CHRISTMAS MEANS JESUS IS GOD WITH US
Behold, the virgin shall be pregnant and give birth to a Son,
and they shall call His name Emmanuel, which means, God
with us. (Matthew 1.23) and (Isaiah 7.14).
The message of Christmas declares God’s amazing Love for humanity.
God indeed is love. He is love and His message is love. The message is
that God came as a human baby to redeem humanity. The birth of Jesus
is the turning point in all history.
This is described by Karl Barth in his Church Dogmatics:
” Between God and man there stands the person of Jesus Christ,
Himself God and Himself man, an so mediating between the two.
In Him God reveals Himself to man. In Him man sees and knows God.
In Him God stands before man and man stands before God, as is the
eternal will of God and the eternal ordination of man in accordance with
this will. In Him God’s plan for man is disclosed, God’s judgement on man
fulfilled, God’s redemption of man accomplished, God’s gift to man present
in fullness, God’s claim and promise to man declared. In Him God has joined
Himself to man. And so man exists for His sake. It is by Him, Jesus Christ,
and for Him and to Him, that the universe is created as a theater for God’s
dealings with man and man’s dealings with God. The being of God is His being
and similarly the being of man is originally His being. And there is nothing
that is not from Him and by Him and to Him. He is the Word of God in whose
truth cannot be over-reached or conditioned by any other word. He is the
decree of God behind and above which can be no earlier or higher decree
and beside which there can be no other, since all others serve only the
fulfilment of this decree. He is the beginning of God before which there is no
other beginning apart from that of God within Himself.
Except, then, for God Himself, nothing can derive from any other source
or look back to any other starting point. He is the election of God before
which and without which and beside which God can make any other choices.
Before Him and without Him and beside Him God does not, then, elect or
will anything. And He is the election (and on that account the beginning and
the decree and the Word) of the free grace of God. For it is God’s free grace
that in Him He elects to be man and to have dealings with man and to join
Himself to man.”
John the beloved disciple writes about this:
“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word
was God Himself.
He was present originally with God.
All things were made and came to existence through Him and without Him
was not even one thing made that has come into being.
In Him was Life and the Life was the Light of men.”
(John 1.1-4).
When we quote Matthew and Isaiah about Emmanuel (God with us) we
are saying the following with Karl Barth again from Church Dogmatics:
” ” God with us” means more than God over or side by side with us, before
or behind us. It means more than His divine being in even the most intimate
active connection with our human being otherwise peculiar to Him.
At this point, at the heart of the Christian message and in relation to the
event of which it speaks, it means that God has made Himself the One who
fulfills His redemptive will. It means that He Himself in His own person-
at His own cost but also on His own initiative- has become the inconceivable
Yet and Nevertheless of this event, and so its clear and well-founded and
legitimate, its true and holy and righteous Therefore.
It means that God has become man in order as such, but in divine
sovereignty, to take up our case. What takes place in this work of
inconceivable mercy is, therefore, the free overruling of God, but
it is not an arbitrary overlooking and ignoring, not an artificial
bridging, covering-over or hiding, but a real closing of the breach, gulf and
abyss between God and us for which we are responsible. At the very point
where we refuse and fail, offending and provoking God, making ourselves
impossible before Him and in that way missing our destiny, treading
under foot our dignity, forfeiting our right, losing our salvation and
hopelessly compromising our creaturely being- at that very point God
Himself intervenes as man. Because He is God He is able not only to be
God but also to be this man. Because He is God it is necessary that He
should be man in quite a different way from all other men: that He should do
what we do not do and not do what we do. Because He is God He puts forth
His omnipotence to be this other man, to be man quite differently, in our
place and for our sake. Because He is God He has and exercises the power
as this man to suffer for us the consequence of our transgression, the wrath
and penalty which necessarily fall on us, and in that way to satisfy Himself
in our regard. And again because He is God, He has and exercises the
power as this man to be His own partner in our place, the One who in free
obedience accepts the ordination of man to salvation which we resist, and
in that way satisfies us, i.e., achieves that which can positively satisfy us.
That is the absolutely unique being, attitude and activity of God to which
the “God with us” at the heart of the Christian message refers. It speaks of
the peace which God Himself in this man has made between Himself and us.”
HALLELUJAH! THANK YOU LORD JESUS FOREVERMORE!
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!