T<\/i>he passage from Thanksgiving to Christmas is a wonderful time of the year.\u00a0 The leaves\u00a0 fall and the air grows cooler.\u00a0 The sky is clear and the days grow shorter.\u00a0 Our thoughts change from hearts thankful for bounty and blessing to hearts adoring of incarnation and salvation.\u00a0 We are witnessing growing unbelief and secularization of this most Christian season but, to believing hearts, this is the time to remember and say, \u201cthanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift\u201d (2 Cor. 9:15).<\/p>\n
The Christmas story is found for us in Matthew\u2019s and Luke\u2019s gospels.\u00a0 Mark and John had different purposes when they wrote their inspired accounts.\u00a0 Matthew\u2019s account is the natural conclusion to his long genealogy and primarily contains the confrontation between King Herod and the wise men and Herod\u2019s terrible result.\u00a0 Luke gives the most detailed account of the birth of Jesus in the eighty verses of chapter one followed by the beautiful \u201cChristmas\u201d account of chapter two.\u00a0 Who hasn\u2019t heard it read on Christmas eve, \u201cAnd it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed?\u201d<\/p>\n
As a pastor I\u2019ve had to bring messages about Christmas every year for a lot of years!\u00a0 Personally, I would be satisfied with reading Luke\u2019s account every Christmas and making as few comments about it as possible.\u00a0 But since we usually care for a little more variety, we search for a different way to look at the story from year to year.\u00a0 This year, as our folks know by now, I will follow Luke\u2019s account by emphasizing the godly characters he weaves into the Christmas story, as well as Luke\u2019s inspired record of their messages.\u00a0 Here are a few of the highlights.<\/p>\n
Luke\u2019s words (1:1-4)<\/span><\/p>\n How important and striking are the first four verses of Luke\u2019s gospel!\u00a0 No other New Testament book begins in such a way.\u00a0 Charles Erdman wrote, \u201cThis preface is a perfect gem of Greek art; even in the English version it loses little, if anything, of its literary charm.\u201d1<\/sup>\u00a0 Here Luke not only explains why he is writing to his acquaintance, Theophilus (\u201cthat thou mightest know the certainty of those things\u201d), but gives in a forthright manner how he was writing under inspiration of God (\u201cIt seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first\u201d).<\/p>\n Luke explains that many people who lived in the time of Jesus attempted to write or preserve the accounts of Jesus\u2019 life but were not inspired as the very apostles.\u00a0 While Matthew and John were apostles, Mark and Luke were also \u201ceyewitnesses and ministers of the word.\u201d\u00a0 Bishop J.C. Ryle of Liverpool, England, wrote a hundred years ago,<\/p>\n It is enough for us to know that Luke wrote by inspiration of God.\u00a0 Unquestionably he did not neglect the ordinary means of getting knowledge.\u00a0 But the Holy Ghost guided him, no less than all other writers of the Bible, in his choice of matter.\u00a0 The Holy Ghost supplied him with thoughts, arrangement, sentences, and even words.\u00a0 And the result is, that what St. Luke wrote is not to be read as the word of man, but the Word of God (1 Thes. 2:13).\u00a0 Let us carefully hold fast the great doctrine of plenary inspiration of every word of the Bible.\u00a0 Let us never allow that any writer of the Old or New Testaments could make even the slightest verbal mistake or error, when writing as he was \u2018moved by the Holy Ghost\u201d (2 Pet. 1:21)2<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n How different is Luke\u2019s approach than much of what the world says today!\u00a0 I was given a 2017 edition of National Geographic whose cover story is \u201cThe Search for the Real Jesus.\u201d\u00a0 This tired old approach has been around for a hundred years or more.\u00a0 It tries to separate the man, \u201cJesus of Nazareth,\u201d who really existed, from the Jesus Whom the Bible depicts, or, the \u201cJesus of faith.\u201d\u00a0 Why is it that people would rather have an ordinary man who lied about his identity, died as a Roman criminal, and is still dead, than have the Jesus that the Bible describes?