-8 Min Read
Introduction
I remember growing up in a time of much dispute and debate over how one celebrates the Christmas season. “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” was the thing. Being raised in the Bible-Belt of the American South, cultural “Christians” were fed up with the direction society was going concerning Christmas in the early 2000s. Some had signs made for the front lawns that read, “Keep ‘Christ’ in Christmas!” There was even an organized boycott against Starbucks when they instituted a policy that their workers were not allowed to say “Merry Christmas.” But what is Christmas?
The traditions are so vast and so variable from house to house. If you were to ask 10 people what Christmas meant to them and how they observed it, you would get 10 different answers. Trees! Presents! Lights! Santa! Baby Jesus! Food! Family! Christmas Movies! One is almost overwhelmed. Where do we start, and where does it end? Are some of these things sinful and are some of these things sacred? Maybe, maybe not.
But in the simplest sense, biblically speaking, Christmas is a season of time when we especially remember the incarnation of the Son of God.
“And The Word
Became Flesh”
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
– John 1:14 (LSB)
Before we can really appreciate the incarnation we need to understand what incarnation means. The word “incarnation” means “being or becoming in flesh” and it is derived from John 1:14. The Latin words en, “in,” with carne, “flesh,” make up this term [1]. The Apostle John tells us that this “Word became flesh.” Notice that John does not say that God (theos) became flesh, but the Word (logos) became flesh.
This is an important distinction John wishes to make. For if God became flesh that would imply a fundamental change according to His nature. If that were true, God is no longer immutable (Num. 23:19; Mal. 3:6; James 1:17) and would then also derive His being from creation (as the pantheists believe). This also could cause problems to Trinitarian thought, for God the Father did not take on flesh, nor did the Holy Spirit, but exclusively the Son takes on flesh.
Avoiding these problems, at the beginning of His Gospel, John says:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
– John 1:1-3 (LSB)
This “Word” that was with God in the beginning, and is God, and through Whom all things came into being, is the same Word that “became flesh” in v.14. This Word is both personal with God and yet at the same time is very God. The Son of God, a divine person of the Trinity, undergoes an incarnation by Himself.
The word translated “flesh” is the Greek word σάρξ (sarx) and it does mean “flesh, the body of man” as seen in John 6:54, but it can also mean “humanity” as seen in John 17:2. It is best understood in the latter, that God the Son took on not just a body, but a human body. The Word took on humanity, not angels (Heb. 2:16). Treier explains it this way:
“Flesh connotes more than embodiment – scandalous as that would already be – because Scripture uses the term to speak “contemptuously” of humanity. God remembers that we are but flesh (Ps. 78:39), frail and temporary like grass (Isa. 40:6-8). While our finitude is natural, our current morality is not – paying the wages of sin so that assuming flesh identifies Immanuel with our fallen condition.”
– Daniel J. Treier [2]
The Son of God became like us in every way and yet was without sin (Heb. 4:15). He truly was human as part of our humanity, and yet was truly God. God the Son truly and humbly identifies Himself with fallen humanity by clothing Himself in our likeness, yet was pure and sinless (Phil. 2:5-8).
The tabernacle language is used by the Apostle John by adding; “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father” (John 1:14). Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the fulfillment of the temple. He is the true and greater tabernacle of God. God’s glory and presence are no longer mediated through a tent or a building but through a person. Soon in John’s chronology, Jesus would speak of His body as the temple.
Jesus answered them, “Destroy this sanctuary, and in three days I will raise it up.” 20 The Jews then said, “It took forty-six years to build this sanctuary, and will You raise it up in three days?” 21 But He was speaking about the sanctuary of His body. 22 So when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.
– John 2:19-22 (LSB)
Knowing The Father Through The Son
No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.
– John 1:18 (LSB)
John reminds us that no one has ever seen God “at any time.” God is spirit (John 4:24) and therefore is invisible (Col. 1:15; 1 Tim. 1:17). However, through “the only begotten God” who is in the intimate presence “of the Father,” we may know Him. The LSB says that “He,” Jesus Christ (the Logos), “has explained” God to us. The Greek word translated as “explained” is ἐξηγέομαι (exēgeomai) and it means “to set forth a narrative, unfold a teaching.”
“This Word-made-flesh, himself God, is nevertheless differentiable from God, and as such is intimate with God; as man, as God’s incarnate Self-expression, he has made God known.”
– D. A. Carson [3]
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, reveals God to us. John is simply repeating the words of Jesus in John 6:46; “Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father.” This is expressed again when Jesus says to Philip, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).
God has revealed Himself through several theophonies such as a burning bush (Exod. 3:1-6), a cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night (Exod. 13:21). But now, He shows Himself through the only begotten Son of God – Jesus Christ our Lord.
God With Us
And she will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” 22 Now all this took place in order that what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet would be fulfilled, saying, 23 “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.”
– Matthew 1:21-23 (LSB)
Remembering the Incarnation is much more than remembering the virgin birth. Appreciating the Incarnation is to appreciate the deity of Christ. One may affirm the virgin birth but still deny the deity of Jesus. The Christmas season is best observed when we stop and consider the condescension of God in the Son.
Matthew claims the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy in Isaiah 7:14. God has not only identified with us in the Son but He is with us through the Son. God is with us in the truest sense of the term. He, through the Son, became flesh. “For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells bodily” (Col. 2:9).
Conclusion
Christmas is much more than festivities, it is a time when we give careful remembrance to one of the greatest miracles ever done – the incarnation of our Lord. Paul reminds us that we are not to cast judgment on those who observe festivals, new moons, and sabbaths in service to God (Col. 2:16). But we must remember that to observe these things without Christ at the center is paganism. The true center of our worship and observances is Christ and Him alone. We as Protestants confess Soli Deo Gloria, “Glory to God alone.” I like the way the CSB translates the next verse in Colossians: “These are a shadow of what was to come; the substance is Christ” (Col. 2:17).
Come to Bethlehem and see
Him whose birth the angels sing,
Come, adore on bended knee,
Christ the Lord, the newborn King.
Gloria, in excelsis Deo
Gloria, in excelsis Deo
Works Cited
[1] Joel R. Beeke & Paul M. Smalley, Reformed Systematic Theology: Vol. 2, Man and Christ, (Crossway, Wheaton, IL, 2020), 784
[2] Daniel J. Treier, Lord Jesus Chris: New Studies In Dogmatics, (Zondervan Academic, Grand Rapids, MI, 2023), 162
[3] D. A. Carson, The Gospel According To John: PNTC, (Eerdmans Publishing, Grand Rapids, MI,1991), 135