CHRISTMAS REALLY IS ABOUT "THE CHRIST"

Posted by Scott Palmer on 8 December 2014 | Comments

CHRISTMAS REALLY IS ABOUT “THE CHRIST”

“For a child is born to us, a son is given to us. And the government will rest on His shoulders. These will be His royal titles: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.” Isaiah 9:6 (NLT)

“But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, are only a small village in Judah. Yet a ruler of Israel will come from you, one whose origins are from the distant past.” Micah 5:2 (NLT)

Christmas is the fulfillment of an incredible promise from our awesome God.  Hundreds of years before the first Christmas the prophets foretold of the coming of the Messiah, the Anointed One.  He would be born of a virgin in Bethlehem and He would be called, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father and the Prince of Peace.  He is our Savior.

In the midst of the business of the Christmas season, let’s take time to stop and reflect on the real meaning of Christmas.  At Christmas, we do not celebrate that Jesus came as a good man, a good teacher, religious leader or a prophet from God.  We celebrate that Jesus is God, the second person of the Trinity.  It is called the incarnation, meaning that God wrapped Himself in flesh.  He is 100% God and 100% man.  He lived a sinless life, died a vicarious death on the cross, was buried and raised from the dead.  Because He is God in flesh, He is uniquely qualified to die for the sins of the world.  Our hope of salvation is found in Him alone.  He is coming again as the King of Kings and one day every tongue will confess that He is Lord (John 1: 1, 14, John 14: 6, Acts 4: 12,  Philippians 2: 5-11).  This is the truth of Christmas and the essential truth of historical Christianity.

This basic Christian truth is being challenged more and more in our culture.  Maybe because of pluralism (many different faiths coming to North America),  the rise of Islam, a greater acceptance of an atheistic worldview or skeptics like Bart Ehrman but there is more noise in our culture from those who reject the deity of Christ.  A recent billboard supported by atheist’s read, “All I want for Christmas is to skip church, I’m too old for fairy tales.”  The biblical truth of Christmas is to “supernatural” for those who reject a biblical worldview.  Yet, I would argue that it is more reasonable to believe that Jesus is who the bible says He is than it is to reject it.  Everything that Jesus said, did and taught is validated by His resurrection from the dead.  The evidence for the resurrection is very convincing but that is the subject for another day (Check out The Case for The Resurrection by Gary Habermas).  Those who challenge the deity of Christ and the authenticity of the Christmas message typically do so in a couple of ways.   First, they would say that Jesus never claimed to be God.  Or second, that all of Jesus’ claims for deity were from the Gospel of John which was written so late in history the writer had an agenda to add statements that affirmed His deity.

The first argument is pretty simple to address.  It is clear that Jesus claimed to be God.  Abdu H. Murray in His book “Grand Central Question” states, “Muslims deny that Jesus ever claimed to be God.  Show me one place in the Bible where Jesus says, ‘I am God, worship Me,’ they protest.  Those exact words do not exist in the holy writ.  But humans don’t get to dictate how Jesus formulates His claim to divinity. This is Jesus’ prerogative.”  In John 8 Jesus claims to be more than just a god but He claims to be the one God.  Here is the context.   In Exodus 3:14 Yahweh calls Himself “I AM” and in John 8:57-58 Jesus says, “Truly, truly I say to you, before Abraham was I AM.”  His accusers knew of His claim.  They were incensed and picked up stones to kill Him for the blasphemy.  They understood that Jesus is equating Himself with deity—and not just any deity, mind you.  He claims to be the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.  Jesus was crucified not because He was a prophet or rabbi but because of His claim to be God.    The point is that Jesus claims for deity in the New Testament are clear. 

