Christmas

If it pleases the Lord to spare us that long, we soon hope to listen again to the glad tidings that Christ came into the world to save sinners (1 Timothy 1:15). Most of us have heard from our early youth the story of Christ's birth and also its great significance. May the Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, give ears to hear and hearts to understand. We cannot do this of ourselves, but it is our prayer that the Lord may do it for His great Name's sake and for His covenant's sake, out of free grace for Christ's sake.

All outward things draw our hearts away from the true and real meaning of the matters at issue in the commemoration of the birth of Christ. May it be given to us and our children to understand something of its true significance. It is evident that of ourselves we shall not seek it. By nature we are not the least bit interested in it, nay, worse, we are all enemies of God and His ways. Christ said, “Ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life” (John 5:40).

In Paradise, in the state of rectitude, there was no need for a Christ, a Savior. There we were adorned with the image of God and lived in fellowship with Him. Life was one rejoicing in God. But through our deep fall, we lost the image of God and sinned ourselves out of fellowship with Him. We became slaves of the devil and of sin. We destroyed ourselves and are now utterly wretched, lying under the wrath and curse of God. We separated ourselves from God, and, with the exception of the devil, there is no creature more miserable than natural man. Our greatest misery is that we do not realize our misery. By virtue of inherited and committed sin and guilt, we are worthy of nothing but hell and damnation and are utterly lost.

Having broken the covenant of works, we can no longer be saved and justified by it. On our side everything is cut off. There is a debt which we can never pay and a breach we can never heal. God's justice must condemn us, and His holiness must consume us. All these things are matters of which, by nature, we do not know, being dead in trespasses and sins. It is only the Spirit who can quicken us. A person can become one hundred years old with a historical knowledge of these things without ever becoming truly concerned about his sins or ever feeling the need to be reconciled with God.

What is it that is manifested unto us on Christmas Day? It is that God, moved in Himself, from eternity found a way to save sinners in and through Christ, without violation of His attributes. David in Psalm 139:17 said, “How precious also are Thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them!” and Psalm 33:11 says, “The counsel of the LORD standeth for ever, the thoughts of His heart to all generations.” Concerning the will of God, we read, “Having made known unto us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He hath purposed in Himself' (Ephesians 1:9). This good pleasure, or good will, was toward men (Luke 2:14).

Truly, this way of reconciliation was not thought out by us, but by the wisdom of the eternal God, who is called “the only wise God” (Jude 25). This way is a high way, an adorable way, by which was made possible that which we had made impossible. What we have rent asunder, He comes to unite again. The church cries out, “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been His counsellor? Or who hath first given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen” (Romans 11:33-36). Eternity will be needed to magnify this eternal wonder! We see it, but we cannot fathom it.

We read in the well-known Christmas account, “And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them” (Luke 2:20). They ended in God with this given Son and born Child. Oh, what an unspeakable blessing was given to those waiting and longing shepherds! When the angel had brought them the message concerning Christ's birth, they could not remain where they were. They went at once to Bethlehem, and there they were privileged to find that blessed Child, to find Him for their own hearts. Their inner emptiness, with which they probably had walked for many years, was gloriously filled. What joy and bliss that must have been for them!

God the Father found reconciliation and established redemption (Luke 1:68). Already in the Old Testament this Savior had been promised and announced, and in the fullness of time, “God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons” (Galatians 4:4- 5). Never had a greater wonder been seen in the world than when God became manifest in the flesh.

Christ came into the world as the Servant of the Father, to carry out and complete the work of the Father. As we by our sin had dishonored the attributes of God, Christ by His passive and active obedience restored the glory of these attributes again. Christ came into the world to satisfy the justice of God and to quench the wrath of God so that, according to Psalm 85:10, mercy and truth could meet together, and righteousness and peace could kiss each other. He came to fulfill the law so that He could bring life and immortality to light (2 Timothy 1:10), to crush Satan's head and to destroy his works (John 3:8), and to establish reconciliation through satisfaction, and to bring in everlasting righteousness (Daniel 9:24). Indeed, we read in 1 Peter 3:18, “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God.”

Christ came not only to obtain salvation, but also to apply salvation. How glorious is He in His person, in the mystery of His two natures, divine and human, to be a perfect Savior for all who come to God through Him! With the church of old we ought to exclaim,

This thing is from the Lord Almighty, It is a marvel in our eyes;

Man cannot understand it rightly Nor fathom it in any wise.

— Psalter 427:5

Blessed are they who by God's Spirit may attain to the knowledge of this most blessed, most precious, most lovely God and King, and who may constantly grow in grace and in this knowledge (2 Peter 3:18).

— Rev. W. C. Lamain (1904-1984)

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