God Manifest in the Flesh | 1 Timothy 3:16
Brian Hedges | December 25, 2022
Let me invite you to turn in your Bibles to the book of 1 Timothy. If you are using one of the Bibles there in the chairs in front of you, one of the blue hard-back Bibles, it’s page 992. We’re going to be looking at 1 Timothy 3:16.
A number of years ago, shortly after we began our family together, Holly said to me one day, “I need a seminary degree.” She said that in response to the tough theological questions that our then-five-year-old, Stephen, was asking. He was asking questions like this: “How can Jesus die if he is God, because God can’t die?” Did your kid ever ask you a question like that? That’s a hard theological question. How can Jesus die if he’s God, because God can’t die?
The answer to that question is the incarnation of Christ. I think sometimes we forget that those are the kinds of questions that the church had to wrestle with and think through in the early centuries of the church. In fact, perhaps you’ve forgotten, or maybe no one has ever explained, that the Christian church spent the first 500 years wrestling through questions just like that. They came to understand, as they wrestled with the reality of history and the testimony of the apostles and with the written word of God, they came to understand that a proper understanding of who Jesus is and what he has done is right at the heart of the Christian faith. Christology—the doctrine of Christ—was the key issue for the first half millennium of the Christian church. It’s also a key issue today, but one that perhaps we don’t think enough about.
Well, we have been thinking about it, to some degree, over the last four weeks in our Advent series. We took Galatians 4:4-5, which is one of Paul’s great gospel summaries, and we really broke those verses down into four sermons, as we thought about anticipation, incarnation, redemption, and adoption. Today I want to look at another of Paul’s short gospel statements, this one from 1 Timothy 3:16, with our focus, once again, on incarnation, but looking at it in a slightly different way than we did a few weeks ago.
The passage is 1 Timothy 3:16; you can read it as I read it on the screen. This is a great statement of the gospel. In fact, many of the scholars believe that this was originally a creedal statement; it was something like a confessional statement in the early church, or maybe even a hymn, and the apostle Paul includes it here in his letter, but it’s a great standalone statement that’s worthy of our attention. Hear the word of God in 1 Timothy 3:16.
Paul says, “Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness:
“He was manifested in the flesh,
vindicated by the Spirit,
seen by angels,
proclaimed among the nations,
believed on in the world,
taken up in glory.”
This is God’s word.
Now, I mostly want to focus on the first half of that verse: “Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh . . .”
I want us to just think about the doctrine of the incarnation, and we’re going to look at three things:
1. The Meaning of the Incarnation
2. The Centrality of the Incarnation
3. The Significance of the Incarnation
So, first of all we’re just going to define. What’s the meaning of the incarnation? Then we’re going to talk about why it’s so important. Why is it so crucial and central to the Christian faith? Then at the end we’re going to see some of the practical implications of this doctrine, as we think about its significance.
1. The Meaning of the Incarnation
The word “incarnation”, with the Latin word carne in the middle of it, literally means “to be enfleshed.” The word carne is the word for meat or for flesh. A carnivore is a flesh-eating, a meat-eating creature. When we’re talking about the incarnation of Christ, we mean that he took on physical flesh. He took on a human body. He was manifested in the flesh, as Paul says here in this passage.
This is the testimony of the New Testament. Here are a couple of other passages that teach this. You all know this, John 1:1 and 14, part of the prologue of John’s great Gospel. John begins his Gospel telling us, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” When you drop down to verse 14, he then tells us that the Word—this same Word who was in the beginning with God and was God; the eternal Word, the Word who is the Creator of all things, the Word who is one with the Father—this “Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
The Word became flesh; he was manifested in the flesh. The eternal Word of the Father, “now in flesh appearing.” We just sang it, didn’t we? The Word became flesh; that’s the meaning of the incarnation. Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, took on a human nature. Without ceasing to be divine, without losing his deity or his divinity, he took another nature, a human nature, including both body and soul, assuming that to his person, and he became one of us.
We also see John’s testimony in his first letter, 1 John 1:1-2. Notice here the sensory language. He’s talking about what he and the other apostles have experienced. He says,
That which was from the beginning [that’s an echo of John 1:1], which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—the life was made manifest [the same word Paul uses in 1 Timothy 3; he was manifested in the flesh], and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us . . . .
Now, hear what the apostle John is saying. He’s saying, “We heard him! We saw him with our own eyes! We touched him with our hands!” Who was he? He was that which was from the beginning. He was the eternal life himself, Jesus, the Son of God incarnate among us.
