"Love Covered with Flesh"

Christmas is the celebration of Jesus' Incarnation. The Puritan, Thomas Watson, described the Incarnation this way,

"Christ incarnate is nothing but love covered with flesh." A Body of Divinity, (Source)

God in Christ has become a man.

This is indeed astonishing, yet for some the idea is blasphemy. The Qur'an, the holy book of Islam, states,

"Believe, then, in God and His apostles, and do not say, '[God is] a trinity'. Desist [from this assertion] for your own good. God is but One God; utterly remote is He, in His glory, from having a son: unto Him belongs all that is in the heavens and all that is on earth; and none is as worthy of trust as God." (4:171)

For Islam God would never cover Himself with human flesh. He is far remote. He is transcendently above such a thing. He would never have a Son.

Christianity asserts something quite different: God is not remote--He is near. He is indeed transcendent and glorious--and yet wonderfully immanent. He does have a Son--born to a actual human parents. This truth does not tamper with the massive glory of God, but rather displays it.

Jesus is "love covered with flesh." In Christ God has come to reconcile the world to Himself. He is not far off waiting for sinful humanity to come to Him. God has come to sinful humanity. Worship is not hindered, but born in the hearts of those who accept this historic event.

Worship is not only the adoration of being caught up in the transcendence of God, but amazement that God has humbled Himself in the person of Jesus Christ to serve sinful men. God is not looking for men to give gifts to Him, but for men to receive the gift of Himself. God has been made a man to make men sons of God

Christmas is indeed a great reminder of God's great love for the world.

It is not, as the Qu'ran says, "for your own good" to say that God does not have a Son. It is precisely the opposite. It is "for your own good" that God sent His Son to live in this suffering world and suffer on behalf of sinful humanity. God has made a way to Himself through the person and work of His Son. Do not reject this. Rejecting Jesus--"love covered with flesh"--is rejecting God.

You may not believe that God loves you or even what the love of God is. But God has spoken in His Son. The person and work of Jesus Christ is the proof of the divine love of God.

Jesus came to earth, born of a virgin, died on the cross, and came back to life three days later that people like you may know and love God. As the apostle John wrote,

"In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:10).

God's love to the world is on display in the incarnation and crucifixion of Jesus. He has loved sinners and died in the place of all sinners who would trust His work on their behalf.

Love covered with flesh has covered sin. Reflect on this love, this Christmas.

When was Jesus Born? Does it Matter?

December 25th is on its way, and the celebration of Jesus' birthday is fast approaching.

In light of this, last night I was asked if Jesus' birthday was actually December 25th, and it prompted some thought. Was it? And does it even matter if it was or if it wasn't?

It most likely is not. No one knows when Jesus' was born for certain. New Testament scholar Craig Blomberg writes,

"Christians in the Western part of the Roman empire began to celebrate 'Christmas' on December 25, a holiday for worshiping Sol Invictus ('the unconquerable sun'...); in the East, on January 6. Both dates also coincided at times, in the ancient calendars with the winter solstice. So it is doubtful if these dates reflect any information about the actual day on which Jesus was born. Some historians point to the fact that shepherds would have watched their flocks at night (Luke 2:8) primarily in the springtime when most lambs were born, so perhaps Jesus was born in the spring. Still, we simply have no way of being sure." (Jesus and the Gospels, 188)

From the sounds of it, Jesus was probably born in the spring and in the evening, which means a couple things:

1. We most likely not only got the day wrong, but the entire season messed up.
2. All you weird people out there that open presents on Christmas Eve have ruined the fun of waking up Christmas morning, but you do get props for probably being more biblical ;)

What about that darn pagan holiday? Certain Christians get concerned about celebrating the holiday because the current day commemorated was a day that was dedicated to the worship of a false god.

Really this is nothing to get worked up about. As Paul, one of the first Christian missionaries showed, since the day that you engage in publish worship on isn't that big of a deal, the day that one celebrates Jesus' birth on shouldn't be either. Days in themselves aren't special.

The real problem isn't the fact that an idol was worshiped at some point in the past on December 25th, but that for some Christmas Day (and maybe Easter) is the only day that one gives any sort of recognition to the person of Jesus Christ. Paul's point is that every single day is about celebrating the gift of God's Son to a sinful world in the person of Jesus Christ.

It doesn't matter when Jesus' birthday was. Just enjoy the celebration, the presents and hot cider, and remember to point to the historical reality of the incarnate Son of God and Savior of the world being born. Immanuel--God with us--actually entered into human history. The Creator of the world came into the world to save sinners. God is not distant. God came as man to dwell with man.

