CHRISTMAS

Toward the end of this month, toward the close of this year, the Church of God throughout the length and breadth of the earth shall again be called together to celebrate the memorable fact that God came in the flesh. To thousands and tens of thousands, Christmas consists in sending Christmas cards exchanging Christmas presents and decorating a Christmas tree. Among these thousands we find not only the irreligious and profane but also those who outwardly profess the Christian religion. There was a time when a difference could be seen between the church and the word but today the border between them is all but -non existent. In our days the devil is offered very little resistance. Religion has yielded to the world to such an extent that the two now travel together arm in arm. Alas, the number of those who know and understand the true meaning of Christmas is steadily decreasing. On every hand we see great rejoicing in external things and sure return to heathendom.

How necessary then that the Church let her voice be heard in a testimony against all that idolatry of our time; against the denial and the departure from all that God has revealed in His word concerning the sending of His Son into the world.

Christmas is properly called “The Feast of the Father.” For from eternity the Father ordained His Son to be Surety, Mediator and Head of the Covenant of Grace. In Isaiah 42 the Son is called “The Servant of the Father.” From eternity He was in the bosom of the Father and coessential with the Father and the Holy Spirit. He thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but He took upon Him the form of a servant. It was His will to do the will of the Father. Not by compulsion but willingly He gave Himself, leaving His throne and His crown to come to this sin-cursed world in our human nature. It was necessary for Him to do this in order that in our human nature He might live, suffer, wage an holy war, die and emerge victorious. That was the demand of God’s unimpeachable justice. In no other way could the violated justice of God be satisfied and in no other way could God’s elect church even be delivered.

And now, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” That love of the Father is beyond all comprehension; it is unfathomable. Because the Father loved Himself, therefore He spared not His Son. Who can ever understand that wonder of wonders? It transcends all understanding.

After man broke the Covenant of works, God Himself announced the Covenant of Grace which has its basis in the Covenant of Redemption. Already in the mother promise Christ was revealed. All the prophets prophesied concerning Him and His coming. They were filled with the Spirit of Christ and the coming Messiah was the burden of their preaching.

When the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law. In Bethlehem’s inn there was no room for Christ and so also by nature we have no room for Him in our heart neither in our home. He was born in a stable to the end that He could be born in the hearts of those people who have learned to say with Asaph in Psalm 73: “I was as a beast before Thee.” In a manger, serving as His cradle, was Christ laid down. He, Who is God of God, Light of Light, Who is over all, God blessed forever. He became like unto us in all things, sin excepted. He became poor that He might bring riches to His people who possess nothing but sin, misery and debt. He came to deliver them from sin, to restore them to full and blessed communion with God. Christ came into the world to save sinners. No sinner is too old, none too young, none too hardened and none too miserable.

O no! He came from heaven to Bethlehem’s manger to reconcile enemies to God and to justify the ungodly. By His active and passive obedience He restored luster to the virtues of God which we have violated, took away God’s wrath, turned Him away from the fierceness of His anger and brought forth an eternal righteousness. Christ came to destroy the works of the devil, to purchase His Church, to gather her, to establish her, and one day to glorify her forever.

That, in short, is the real meaning of Christmas. It is above all else necessary that we experience Christmas in our heart. We must have knowledge of a personal union with Christ shall it be well with us for that great and all decisive eternity toward which each of us is traveling. Christ is the unspeakable gift of God. Only He can fill our empty heart. May that become the portion of each of us. That is the real Christmas.

And when it pleases God to reveal His Son in us, then we shall not only have no desire for the external and worldly observance of Christmas but we will detest and despise to the core all the showy glitter that accompanies the world’s observance of that day. Then we shall seek not a Christmas tree, but the tree of life that stands in the center of heaven. The fruit of that tree is precious and if we possess that tree then we have also the fruit. When we have Christ, we have all. Then the longing of our heart shall be to take that blessed Child of Bethlehem in our arms and to embrace Him as did Simeon at the temple. In eternity, before the foundation of the world Christ embraced His Church when He received the elect from His Father as a reward for His mediatorial work.

Most blessed are they who, by the application of God the Holy Ghost, are given to spiritually embrace that Child by faith and so obtain an assurance of their portion in Him. There is on earth still a people, although few in number, who long for the moment when they are privileged to put thenarms around Him in a blessed embrace. In that moment they can believe that for them, too, Christ came into the world. Nothing is more essential than knowing Christ. To know Him is life eternal. In that moment they extol Him as their supreme joy. Then, too, they experience a desire and a longing to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. They continue to desire more of Him. They are forever spoiled for the world. All that the world offers holds no interest for them, it cannot satisfy. The world passes away and the lust thereof but they who have Christ for their portion have a treasure that ever increases in value.

In Christ, the children of God find all they need for life and salvation. They have moments when they can praise God for that “unspeakable gift of the Father.” For of Him, through Him and to Him are all things. Then they see in that Child of Bethlehem the incomprehensible love of the Father, the unfathomable love of the Son and the transcending love of the Holy Ghost — a three-fold cord that shall never be broken.

Truly, such a Christmas would be unforgettable. May God grant it to each of us for Christ’s sake through the Holy Ghost.

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