The Scottish theologian David MacIntyre said that we could define the incarnation with just three short statements: “He came forth from God. He came down from heaven. He came in the flesh.”
That’s the meaning of the incarnation: the Son of God, the Word of the Father, became flesh, and he lived among us.
Now, in thinking about the doctrine of the incarnation, it is important not only to define it, which we’ve just done, but also to distinguish it from error, and most importantly to grasp the wonder of it. John the apostle especially helps us in distinguishing it from error. In fact, this is one of the main points of focus in this first letter, the letter of 1 John. Let me read another passage to you, 1 John 4:2-3. Notice here how John is countering a false teaching about Jesus. He said in verse 1 that you should “test the spirits to know whether they are from God,” and then he says this in verse 2:
By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.
We think that John was probably countering something like an early form of Docetism, that ancient heresy. Docetism comes from the Greek word dokeo, which means “to seem.” The Docetists basically taught that Jesus only seemed to have a human body. He only appeared to be human, but he wasn’t really human. He was divine, but he wasn’t human.
They weren’t denying the divinity of Christ, but they were denying the true humanity of Christ. They essentially said he looked like one of us but he wasn’t actually one of us. It’s what we might call “Superman theology.” It’s like Kalel, the alien from Krypton in the Superman movies, the Superman comics. He looks human, he poses as mild-mannered Clark Kent, but he’s really a superhero; he’s really an alien. He’s really not human at all. He’s not really subject to human experiences in the same way we are.
That’s not the apostles’ doctrine at all. They’re saying, “He really came in the flesh!” John goes on to say that if anyone says he didn’t really come in the flesh, that person is an anti-Christ. He’s actually setting himself against the revelation of God in the Son who became flesh among us. No, John and Paul and the other apostles tell us that he really came in the flesh and that it was real flesh. He wasn’t a man of steel, but he was a man of flesh and blood, with a body that could be wearied and needed rest; that could become hungered and needed to eat and drink; with nerves that could feel pain; with skin that could be pierced with nails. He was a real human being.
We have to then try to grasp the wonder of this. I mean, this is amazing! The Son of God, the eternal one, became a human being, subject to all of the finitude, all of the limitations of human experience, without ceasing to be God. Certainly there is a mystery there. So we have to grasp and struggle to understand this mystery so that we can adore and worship the Lord.
This is why the old theologians are so helpful. I want to read a quote to you from Charles Spurgeon, from a wonderful sermon on this passage, 1 Timothy 3:16. Spurgeon said,
God himself was manifest in the flesh. What a mystery is this, a mystery of mysteries! God the invisible was manifest; God the spiritual dwelt in flesh; God the infinite, uncontained, boundless was manifest in the flesh. God was manifest in the flesh; truly God, not God humanized, but God as God. He was manifest in real flesh, not in manhood deified and made superhuman, but in actual flesh. Consider how he who made you became like you. He who is your God became your brother. He who is adored of angels once lay in a manger. He who feeds all living things hungered and was a-thirst. He who oversees all words as God was as a man made to sleep, to suffer, and to die like yourselves.
Just stand back in wonder.
Come, behold the wondrous mystery
In the dawning of the King;
He, the theme of heaven’s praises,
Robed in frail humanity.
In our longing, in our darkness,
Now the light of life has come.
Look to Christ, who condescended,
Took on flesh, and ransomed us.
The meaning of the incarnation.
2. The Centrality of the Incarnation
Secondly, we need to consider for a few minutes the centrality of the incarnation. By centrality I mean that the incarnation is not some tangential doctrine somewhere on the margins of Christianity. This is not just dotting a necessary i or crossing a peripheral t. Without this, without the incarnation, there is no Christianity. This is essential, central, foundational.
We can see it in the way Paul frames his statement. “Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh.” He says, “This is great!” It’s the Greek word megas, from which we get our word “mega.” It’s an adjective; it means large, great, important.
He says, “Great is the mystery of godliness.” Now, “mystery” is a key word in Paul’s letters, used some 26 times. It does not mean an unsolved mystery. Don’t think of Agatha Christie, don’t think of Sherlock Holmes, don’t think of a murder mystery, a “whodunnit” where you don’t know the answer yet. For Paul, the Greek word mysterion really means something which once was hidden but now has been revealed. In other words, it’s the mystery at the end of the film, when you actually know the answer and you’ve seen how all the clues fit together, and suddenly you understand what took place. It’s mystery in that sense, a mystery revealed.