\u00a0 Can anyone explain the history of Christianity from a mere mortal?\u00a0 If Jesus is not the person the Bible depicts, then He was a liar or delusional and so were His followers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, Paul, and all the rest.<\/p>\n There is more manuscript evidence for the Jesus of the Bible, more archaeological evidence, more historical evidence, and even more reasonable evidence, than for any other person or event in history.\u00a0 It is no accident that God allowed Luke to write the longest chapter in the Bible concerning the birth of His Son.\u00a0 The virgin birth of Christ (Christmas), and the bodily resurrection of Christ (Easter) are the most attested facts of history.<\/p>\n Gabriel\u2019s prophecies<\/span><\/p>\n Of the innumerable angels God created, Gabriel is one of only a few names we know (yet God knows them all by name as He also does the stars, Psa. 147:4).\u00a0 Gabriel, \u201cwho stands in the presence of God\u201d (vs. 19), makes his New Testament appearance in Luke\u2019s long chapter to Zechariah the father of John the Baptist and to Mary the mother of Jesus.<\/p>\n To Zechariah Gabriel announces that Elizabeth will have a son in her old age (vss. 11-20).\u00a0 Though this is not a virgin birth, it is a miracle in the order of Abraham and Sarah when Isaac was born in their old age.\u00a0 Gabriel\u2019s announcement to Mary, however, is a miracle of a different sort because as a virgin she will have a Child Who is very God of God.\u00a0 Elizabeth\u2019s son (John the Baptist) will be a product of human reproduction speeded up by God.\u00a0 Human birth happens all the time but not when people are well beyond child bearing years.\u00a0 Fish and bread are multiplied constantly in God\u2019s world, but not the way Jesus speeded up the process at the feeding of the 5000 and 4000.\u00a0 But no one is born of a virgin in this world.\u00a0 This is a kind of miracle that has no parallel in our natural process.\u00a0 When Jesus walked on water, there was no natural parallel to that kind of miracle either.<\/p>\n When Zechariah and Elizabeth were young they had prayed for a child but God did not grant their request at that probable time.\u00a0 No doubt, Zachariah had forgotten all about it.\u00a0 On this day he is chosen by lot to burn incense in the holy place, something that happens only once in a priest\u2019s life-time.\u00a0 As he is performing this sacred privilege, Gabriel appears next to the altar of incense (where prayers are offered) and announces that Zechariah\u2019s prayer has been heard!\u00a0 Zechariah, though realizing he is in the presence of a heavenly being, still doubts that such a thing can happen and is rewarded with muteness for his unbelief.\u00a0 Nevertheless, John is born of Elizabeth in her old age.<\/p>\n Gabriel\u2019s appearance and prophecy to Mary is quite different.\u00a0 When she is told of this extraordinary event that will happen, though she is allowed a question, hers is not in doubt but only in wonder and awe at God\u2019s choice of such a lowly woman.\u00a0 In the end Mary only says, \u201cbe it unto me according to your word.\u201d\u00a0 But here is something unique in Luke\u2019s account also, the most detailed description of the virgin birth in the Bible.\u00a0 This is how Gabriel describes it, \u201cThe Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God\u201d (vs. 35).<\/p>\n This statement of the facts can be distorted by pagan thought, denied by unbelieving thought, or misunderstood by uncareful thought.\u00a0 The Holy Spirit gives Gabriel three words that describe the actions of the three persons of the God-head.\u00a0 The Holy Spirit will \u201ccome upon\u201d her; the Highest shall \u201covershadow\u201d her; and the Son shall be \u201cborn\u201d of her.\u00a0 I believe that a close look at those three words will yield nothing unusual.\u00a0 They are words for children to understand because there is no way for mortals to understand how God will enter the world through a virgin and take upon Himself full humanity (any more than how Jesus left the world by ascending into the heavens).