This historical truth is what is worth heralding every day, and celebrating the wonder of the Incarnation on one particular cold day in December is just fine. Even if we humans got it wrong.

The central matter is not so much putting Christ back into Christmas, as conservative talk show hosts have demanded, but putting Jesus in his central place every single day--as the only object of worship in your heart.

The Center of the Christian Religion

Twentieth century Presbyterian J. Gresham Machen writes the following on the center of Christianity, and is a great launching-pad for Thanksgiving weekend:

"Christ, according to Paul, will do everything or nothing; if righteousness is in slightest measure obtained by our obedience to the law, then Christ died in vain; if we trust in slightest measure in our own good works, then we have turned away from grace and Christ profiteth us nothing.

"To the world, that may seem to be a hard saying; but it is not a hard saying to the man who has ever been at the foot of the Cross; it is not a hard saying to the man who has first known the bondage of the law, the weary effort at establishment of his own righteousnes in the presence of God, and then has come to understand, as in a wonderous flash of light, that Christ has done all, and that the weary bondage was vain....--that man knows in his heart of hearts that the Apostle is right, that to trust Christ only for part is not to trust Him at all, that our own righteousness is insufficient even to bridge the smallest gap which might be left open between us and God, that there is no hope unless we can safely say to the Lord Jesus, without shadow of reservation, without shadow of self-trust: 'Thou must save, and Thou alone.'

That is the centre of the Christian religion--the absolutely underserved and sovereign grace of God, saving sinful men by the gift of Christ upon the cross. Condemnation comes by merit; salvation comes only by grace: condemnation is earned by man; salvation is given by God....

The reception of that gift is faith: faith means not doing something but receiving something; it means not the earning of a reward but the acceptance of a gift....Faith, in other words, is not active but passive; and to say that we are saved by faith is to say that we do not save ourselves but are saved only by the one in whom our faith is reposed; the faith of man presupposes the sovereign grace of God....

Thus the beginning of the Christian life is not an achievement but an experience; the soul of the man who is saved is not, at the moment of salvation, active, but passive; salvation is the work of God and God alone."

What is Faith?, 193-197. (Emphasis mine).

I am not only thankful for the gracious gift of of Jesus' death and resurrection on my behalf, but the gracious gift of faith that God has given me. Thanks be to God for the Good News of Jesus.

Should Christian's Punish Their Kids? Lloyd-Jones Answers

Martyn Lloyd-Jones gives the following answer via my excerpts from his sermon "Discipline and the Modern Mind":

"[In the modern outlook there is] a general opposition to the whole idea of justice, and of righteousness, of wrath and punishment. These terms are all abominated and are hated. In general the modern man dislikes them radically....What makes the position so serious is that this attitude is generally presented in terms of Christianity, and especially in terms of New Testament teaching, and this, in particular, as contrasted with the Old Testament teaching....They claim that these modern ideas concerning discipline are based upon the New Testament, and that they have the true New Testament conception of God. They are therefore not interested, they say, in justice and righteousness, wrath and punishment. Nothing matters but love and understanding....

Summing it up we can say that the basic idea underlying this view is that human nature is essentially good....What is needed therefore is to draw out, to encourage, and to develop the child's personality. So there must be no repelling, no control; there must be no punishing, and no administering of correction because that tends to be repressive....

We are told that you must not punish; you must appeal to children, show them the wrong, set them a good example, and then reward them positively. We must grant, of course, that there is a measure of truth in all this, but the danger is that men usually go from one extreme to the other, and by today the whole notion of punishment has largely vanished....

All this, I repeat, is based upon the notion that human nature is essentially good; so you have only to appeal to it. You will never need to resort to punishment. And if you do punish at all, it must never be corporal, and it must never be punitive; if there is any sort of punishment, we are told, it must be reformatory....

This, we are told, is the approach of Christ toward these matters....

I do not hesitate to assert that the biblical and Christian attitude towards these two extremes is that they are both wrong; that the Victorian position is wrong, and that the modern position is wrong, even more so....

Any position which says 'law only' or which says 'grace only' is of necessity wrong, because in the Bible you have 'law' and 'grace'....It is a tragic fallacy to think that when you have grace there is no element of law at all, but that it is a kind of license. That is a contradiction of the biblical teaching....We are not 'without law' as Christians, says Paul, 'but we are under law to Christ' (1 Corinthians 9:21)....