Paul tells us, “Great is the mystery of godliness,” this thing that once was hidden but now is revealed. It was hidden in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament prophets, they looked for a Messiah, they looked for a Davidic king, they looked for a prophet like Moses, they looked for someone who would come and be a suffering servant, who would die in the place of Israel. They believed that God himself, Yahweh himself, would in some way rule over the people. But they never imagined that all of these different figures would be combined into one, and it would be the one who would be born in a manger in Bethlehem. That was hidden. But now, Paul says, it’s been revealed. We’re in on the mystery! He says, “Great is the mystery of godliness.”
That word “godliness” is another key word in Paul’s letters, especially his pastoral epistles to Timothy and Titus. It’s a word that really means piety or religion. It’s a word that means the practice of our faith or the beliefs that are appropriate to our faith. It can include both of those things.
We might think of living a godly life. That means living a life that is marked by devotion and fervor, commitment to the Lord. That’s godliness. But when he’s talking about holding the mystery of godliness—“Great is the mystery of godliness”—I think he means here the content of our faith. I think that because in verse 9, just a few verses before, Paul had said that deacons of the church must “hold the mystery of the faith with a clear conscience.” The mystery of the faith, and now he talks about the mystery of godliness. I think he means the body of Christian truth, because then he gives us a summary of what that includes in the following statements.
He says not only that it’s great, but he says it’s certain. Again, I’m making the case here for the centrality of the doctrine of the incarnation, so that’s why I’m digging into the words here a little bit.
Paul says something here that I think is really important that does not come through in the English Standard Version. The version I read said, “Great, we confess, is the mystery of godliness,” but that phrase “we confess” is actually just a single word in Greek. It’s not a verb, it’s an adverb, and it’s an adverb that means that which is certain, that which is without question, that which is uncontestable.
The old King James said, “Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness.”
Here’s the NIV: “Beyond all question, the mystery from which true godliness springs is great: He appeared in the flesh,” and so on.
Or the Christian Standard Bible says, “And most certainly, the mystery of godliness is great.”
The point here is that Paul is emphasizing the certainty, the absolute, verified truth that has been revealed to the apostles and was agreed on by all of the churches. He’s emphasizing that, and he’s emphasizing the greatness of this truth.
Then he gives us a summary of that truth in six statements. Those are the six statements that make up the rest of this verse. I’ve read them already; I’m really only focusing on the first. But it’s worth just pausing for a minute to see them together and to see how they fit together.
Let me just read them now from the Christian Standard Bible.
And most certainly, the mystery of godliness is great:
He was manifested in the flesh,
vindicated in the Spirit,
seen by angels,
preached among the nations,
believed on in the world,
taken up in glory.
Those are six statements that made up something like an early Christian creed.
You might ask, “How do they fit together?” There are several options; I won’t go into the options, but I’ll just read to you one very helpful explanation from commentator John Stott. I think as you see how Stott puts this together you’ll see how this statement makes sense. He says,
"The hymn consists of three couplets, in each of which there is a deliberate antithesis (between flesh and Spirit, between angels and nations, between world and glory). [There are three contrasting statements that belong together.] The first couplet speaks of the revelation of Christ: he appeared in a body [or was manifested in the flesh] and was vindicated by the Spirit." That speaks of his incarnation and his resurrection, the resurrection vindicated by the Spirit. Read Romans 1:4. "Here [Stott says] are the human and divine aspects of his earthly life and ministry in Palestine. The second couplet speaks of the witnesses of Christ; he was seen by angels and preached among the nations." You see the contrast? The angels of heaven were there; they saw him at his birth, remember, in Luke 2. They were witnesses to Christ, and they were witnesses to Christ throughout his earthly ministry. In fact, Peter tells us that the angels desire to peer into these things, to understand these things. He was seen by angels, but now he’s proclaimed among the nations, so that the nations now bear witness to the reality of who Christ is.
Stott goes on: "For now the significance of Jesus Christ is seen to extend far beyond Palestine; to all the inhabitants of heaven and earth, to angels as well as humans, to the nations as well as the Jews. Then the third couplet speaks of the reception which Christ was given. He was believed on in the world and was taken up in glory. For heaven and earth did more than see and hear him, they joined in giving him recognition and acclaim."
Now, all of this simply highlights this one, simple point: that the incarnation is not a debatable, disposable doctrine, but it is a central foundation stone to the whole Christian faith.