\u00a0 I don\u2019t understand a natural human birth, that is, how an eternal soul is produced who will live somewhere forever because of the union of a mother and father.\u00a0 How, then, could I ever understand this virgin birth of the eternal Son of God?\u00a0 God tells me in simple language and expects me to trust that it is so.\u00a0 And so I do.<\/p>\n Elizabeth\u2019s blessing<\/span><\/p>\n Gabriel had informed Mary that her cousin Elizabeth was already six months pregnant (vs. 36).\u00a0 Mary visited Elizabeth near that time and we may assume that Mary had already conceived Jesus in her womb.\u00a0 When Mary arrives at the home of Elizabeth and Zechariah, we are told that the \u201cbabe\u201d inside Elizabeth \u201cleaped in her womb\u201d (vs. 41) at the presence of Mary.\u00a0 Elizabeth then said to Mary, \u201cBlessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.\u00a0 And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?\u201d (vss. 42-43).<\/p>\n A side note here is interesting concerning the word \u201cbabe\u201d or brephos<\/i>.\u00a0 Under inspiration, Luke is describing the embryo inside Elizabeth with this word (in vs. 41 and also vs. 44).\u00a0 Elsewhere in the New Testament this word always refers to a living child.\u00a0 Luke uses it twice in chapter two (vss. 12 and 16) to describe Jesus, once in swaddling clothes and once lying in a manger.\u00a0 Luke also uses it in Acts 7:19 as \u201cyoung children.\u201d\u00a0 Paul uses it once in 2 Tim. 3:15 when he says of Timothy that \u201cfrom a child\u201d he had known the Scriptures.\u00a0 Peter uses it once in 1 Pet. 2:2 to describe believers as \u201cnewborn babes\u201d who desire milk.\u00a0 How else can we take this than the Holy Spirit designates an embryo as a living human being?\u00a0 It would also be unbelieving of us not to realize that in Mary\u2019s womb was the Life from all eternity!<\/p>\n Mary\u2019s Magnificat<\/span><\/p>\n Mary\u2019s praise to God receives this title from the Latin equivalent of \u201cmagnify.\u201d\u00a0 Lenski says, \u201cMary herself furnishes no cause for Mariolatry.\u00a0 She merely glorifies and praises God for all that he has done and takes a broad view of his saving work.\u00a0 Her hymn is called the Magnificat <\/i>from the first word of the Latin translation.\u201d3<\/sup><\/p>\n Elizabeth had called Mary \u201cthe mother of my Lord\u201d (vs. 43) signifying her coming faith in Jesus as Messiah.\u00a0 She also says of Mary, \u201cblessed is she that believed\u201d (vs. 45) as Mary says of herself, \u201cAnd my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior\u201d (vs. 47).\u00a0 As Lenski says, there is nothing here to create a worship of Mary.\u00a0 She is a simple but spiritual Jewish girl through whom God would enter the world, that is all.<\/p>\n How different is the text itself from what the Roman church has made of her.\u00a0 Its catechism records,<\/p>\n From among the descendents of Eve, God chose the Virgin Mary to be the mother of his Son.\u00a0 \u201cFull of grace,\u201d Mary is \u201cthe most excellent fruit of redemption\u201d (SC 103):\u00a0 from the first instant of her conception, she was totally preserved from the stain of original sin and she remained pure from all personal sin throughout her life.<\/p>\n Mary is truly \u201cMother of God\u201d since she is the mother of the eternal Son of God made man, who is God himself.\u00a0 Mary remained a virgin in conceiving her Son, a virgin in giving birth to him, a virgin in carrying him, a virgin in nursing him at her breast, always a virgin (St. Augustine, Serm. 186, 1:PL 38, 999): with her whole being she is \u201cthe handmaid of the Lord\u201d (Lk. 1:38).<\/p>\n The Virgin Mary \u201ccooperated through free faith and obedience in human salvation\u201d (LG 56).\u00a0 She uttered her yes \u201cin the name of all human nature\u201d (St. Thomas Aquinas, Sth III, 30, 1).\u00a0 By her obedience she became the new Eve, mother of the living.4<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n William MacDonald says it well as a response to such heresy,<\/p>\n The Bible never <\/i>speaks of Mary as \u201cthe mother of God.