The second argument that skeptics will make is that Jesus claims for deity were made in the Gospel of John which they would say is written well after AD 100.  They believe that by the late date the author had an agenda, to add Jesus’ claims to be God.  The problem with that position is that many scholars disagree with a late dating of the Gospel of John.  I agree with the greatly respected archeologist and former skeptic William F. Albright who said, “We can already say emphatically there is no longer any solid basis for dating any book of the New Testament after about AD 80.” This places the New Testament documents early and among the eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life, teaching, death, burial and resurrection.  But for the sake of argument, let’s look at the skeptic’s critique.   Murray sates, “The common Muslim response is to reject Jesus’ words in John as fabricated corruptions.  They argue that the earlier Gospels record little to nothing about Jesus claiming divinity, but as more Gospels were written, the writers put greater and greater claims on Jesus’ lips until He claims to be God in John’s Gospel.”  The problem here is that even a cursory reading of the Gospels shows that is not the case. 

Murray just takes the Gospel of Mark which is the first Gospel written and points out that in Chapter two, Jesus claims the authority to forgive sins which is something only God can do.  In Mark 13 He says that He will return as “the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory”, which makes a direct connection between Himself and the divine Son of Man in Daniel 7.  In Mark 14:62 He claims to be one sharing authority with God.  I could go on and on but all through the NT you see Jesus’ demonstrations of deity.  J. Ed Komoszewski and Robert Bowman’s work “Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ” goes into great detail in showing Christ’s Deity. 

This fall I had an opportunity to be a part of Dr. Jim Burkett’s class Apologetics 101 and he asked the question, “Who Did Jesus Claim to Be?”

  1. Jesus Claimed to be God.
    Jesus calls Himself “I AM” the same term used in Exodus 3:14 to describe God. (John 8:58-59)
  2. Jesus Claimed to be the Object of Prayer.
    Jesus claimed to be the mediator between God and man, thus He was claiming to be God. (John 14:13)
  3. Jesus Claimed to Forgive Sins. (Mark 2:5-7)
  4. Jesus Claimed to be Worthy of Honor Due God. (John 5:22-23)
  5. Jesus Claimed to be the Messiah—God in the Old Testament (John 4:25-26)
  6. Jesus Claimed to be Equal With God in Authority (Matthew 24:35)
  7. Jesus Accepted Worship on Nine Occasions.  (Matt 20:20, Mark 5:6, Matt. 28: 17, John 20:28, Matt. 28:9, Matt. 28:17, Matt. 14:33, Matt. 8:2, Matt. 9:18)
    Even as a Rabbi, Jesus never rebuked anyone who worshipped Him and commended Thomas.
  8. Jesus Claimed to be One with God the Father. (John 10:30-33)

To say that Jesus did not claim to be God is to miss the point of not only the New Testament but the Gospel.

Here is the point.  Don’t let busyness or cultural lies cause you to miss the wonder of Christmas. So as Bob Kauflin writes, at Christmas never forget the real message of the season:

 

  •   Jesus, the eternal Son of God who before time was worshipped by countless angels, set aside His glory and entered the world through the birth canal of a young woman He had created.
  •   He came not into a 21 century environment with trained doctors, sterilized instruments and fetal monitors, but into a 1 century cave filled with flies, animal excrement and filth
  •   The fullness of deity took residence in the body of a baby gasping for its first breath.
  •   The One who spoke the universe into existence lay silently, unable to utter a word.
  •   He came by choice and with the sole intention of redeeming a fallen and rebellious race through His perfect obedience, substitutionary death and victorious resurrection.

 THAT IS WHY THERE IS NOTHING MORE WONDERFUL ABOUT CHRISTMAS THAN CHRIST HIMSELF.

 Pastor Scott

 Sources

 Abdu Murray, Grand Central Questions: Answering the Critical Concerns of the Major Worldviews

 Dr. Jim Burkett, Notes from Apologetics 101

 Bob Kauflin, 3 Pastoral Mistakes to Avoid with Christmas, Church Pastor.com

 Dr. Richard Land, New Testament Part II, Bringing Every Thought Captive podcast, December 1, 2014.