Divine abasement!

Here’s another carol that catches in verse the amazing abasement that it was for the Son of God to enter our human situation. “Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour, all for love’s sake, becamest poor”. We cannot imagine the wealth of glory that the Son of God left when he entered our world. The Bible puts it this way: “Though he was in the form of God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped [or held on to at all costs], but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant… Being found in human form, he humbled himself…” (Philippians 2.6-8).

The God who calls us to humble ourselves in penitence before him, is a humble God! He did not disdain to fulfil his mission in becoming “nothing” – of no reputation in this world. He who was in the form of God took on “human form” to dwell among us. And “taking the form of a servant” means that he, the Almighty Creator, came to do us good – to serve us! Jesus himself said later that he had “come not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10.45). Jesus’ service for us was to give his life as a sacrifice that alone could atone for our sins, so that we might be forgiven! What an amazing kind of God this is!

Another old carol expresses the profound descent of the Son of God into our world: “Hark, hark! The wise eternal Word like a weak infant cries; / In form of servant is the Lord, and God in cradle lies” (T Pestel). God in a cradle! Sharing our humanity from beginning to end!

If the beginning of his earthly life is characterised by humility, his enduring the agony of death was the final act of service that he came to render. He “gave his life” to ransom us, who were captive as it were to evil powers; he came, the powerful Saviour, in humble love to redeem us by the payment of his own blood, given up in sacrifice on the cross. Such was his mission, and he fulfilled it to the end.

Another carol expresses the wonder of the Christ-child: “Thou didst leave Thy throne and Thy heavenly crown when Thou camest to earth for me / But in Bethlehem’s home there was found no room for Thy holy nativity.” The Gospel of Luke tells us that when Mary was about to give birth in Bethlehem, “there was no room” available for them, so the humble incarnation took place in a stable, and the baby was laid in a manger. From the heights of glory to a cowshed!

The same carol goes on to express that which alone could be our worthy response: “O come to my heart, Lord Jesus / There is room in my heart for Thee”. This enlightened poetry gives us all a challenge: what place have we given to the incarnate Son of God, the unique Saviour of humankind?

It is an astonishing thought that our heart can become the home of the Saviour. In a verse of the New Testament we see Jesus standing as it were at the door of our hearts: “Behold,” he says, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him.” This is a word that we can put to the test. As he came to dwell physically on earth, so he can come and dwell spiritually in your heart if you invite him in.

Clive Every-Clayton

December 17, 2024 0

Born to save us from death

Once again the poets find words to express both the wonder and the depth of meaning of the incarnation of the Son of God: “Mild, he lays his glory by / Born that man no more may die”. Strange concept here! Born so that man may not die? What does this mean?

It’s a reference to something Jesus said when he was just about to raise a dead man named Lazarus back to life. “Whoever lives and believes in me shall never die” he said. He was obviously – as so often – using metaphorical or symbolic language, because he had just said, “he who believes in me will live, even though he dies” (John 11.25-26).

Jesus is referring to two kinds of death: physical death is one thing, but beyond that there is eternal death, “the wages of sin” (Romans 6.23). He says that those who believe in him may well die – as we all do – physically, but they will never die eternally but will have eternal life. This is a glorious promise Jesus made to those who come to trust in him: and the offer is still valid!

So the hymn writer, Charles Wesley, means that Jesus was born, and came into the world so that people, believing in him, may “no more” die. Then in the same carol, Wesley adds something else: “born to raise the sons of earth / born to give them second birth”. This also need unpacking! Though Jesus did teach that he, the Son of God, would bring about the resurrection of the dead at the last day, when he returns in glory (see John 5.26-29), here Wesley is alluding to another deep teaching of Jesus.

A Jewish leader called Nicodemus came to Jesus to check him out, and Jesus spoke to him about this “second birth”. “Unless a person is born again,” he said, “he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3.3). He went on to insist, “You must be born again” (John 3.7). A person’s physical life begins when they are born; but they receive spiritual, eternal life when they are “born again”. The object of Jesus coming into the world was to make it possible for those of us who were under the threat of eternal death to obtain eternal life by being “born again”. So Wesley was quite right: Jesus was born to be the Saviour of the world so that those who trust in him might have this “second birth” into God’s kingdom.

How does this second birth come about? you may ask. Elsewhere the Bible teaches us how. We are born again “through the Word of Gd” (1 Peter 1.23). In other words, we have to hear God’s word, or read it in the Bible, listening for its application to one’s personal life, responding to its call to repent and believe in Jesus. This involves a personal commitment.

But another verse at the beginning of John’s Gospel (1.11-13), speaks of the need of receiving Christ personally as Lord and Saviour: “He [Jesus] came to his own people but his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God who were born… of God”. When we receive Christ by faith, we receive new life in him; we become children of God; we are “born again”. This is just another way of speaking of the deep reason for Christ’s coming, as was said at his birth: “You shall call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1.21).

Clive Every-Clayton

December 16, 2024 0

Jesus, the Word of God

Another profound revelation given in the first chapter of John’s Gospel that is often read at Christmas time is the use of the expression, “Word” to signify the Lord Jesus Christ. This is clear in John 1.14: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”.

The Gospel opens with the words “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. This is a phrase both dense and difficult to fathom – but it deals with both the nature of God and the incarnation, both of which are supernatural themes not easy to access. Let’s examine it more closely.

“In the beginning was…” – this both evokes the first verse of the Bible, “In the beginning God created…”; and yet the verb “was” depicts not an action but a presence. “In the beginning” brings us back to the very dawn of creation – or even to the deep mystery before creation took place. The “Word” was already there!

“The Word was with God”. Here the “Word” appears separate from God, but closely connected with him. “He was in the beginning with God” (verse 2). But who ever could have been there with the Creator at the beginning of creation? The Word was in eternity at God’s side; could he be God’s equal?

“The Word was God”. Now we are really confused: the Son, Jesus (the Word made flesh, v14) was not only with God. He was God! Later in the chapter John recounts the testimony of John the Baptist at the start of Jesus’ public ministry: “I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God” (v34). The beginning of this Gospel therefore introduces us to the Son of God who was with God the Father at the eternal moment prior to creation. Christian theologians, reflecting on this and other passages of the New Testament where mention is made of “the Spirit of God”, concluded that in the one divine true God there is a tri-unity of Father, Son, and Spirit. This has always seemed out of reach of our human understanding, but that is the whole point: a god you can fully comprehend does not deserve the title of God. The Almighty Creator must always exceed our human grasp. “My thoughts are higher than your thoughts”, he says in Isaiah 55.8-9.

Next, John reveals that the Word was none other than the Creator: “All things were made by him, and without him nothing was made that was made” (verse 3). The Word, the eternal Son of God, was uncreated; indeed, he was the Creator of “all things”! So in Jesus’ birth, we see the Creator visiting his creation – even entering his own creation like the “undercover Boss”!

All this is true of that tiny babe in Bethlehem! “God contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man”. Or as John puts it, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only-begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth” (verse 14). Well may the angels of heaven burst out to worship at the sight of the one who had forever dwelt in the heights of heavenly glory taking on the nature of humanity!

John evokes however the greatest of tragedies: “He [the Word] was in the world, and the world was made by him, yet the world did not know him” (verse 10). Some, however, did come to know him, and to receive him and love him. Are you one of them?

Why not take time to read and meditate on those first 18 verses of John’s Gospel?

Clive Every-Clayton

December 14, 2024 0