Incomparable: 7 Days With JesusSample

Day 2: Full Body of Work, John 1:14

The story that the Son of God was conceived in a human womb and born into this world as a human being is so familiar to us that it’s easy to forget how stunning it really is. So maybe we need to take a fresh look at what theologian Wayne Grudem calls “by far the most amazing miracle of the entire Bible”—more amazing than creation, more amazing even than the resurrection. In fact, Grudem writes, it “will remain for eternity the most profound miracle and the most profound mystery in all the universe.”[1]

It’s another reason why Jesus is incomparable.
So let’s be amazed by it again.

We will never fully understand, of course, the divine thinking behind this event called the incarnation. (The word comes from a Latin term that means “to make into flesh; to become flesh.”) Why would Jesus choose to take on our human weaknesses, frailties, and limitations?

Why would Jesus do this? He’d dwelt in heavenly places, in celestial palaces. Why would He submit to being born in a borrowed cattle shed? He was the beloved Son of God. Why would He agree to become the rejected Son of Man?

These are just a few of the many imponderables connected to the incarnation. The apostle John described it this way: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). The Greek word translated “dwelt” in that verse literally means “tabernacled.” In other words, Jesus “pitched His tent” with us.

·The infinite became finite.

·The immortal became mortal.

·The Creator became a creature.

Think of the humility involved in this exchange. Jesus, the Son of God,

emptied himself . . .
taking on the likeness of humanity. (Phil. 2:7)

Why? Because whether we understand it fully or not (which we can’t!), only by His humbling Himself to this degree could we be saved from our sins. There was no other way. “He had to be like his brothers and sisters in every way” or else there’d be no “atonement for the sins of the people” (Heb. 2:17).

We would like to think our need is not this drastic. We’ve become so accustomed to our sins—fighting them, excusing them, confessing them, trying not to think about them—that even though we may hate them, we’ve found a way to go on living around them. But this familiarity in our relationship with sin disguises the depths to which it has toxified our hearts. We have incurred God’s holy wrath because of our sin. We can’t clear away the guilt from our sin. The inevitable outcome is that every sinner must die and be forever separated from God, from anything good, from anything else but the punishment we rightly deserve.

Except for the incarnation. That’s the one and only game changer.

Jesus took on “flesh and blood,” sharing in our human experience, “so that through his death he might destroy the one holding the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who were held in slavery all their lives to the fear of death” (Heb. 2:14–15). That is, all of us.

And that’s the why of the incarnation, plain and simple. Amazing and sacrificial: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15). To put it into language that rolls easily from memory, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16 esv). We needed what only this gift could give us, and so God gave us the best that He had:

·Jesus, living our life without sinning

·Jesus, perfectly obeying the Father

·Jesus, dying our death in our place

·Jesus, paying our penalty for sin

And if that’s not amazing, I don’t know what is.

There’s no one else coming for us. We have Jesus, or we have nothing. We have this world with its constant disappointments and its occasional bursts of temporary peace and happiness, or we have eternal hope, God’s saving grace, and the promise of life everlasting.

All because Jesus came and became one of us.

And oh, let’s not forget that the incarnation of Jesus is not just an ancient event that happened more than two thousand years ago and that we celebrate each year on the twenty-fifth of December. This wonder of wonders is very much a present-tense reality. The God who became flesh, who came to dwell among us, who was crucified, buried, rose from the dead, and ascended to heaven, is seated today in His glorified human body at the right hand of the Father. He is still the God-man, our Advocate, who lives to intercede for us before the throne of God.

Stand amazed.

Thank You, Father, for the mystery and the miracle of what Jesus did when He put on human flesh and came to this earth to save us from our sins. His humility and sacrifice confront my pride. Where would we be—where would I be—without Him? I’m amazed—and I praise you!
AMEN.

[1] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2020), 700.