There are some important applications to be made from that. It means that this doctrine must be central in our unity with one another and our unity with other Christians. Listen, there is no real unity without this common confession that Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, became flesh and dwelt among us. Without that, there is no Christianity. That’s why we must say, even at the risk of being misunderstood, that those who deny this, even if they have the name “Christian” on their church sign—if they deny this, that Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, really did become a human being and live among us; if they deny this, they’re not truly Christian, because they’re denying something that’s basic to the Christian faith. So it’s necessary for our unity.
It’s also to be central in our teaching. One reason why we at Redeemer Church to some degree observe the Christian calendar—Advent, Christmas, Holy Week, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension Sunday, Pentecost Sunday—all of those are days that we try to give some attention to in our teaching and preaching or in the shape of our worship. One reason we do that is because those things are the things we need to be reminded of again and again and again. It’s built into the Christian calendar so that at least once a year we’re being taught once again the basic doctrine of the incarnation at Christmas; the basic doctrine of the cross at Good Friday; the basic doctrine that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead on Easter; and he’s ascended to the Father; and he has sent the Spirit. I mean, that’s the basic outline of the Christian faith. That’s the basic doctrine, and we need to be taught it again and again and again.
Here’s another way in which this doctrine is important for us. It’s important for our worship. It must be central in our worship, so that we’re worshiping as we hear these truths. This isn’t a seminary class, this is a church! I know some of you are saying, “It feels a little like a seminary class this morning!” But listen, the doctrine is meant to serve the worship. The doctrine is there so that when you’re invited to stand and recite a creed you’re reciting something that you understand and you feel deeply in your hearts. When you are encouraged to sing about the wondrous mystery of the incarnation, you’re not just singing words off a screen, you’re singing something that you believe in the depth of your being, and you understand, “This is absolutely necessary for my salvation. If this is true, the wonder of this beckons nothing less than my whole-hearted response of praise and worship to God.”
You don’t get that kind of worship without the doctrine. Now, you can get feelings. You can get hands in the air, you can get people singing with eyes closed to loud music without a lot of doctrine, but you can’t get worship from the heart without truth. That’s what Jesus said: those who worship must worship “in spirit and in truth.” The truth part is really important.
Just to give you an example of someone who I think grasped this—John Wesley and his brother Charles Wesley. I mentioned Wesley last week and his conversion experience, but did you know that the Wesleys put together hundreds and thousands of hymns, especially Charles.
Last night I found online that there’s this short, 40-something-page book that John Wesley published that is simply called Hymns for the Nativity of Our Lord. Did you know that he and Charles wrote a lot more hymns besides “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” and “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus”? Those are the two that survived. But as I was reading through these, I was struck again and again and again. This doctrine of the incarnation is central. This is just pouring out of Wesley in poetry. Let me give you some examples.
Let earth and heaven combine,
Angels and men agree,
To praise in songs divine
The incarnate Deity.
Our God contracted to a span,
Incomprehensibly made man,
Whom all the angels worship,
Lies hid in human nature.
Incarnate see the Deity,
The infinite Creator.
Here’s another one.
Lo, he lays his glory by,
Emptied of his majesty.
See the God who all things made
Humbly in a manger laid.
One more:
The everlasting God came down
To sojourn with the sons of men.
Without his majesty or crown,
The great invisible is seen.
Of his dazzling glory shorn,
The everlasting Word is born.
There’s just example after example after example after example. I’m not giving you all those because I think we necessarily need to sing all of those hymns. The best ones survived and we sing them today. I’m giving that as a case study, as an example of someone who was an evangelical Christian, who was born again by believing the message of the gospel, and it so took over his heart and his life and his imagination that he just couldn’t keep from writing songs about it! It drove his worship, and it should drive our worship as well, because it’s central.
There is no Christianity without this. There is no real worship without this. There is no unity without this. This is what it means to be Christian; it is to believe that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and died in our place.
3. The Significance of the Incarnation
So, one more thing: the significance of the incarnation. Why is it so significant to our lives? We might call this the practicality of the incarnation or the relevance of the incarnation; pick your word. But what I want you to see here is just three—I could give you a dozen, but here are just three reasons why this doctrine matters not just for our faith but for living out our faith in everyday life. Three things.
(1) Number one: The incarnation defines how we know God. Read the Gospel of John, and read the kinds of things Jesus says in the Gospel of John. He says, “I and my Father are one. Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. The Father is in me and I am in him.” Jesus essentially is saying, “Listen, if you want to know what God is like, look at me. I am the revelation of the Father.” He’s the Word. What is the Word? The word is something which is spoken by someone, right? And Jesus is the eternal Word of the Father. The Word of God incarnate among us is God’s revelation of himself enfleshed among us.
