Christ Church

Theology of Christmas Gifts

Joe Harby on

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Introduction

One of the most obvious features of our Christmas celebrations is the gift giving. How are we to understand this as Christians? What are the pitfalls? Are all the pitfalls obvious? Because our lives are to be lives of grace, and because charis means grace or gift, this is something we have to understand throughout the course of our lives, and not just at Christmas. But it has to be said that the mechinery of our consumer racket does throw the question into high relief for us at this time of year.

The Text

“And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh” (Mt. 2:11).

Summary of the Text

The first Chritmas gifts were given by the magi to the young child Jesus. This happened sometime within the Lord’s first two years of life. Because three kinds of treasures are mentioned—gold, frankincense, and myrrh—it is often inferred that there were three wise men. There may have been, but we don’t know. What we do know is that the gifts were very costly.

Some Background

Gentile wise men from the East sought out Jesus and they worshiped Him. The established rulers in Israel did not —in fact, Herod played the role here of a treacherous Pharaoh, going on to kill the young boys in the region of Bethlehem. We know what gold is, but what are frankincense and myrrh? They are both aromatic resins, harvested from different kinds of trees. Frankincense was often burned for its smell, and hence the smoke could signify prayer, ascending to God. Myrrh was used in burials (John 19:39), and Jesus was offered some mixed with wine on the cross, which He refused (Mark 15:23). It was associated with death. From the context of the magi’s visit, and the association with gold, we may infer that these were high end gifts. All three of these gifts were very expensive —in these verses, Matthew calls the gifts treasures.

No Either/Or

The relationship between God and your neighbor is not an either/or relationship. When it becomes that, it is the result of a sinful kind of dualism.

In any context where grace is necessary and called for, you can of course sin . . . · Through being a grump and begrudging the giving of gifts at all (John 12:5). · You can also sin by giving to your neighbor instead of to God (Rev. 11:10);
· By giving to God instead of to your neighbor (Mark 7:11).

The way through, the real alternative, is to give to God by means of giving to your neighbor (Esther 9:22). Your neighbor bears the image of God. How can you give to God, who dwells in the highest heaven? You reach up by reaching down, or by reaching across. No gift given here in the right way goes missing in the final tally (Matt. 10:42). With every form of unrighteous mammon, you have the opportunity to extend grace to your fellow creatures, in the hope that they will receive you into glory (Luke 16:9). But every gift given here in the wrong spirit is just thrown into the bottomless pit, that ultimate rat hole (Luke 12:34; Jas. 5:3).

We see our relationship to God mirrored in our relationship to our neighbor. The state of the one reveals the state of the other. “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you” (Eph. 4:32). When the two great commandments are discussed, we are told that the second great commandment is “like unto” the first (Mark 12:31). The Scriptures are explicit on this point. “No man hath seen God at any time. IF we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us” (1 John 4:12). “If any man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” (1 John 4:20).

What This Does Not Mean

This does not mean that we are to charge about aimlessly, buying and giving gifts willy-nilly. The grace of God is not stupid, so don’t give pointless gifts just to have done something. The grace of God was freely given, so don’t let a racket run by unscrupulous merchants extort money from you that you don’t have. At the same time, merchants are a form of grace to you. How does God get that daily bread to you (Matt. 6:11)? So don’t identify crowds with a racket. Crowds do provide an opportunity for pickpockets, but Jesus loved crows and He fed them. He gave them gifts (Matt. 14:21).

Cold Water & the Unspeakable Gift

The best gift we can give on another at Christmas time is the best gift we can be giving to one another all the time —and that is the gift of gospel-saturated grace. Gospel means good news, and as I mentioned earlier how God keeps a track of cold water gifts, we should always connect this with gospel. What has God given? Let us give the same way, and in the same spirit. “As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country” (Prov. 25:25).

The Son of God from Heaven is the gospel from a far country. He is the gospel Himself; He is the good news. And we know that His contagious form of life has taken hold of us when we start gracing each other the same way that He graced us. Notice how the great vertical gift and horizontal gifts must be understood together.

“For the administration of this service not only supplieth the want of the saints, but is abundant also by many thanksgivings unto God; Whiles by the experiment of this ministration they glorify God for your professed subjection unto the gospel of Christ, and for your liberal distribution unto them, and unto all men; And by their prayer for you, which long after you for the exceeding grace of God in you. Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.”

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The Fatherhood of God

Joe Harby on

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Revealed as Father

We are familiar with the story of the Exodus, the plagues and such. But why do the plagues culminate in the striking down of the first born sons of Egypt? In the Exodus, Moses came to Pharaoh to announce to him that Israel was the Lord’s son and that the Lord was Israel’s father. If Pharaoh didn’t let Israel go, then God was going to strike down Pharaoh’s first born, a proportional judgment (Ex. 4:21-22). Jesus taught us to pray to God as Father, “Our Father, who art in heaven. . .” (Mat. 6:9). So our relationship to God is, in one sense, the relationship of children to their Father.

A Fallen Image

This metaphor, that of fatherhood, is an image used by God to teach us something about what God is like, an image built into creation. Earthly fathers are a reflection of what our heavenly Father is like. This is problematic, since these are fallen images. And the fact that they are fallen can make the whole thing offensive. Many people hear about a God who is an omniscient, omnipotent version of their earthly dad and they say ‘no thanks.’The problem is that you can’t just edit fathers out of how we have been made. We were created in the image of God and so fatherhood and a need for fatherhood is built into us. Both good and bad fathers reveal something about God the Father.