...the modern teaching--and this is one of the serious things concerning it--displays a complete misunderstanding of the biblical doctrine of God. This is the desperately serious thing....the notion that God is One who can wink at sin and pretend that He has not seen it, and cover it over and forgive every offender, and never feel any wrath, and never punish is, I say, not only to deny the Old Testament, but to deny the New Testament also. It is the Lord Jesus Christ who spoke about the place 'where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched'....[God] is a holy God, a just God, a righteous God, who has made it plain that He will punish sin and transgression, and who has done so in many times. He punished His own children of Israel for their transgressions; He sent them into captivity...The Apostle Paul teaches explicitly in the Epistle to the Romans (1:8-32), that God punishes sin, and does so sometimes by abandoning the world to its own evil and iniquity....

The modern notions that man is fundamentally and essentially good, and that, if only the good is drawn out, everything will be right, and that you have only to make an appeal, and never punish...are the consequence of a rejection of the biblical doctrine of sin. The simple answer to them is that man's nature is evil, that as the result of the Fall he is altogether evil....

...there is also a complete misunderstanding of the doctrine of the atonement and of redemption....The biblical doctrine of the atonement tells us that, on the Cross of Calvary, the just and holy and righteous God was punishing sin in the person of His own Son, that He might 'be just, and the Justifier of him that believeth in Jesus' (Romans 3:25 & 26)....The justice and the righteousness of God demanded this, the wrath of God upon sin insisted upon this. But this is where we see truly the love of God, that it is so great that the wrath is poured out even on His own Son in all His innocence, in order that you and I might be rescued and delivered....

There is no purpose in making appeals in terms of sweet reasonableness to men who are evil and governed by lust and passion.

The biblical teaching is that such people are to be punished, and are to feel their punishment. If they will not listen to the law, then the sanctions of the law are to be applied. God, when He gave His Law, accompanied it by the sanctions which were to be applied following transgression. When the Law was broken the sanctions were carried out....The biblical teaching is that because man is a fallen creature, because he is a sinner and a rebel, because he is a creature of lust and passion, and governed by them, he must be forcibly restrained, he must be kept in order. The principle applies alike to children and to adults who are guilty of misdemeanor and crime and a departure from the law of the land and from the Law of God....The biblical teaching, founded upon the character and being of God, and recognizing that man is in a state of sin, requires that law must be enforced, in order that men may be brought to see and to know God; next that they might be brought into grace; so that finally they may be brought to own and obey the higher law under which they delight in pleasing God and honouring and keeping His holy commandments."

Life in the Spirit in Marriage, Home & Work, 262-275

The Difference Between Christianity and Other Religions

Herman Bavnick:

"Buddha and Confucius, Zarathustra and Mohammed are no doubt the first confessors of the religions which have been founded by them, but they are not the content of these religions, and they stand in an external and to a certain extent accidental relation to them. Their religions could remain the same even though their names were forgotten, or their persons replaced by others....Christianity stands to the person of Christ in a wholly different relation from that of the religions of the peoples to the persons by whom they have been founded. Jesus is not the first confessor of the religion which bears His name. He was not the first and most eminent Christian, but He holds in Christianity a wholly different place....Christ is Christianity itself; He stands not outside of it but in its centre; without His name, person and work, there is no Christianinty left. In a word, Christ does not point out the way to salvation; He is the Way itself."

Source: Quoted by B.B. Warfield, "Christless Christianity", Christology and Criticism, Volume III, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1932, reprinted 2003), 367

They Have Healed the Brokenness of My People Superficially

The prophet Jeremiah:

"Everyone is greedy for gain,
And from the prophet even to the priest
Everyone deals falsely.
They have healed the brokenness of My people superficially,
Saying , 'Peace, peace,'
But there is no peace." (6:13-14)

Any brokenness that is healed without the person and work of Jesus Christ is a superficial healing. The answer to human brokenness--be it in marriage, sexuality, child-rearing, friendships, drugs, etc.--is always Jesus. To withhold Jesus as the answer, or to make Jesus peripheral and something else central, even if that something else is a good thing, even a biblical thing, is to heal God's people superficially.

Pastors--priests and prophets--who leave out Jesus or who just tag him on the end of sermons and books and counseling sessions like a bumper-sticker are superficial pastors healing God's people with superficiality, which is no healing at all.

This breaks God's heart. God sent his Son to heal the brokenness of His people. Jesus is sufficient for every level of human brokenness.

