Then the next day, we're going to talk about Joseph. You know, he's sometimes referred to as the forgotten man of Christmas. And we have some really interesting things to share with you about Joseph in the ministry of the Word of God on the radio in the month of December.

Tomorrow we'll finish up our discussion of why did Jesus become a man. I hope you'll join us then right here in this good station. Let's have a wonderful Christmas in December. We need it. We have the right to it. Let's prosecute it.

Let's do it every day. It's Christmas and we're going to enjoy it. For more information on Dr. Jeremiah's current series, Why the Nativity, please visit our website where you'll also find two free ways to help you stay connected, our monthly magazine Turning Points and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org forward slash radio.

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I'm Gary Hoogfleet. Please join us tomorrow as we continue the series, Why the Nativity. It's here on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah. Thanks for taking time to listen to this audio on demand from Vision Christian Media. To find out more about us, go to vision.org.au