One theologian, Graham Cole, puts it like this. He says, “Jesus is the window into the heart of God. To hear Jesus is to hear the Word of God; to see Jesus is to see the character of God; to watch Jesus is to see God in action.”
Now, this is practical in this sense: every single one of us has thoughts about God. Every single one of us believes something about God. We think about God in certain ways and certain terms. But the real test for us is, do we think about God in the way that Jesus has revealed God? When you think about God and the character of God, do you think about Jesus? When you think about what God is like, is the picture before your mind the picture given by Jesus? Because Jesus is the revelation of God.
Let me put an even finer point on it, this time quoting once again David MacIntyre, this great Scottish preacher from many years ago. He said, “The revelation of God which Jesus Christ came to bring is the revelation of one whose garments are red, whose heart is wounded, whose throne is shadowed by the doom of death; the God and Father of a slandered and dying man.”
If you want to know what God is like, look to the manger, look to the cross, and there you’ll see his love. There you’ll see his grace. There you’ll see his heart for you. There you’ll see how deep the Father’s love for us is. Let that shape the way you think about God this week.
(2) Here’s the second way this doctrine helps us. The incarnation models how to live the Christian life, because in the incarnation we see the divine humility. The Christmas story is a story of God coming down, of God coming near, of God becoming a baby, becoming a servant, becoming a condemned criminal on a cross, on our behalf.
And again, it’s not a doctrine to just file away in your theological file cabinet; it is a doctrine that is meant to shape the way we live. Listen to Paul’s words in Philippians 2: “In your relationships with one another have the mindset as Christ Jesus, who, being in the very form [or nature] of God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross.”
Again, it’s one of Paul’s great gospel summaries, one of his great statements of the person and work of Jesus Christ. But notice how he begins it in verse 5: “In your relationships with one another have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.”
The whole reason Paul is writing this is because he’s writing to a church that’s being torn apart by division, or at least that’s the threat. There are some people who are looking after their own interests, not the interests of others. They’re more concerned about getting their way or about having the prominent position than they are about serving and loving other people. He’s saying that’s the wrong mindset. The right mindset is the mindset of Christ, and he was in very nature God, but he didn’t consider that something to be used to his own advantage, something to be exploited. To be in very nature God meant that he took the place of humility, the place of servanthood, and he humbled himself to be obedient to death on the cross.
How does that work itself out in our lives? Think about it in three realms. Think about it at home, servanthood at home. Are you quick to see the needs of others in your family and to meet those needs, cheerfully, lovingly, without begrudging others, and without getting grumpy or gripy?
Husbands, don’t wait to be asked to do the dishes after Christmas lunch. Just jump in and help and serve! Be attentive to the needs of your wife.
Kids, don’t wait to be asked, or when you are asked, don’t grump all the way to the trash can and then all the way out to the curb to take out the Christmas trash.
I mean, it really does get that practical! The incarnation, the doctrine of the incarnation, if it really hits home, if it really lands, it really is meant to trickle down into those kinds of domestic relationships, so that our default Christian character is humble and meek and willing to serve. It’s that practical. If it doesn’t get that practical, you haven’t really understood the doctrine, even if you can quote all the verses.
Here’s another realm: servant leadership. Leadership in the church, or take it to whatever sphere. It could be in the business as well; servant leadership.
I’ll never forget a lesson I learned many, many years ago. A preacher that I looked up to, who was probably 15 or 20 years my senior, invited me to go on a preaching trip with him. I wasn’t ordained yet, I was probably 23 or 24 years old at the time. So it was an opportunity to go to this big conference and to hear him preach and to get to know other preachers in our denomination at the time. I was excited about this, and I was especially enthralled as I got to view a pastor’s big library. That’s what I was into.
I remember that we had a conversation somewhere along that weekend where I asked this preacher, “If there was one piece of advice you could give me as a younger preacher—one piece of advice—what would it be?”
I suppose I thought he was going to give me a list of books to read or tell me how to study the Bible more effectively or something like that. He paused and he thought for a minute, and this is what he said. He said, “Brian, you have to learn how to wash feet.” That was all he said! “You have to learn how to wash feet.”
That’s exactly what Jesus did, isn’t it? He took the towel; he took the place of the servant. This is how he led. He actually said, “The greatest among you will be the servant.”