Klosterman, Likability, and God's Love

Chuck Klosterman on the problem of making it your personal aim to be liked:

"...being likable is the only thing that seems to matter to anyone. You see this everywhere. Parents don't act like parents anymore, because they mainly want their kids to like them; they want their kids to see them as their two best friends. This is why modern kids act like animals. At some point, people confused being liked with being good. Those two qualities are not the same. It's important to be a good person; it's not important to be a well-liked person." IV, 275

To make your personal mission being liked by the world, your neighbors, your kids, your wife, your church, your friends, whomever it may be is setting yourself up for a life of frustration and depression. You will end up living your life based upon others expectations and your discernment on what is right and wrong will fly out the window as the litmus test of everything becomes what will and will not make this or that person happy. The goal of life is not be liked.

The compulsion to be liked by your spouse, by your boss, by your friend, by the people in your church is actually the fear of man. Your desire for likability is actually a revelation of your own fear. Humans were only made to fear one person--God. When your value becomes defined by what other people think of you, you will not be "a good person" nor a "godly person", but a narcissistic person who needs the praise of others for self-fulfillment. This will always disappoint.

Fearing God is what you were made for. His opinion of you is the only thing that matters and fulfills. His value-system does not fluctuate by your likability. He does not like, he loves. The measure of his love is seen in the crucifixion of his Son. The event where God became man to die for sinners, who show their sin by valuing the opinion of humanity more than the opinion of the Creator of humanity.

The love of God is not the like of God. God did not die to affirm you, but to save you. His love is never based on your good actions, but always based on the perfect work of Jesus. For those who trust Christ, God's likeness of you never fluctuates because it is wrapped up in his eternal love for Jesus.

God loves those who trust Him with the same eternal love that He loves His own Son. Knowing and experiencing this love is human wholeness. It frees you from the desire to be liked, and imparts the experience of being loved by the Creator of the universe forever.

It's not important to be well liked, but it is eternally important to be in the favor of God. This divine favor is offered to all who trust Jesus, and those who do will never come into condemnation but live forever in the unwavering and abundant love of God. This reality frees you and heals you from the cancerous desire of being liked.

I doubt Klosterman would agree with me here, but it is the only remedy to the problem that he sees. People act like animals not just because their not liked, but because as the image of God they do not trust the revelation of the exact image of God in Jesus Christ. In doing so their own humanity becomes inverted and the idolatry of likability is traded for the glory of God.

Exercise Naked

I've begun reading Disciplines of a Godly Man with a couple buddies, and came across the author's fleshing out of the Greek word "train" in 1 Ti. 4:7's phrase "train yourself to be godly":

"The word 'train' comes from the word gumnos, which means 'naked' and is the word from which we derive our English word gymnasium. In traditional Greek athletic contests, the participants competed without clothing, so as not to be encumbered. Therefore, the word 'train' originally carried the literal meaning, 'to exercise naked.'" (R. Kent Hughes, 14)

Now this doesn't mean those of you who've always wanted to go to the gym naked now can and call it biblical, but it does say something quite insightful for the discipline of godliness. The author explains:

"Just as the athletes discarded everything and competed gumnos-free from everything that could possibly burden them--so we must get rid of every encumbrance, every association, habit, and tendency which impedes godliness. If we are to excel, we must strip ourselves to a lean, spiritual nakedness." (14)

If you reduce Christianity to "I can do this" and/or "I can't do that", you've just done that, you've reduced Christianity to something that it is not. Christianity is running the race in such a way as to win the prize, not just to barely finish the race.

Spiritual nudity is a good thing--"put off" all that impedes and "put on" all that helps you win and finish well.

Seven Characteristics of False Teachers

Seven characteristics of false teachers from an old Puritan named Thomas Brooks:

1. False teachers are men-pleasers.
2. False teachers are notable in casting dirt, scorn, and reproach upon the persons, names, and credits of Christ's most faithful ambassadors.
3. False teachers are venters of the devices and visions of their own head and hearts.
4. False teachers easily pass over the great and weighty things both of law and gospel, and stand most upon those things that are of the least moment an concernment to the souls of men.
5. False teachers cover and colour their dangerous principles and soul-impostures with very fair speeches and plausible pretences, with high notions and golden expressions.
6. False teachers strive more to win over men to their opinions, than to better them in their conversations.
7. False teachers make merchandise of their followers.

Precious Remedies Against Satan's Devices, 230-233

Christ is Triumphant

Eugene Peterson regarding Revelation 6:2's rider on the white horse:

"Biblical Christians do not sentimentalize Christ. There is a fierceness and militancy here. The world is in conflict; our Christ is the first on the field of battle. High issues are decided every day. Christ is not only worshiped each Sunday, he is triumphant each week day. That, of course, is not the way the newspapers report it; that is not the way our own emotions respond to it; but that is what the preached revelation proclaims." Reversed Thunder, 75.