\u201d\u00a0 While it is true that she was the mother of Jesus, and that Jesus is God, it is nevertheless a doctrinal absurdity to speak of God as having a mother.\u00a0 Jesus existed from all eternity whereas Mary was a finite creature with a definite date when she began to exist.\u00a0 She was the mother of Jesus only in His incarnation.5<\/sup><\/p><\/blockquote>\n We are told that Mary and Joseph had other children. Matthew records, when Jesus was teaching in Galilee, that His critics said, \u201cWhence hath this man this wisdom, and these mighty works?\u00a0 Is not this the carpenter\u2019s son?\u00a0 Is not his mother called Mary?\u00a0 And his brethren, James, and Joses, and Simon, and Judas?\u00a0 And his sisters, are they not all with us?\u201d (Matt. 13:54-56).\u00a0 Mary was not immaculately conceived herself, neither was she perpetually a virgin, and neither did she experience an assumption into heaven.\u00a0 She was a virgin Jewish girl through whom Jesus came.<\/p>\n Zechariah\u2019s testimony<\/span><\/p>\n Zechariah comes back into the story late in Luke\u2019s long chapter after John has been delivered.\u00a0 He has been mute and, it seems deaf, since his lack of belief in Gabriel\u2019s prophecy.\u00a0 However, once his mouth is opened again he gives a magnificent testimony to the work of Jesus and also of his son John.\u00a0 Of Jesus he says,<\/p>\n Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people, and hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David; as he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began: that we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us; to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant; the oath which he sware to our father Abraham, that he would grant unto us, that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life. (Lk. 1:68-75)<\/p>\n Luke, a later New Testament believer, has no problem quoting this Old Testament saint who gives an Old Testament perspective of the coming of Messiah.\u00a0 Zechariah could not have seen the eventual split between the first and second comings of Jesus Christ.\u00a0 To him all the prophecies of Messiah were compacted together, as the prophet Isaiah wrote it,<\/p>\n For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.\u00a0 Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish is with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever.\u00a0 The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.\u201d\u00a0 (Isa. 6:9-10).<\/p>\n This is testimony but precursor to the bona fide offer of Messiah\u2019s kingdom, its rejection by the Jewish nation, and its postponement until a second coming of Jesus in glory.\u00a0 We need not think that the promised \u201cpeace on earth, good will toward men\u201d can only be fulfilled in an immaterial, spiritual way in the hearts of believers.\u00a0 No, there will be real peace on earth when Jesus returns and sets up His millennial kingdom.\u00a0 Zechariah said it out of true belief and Luke wrote it out of true inspiration.<\/p>\n And So . . .<\/b><\/p>\n Christmas is the believer\u2019s holiday.\u00a0 For those who cannot believe in the incarnation of God in the flesh, it is profane to celebrate the season by talking of miracles, gifts, love, and \u201cthe real meaning of Christmas\u201d without any mention of Jesus Christ.\u00a0 It would be better not to celebrate it than to change the truth of God into a lie.<\/p>\n But for those of us who have placed our faith and trust in Him, let us continue to speak of God\u2019s great love though the gift of His Son and look for the blessed hope and the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n Notes:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The passage from Thanksgiving to Christmas is a wonderful time of the year.\u00a0 The leaves\u00a0 fall and the air grows cooler.\u00a0 The sky is clear and the days grow shorter.\u00a0 Our thoughts change from hearts thankful for bounty and blessing to hearts adoring of incarnation and salvation.\u00a0 We are witnessing growing unbelief and secularization of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[123],"tags":[145],"class_list":["post-7269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-holidays"],"yoast_head":"\n\n