This is the way to be great: it’s to take the lower place and to be willing to serve. That’ll change the way you think about your use of spiritual gifts in the church, because it means you’re not looking for the platform, you’re not looking for the authority, you’re not looking for a position, you’re just looking for, “Where can I serve and meet the needs of others?” That’s what your gifts are there for. It’s not there to enhance your self-esteem, it’s there for you to serve other people. That’s what leadership is, is service.
Or think of it in terms of identity, your own identity, your self-concepts. Having the mind of Christ is so counter to platform-building, to making a name for ourselves, to building our identity around being the best in our field. The incarnate Christ turns our whole understanding of identity upside-down.
Seek not in courts or palaces,
Nor royal curtains draw,
But search the stable; see your God
Extended on the straw.
Become like him in his humility. The incarnation models how to live the Christian life.
(3) There’s one more, and I’m almost done. Number three, the incarnation shapes our future hope.
Archbishop William Temple, a generation or two ago, Archbishop of Canterbury in the Church of England, he one time said that Christianity is “the most materialistic of all religions.” What he meant by that is not that Christianity is the most consumeristic of all religions. He didn’t mean materialism in that sense of the word. He meant that it was, of all the different religions in the world, it’s the one that affirms the created order with its physicality and materiality more than any other.
The reason is because not only did God dignify creation and human beings by creating us in his image but Jesus in the incarnation dignified that. When he came, he came as one of us, he took on a human body. Get this: when he was resurrected, he was resurrected in the body. And when he ascended to the Father, he ascended in a body. When he returns a second time, he’s going to return in a body.
This is the astounding thing. When God, the eternal Son, took upon himself human nature, he took it to keep it! He didn’t take it to leave it aside and go back to his eternal, pre-incarnate form. I have to be careful how I say this. He didn’t lose any of the deity, okay, but he did add something. He added something that he’ll never lose. He’ll never lose his human nature. That’s how much God cares about creation and the created order, and he did it so that in that very human nature he could save your human nature, so that he could redeem you, so that he could redeem your body.
I could have you dozens of texts on this; read Romans 8. Read 1 Corinthians 15. Read Revelation 21-22. Read the end of the story. The end of the story is not us going up, it’s God coming down and making the kingdoms of this world the kingdom of Christ. It’s a new heavens and a new earth; it’s a new creation. That shapes our future hope. That’s what we’re hoping for!
That will shape the way you think about the aches and pains of an aging body, it’ll shape the way you think about loss and grief, about cancer and Alzheimer’s. I mean, these are personal things. These are the griefs that we feel in the Christmas season, those of us who have lost loved ones, and a lot of you have. Our hope is that those who die in the Lord are not only happy in the presence of God now, but someday their very bodies will be raised incorruptible, immortal, and glorious, made like Christ’s glorious body—all because of the incarnation and the resurrection.
Come, behold the wondrous mystery;
Slain by death, the God of life.
But no grave could e’er restrain him;
Praise the Lord! He is alive.
What a foretaste of deliverance!
How unwavering our hope!
Christ in power resurrected,
As we will be when he comes.
Friends, we’ve looked at the meaning, the centrality, and the significance of the incarnation. Here’s the final appeal. Let me implore you this morning to understand this doctrine; not only to understand it, but to believe it, to affirm it; not only to believe and affirm it, but to defend it. And not only that, but let it inspire your worship, and let it define how you understand God. Let it govern how you live the Christian life, in humility and servanthood; and let it shape your future hope as you look beyond this world to the new world that Christ will bring when he comes. Let’s pray.
Our gracious God, how we thank you this morning for the work of salvation, that for us and for our salvation Jesus Christ came down. This is good news, and we humbly receive it, believe it, affirm it, and celebrate it together this morning. We pray, Lord, that it would indeed shape our lives, down to our attitudes and our behaviors, down to this afternoon and this week, and in the days and weeks to come. We pray that even now, as we continue in worship, that these profound realities would inspire the awe and the reverence and the awe and praise of which you are worthy.
As we come to the Lord’s table this morning and we take physical elements of bread and juice, may they be for us tangible reminders of a gospel that cares very much about the physical and material world. May it point us to the body of Jesus broken for us, the blood of Jesus shed for us, so that we could be redeemed.
As we affirm these truths in confessing our faith and in worship through song, may we speak and sing from our hearts as though our very lives depend on the reality of these things, because they do. May you be glorified and honored in all that we sing and say and do. We pray this in the name of and for the glory of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Brian G. Hedges