Love

First, we need the love of a father. God has built this into our souls. This is how fathers, by common grace, instinctively feel about their children. Jesus shows us how the love of our earthly fathers points to the love of our heavenly Father in Luke 11:9-13, via the Jewish “Kal vaChomer” argument.

Delight

Second, not only do fathers love their children, they delight in them. Delight is really just the manifestation of this love. This is all a reflection of the ultimate father / son relationship – God the Father and God the Son (Mat. 3:17). Because fathers can allow their love to grow cold, what began as an intense love for their children does not manifest itself as delight, at least not in the conscious lifetime of their children. This leaves a void that only the heavenly Father can fill.

Pursuit

And lastly, because fathers love and delight in their children, they seek out their children. Loving parents will endanger themselves to save their children. God sought out Israel in Egypt, because Israel was his son. But our earthly fathers are fallen. And the same man who would have given his life to save his child in a house fire, will later sinfully sit and watch his children walk away from the faith with no effort on his behalf to pursue. But our heavenly father is not like this.

Ironically, our heavenly Father has pursued us by becoming a father to us. He has saved us though his fatherhood. He sent his own son, Jesus, so that he could become a brother to us (Heb. 2:14-17). And in becoming our brother, Jesus has shared his sonship with us, so that his father, God the Father could become our father (Gal. 4:4-7). Through this union with Christ we have God the Father as a perfect Father. We are loved, as the Son is loved. The Father delights in us, as he delights in the Son. The Father is pursuing us to deliver us, as he did his Son Jesus, and his son Israel.

He is a model for us to emulate to our own children. And he is the perfect fulfilment of the type that our own fathers were for us. Where we fall short in this work, our children still have a perfect father above us, to whom we must be pointing them. And where our own earthly fathers have failed us, we have a perfect father, who loves us, delights in us, and has pursued and saved us.

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Gospel Intentionality

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The Mission at Home

Evangelism begins at home. Paul argues in 1 Tim. 3:4-5 and Tit. 1:6 that the faithfulness of our own children is a prerequisite or foundation for any other teaching that we will do. This is true for individuals and it is true for churches on a corporate level. To certain extent, successful evangelism within families would make all other evangelism unnecessary.

A Post-Millenial Faith

But Scripture teaches that the Gospel is intended to spread to all nations. And in order for the Gospel to go to other nations, it must go to other families, to people other than our own children. Faithfulness to the Great Commission requires that we disciple people other than our own families. A rejection of this truth is what got the Jews of the first century into trouble. Judaizing was a rejection of a world-discipling Gospel. Therefore, while discipling our families and ordering our houses is critical. It is not the end. We as a church, need to be an evangelizing body. We are here to spread the Gospel. The gospel is a river that runs, not a marsh – backed up and in need of draining.

Evangelizing as a Body

To do this rightly, we must understand our role as a body (1 Cor. 12). Not all of us are called to act as the mouth. But when the mouth speaks, all the body is invested in what the mouth says. If the mouth goes talking trash to a biker gang on a Saturday night, the rest of the body is going to end up involved. So when a part of the body is evangelizing, the rest of the body is invested in that work.

Gospel Intentionality

Regardless of our individual giftings, we should learn to live with our minds and hearts set on discipling the nations – Gospel Intentionality. This begins with prayer. Look to expand your fellowship, where it is natural. Who has God put in front of you? Failing to understand that we minister as a body can place a lot of misguided pressure on saints within the church. We are not all gifted in the same ways. But we are all gifted to work together to the same end.

Evangelism as a Body

Strong families and a strong church do not have to be in tension with living evangelistically. These things not only qualify us to preach, they should actually be our greatest strength in evangelism. For instance, our world is characterized by father hunger. And we, of all the people on the Palouse, have fathers. Our world is homeless. And we have homes. Our world is hopeless. And we have hope. We don’t need to act that much different to proclaim the Gospel. We need to be ourselves, the body that God is making us into, in front of the world. This is Gospel intentionality.

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Hope that Purifies

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Introduction

Everything God does in our world is aimed at glorifying His name through the salvation of sinners like us. He declared his saving intentions right after the Fall, in the first pages of Scripture. He unfolded more and more details as the era of the patriarchs and prophets went on, and then, when it was time for the curtain to rise on the gospel itself, Zechariah and Elizabeth heard the overture, and then Gabriel himself appeared to Mary. But why? What was the point? The point was to deal with sin.

The Text

“And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins” (Matt. 1:21)

“And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure” (1 John 3:3)

“Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14)

Summary of the Texts

When Joseph found out Mary was pregnant, and he knew that he was not the father, he was mulling over what to do (Matt. 1:19). While he was considering these things, an angel of the Lord appeared to him and reassured him. That which is conceived in her is by the Holy Spirit, the angel said. The name of her son will be called Jesus, and the reason for this is that He will save His people from their sins. The Greek name Jesus is the equivalent to the Hebrew Joshua, which means God is salvation. And so the angel said to Joseph, you shall call His name God is salvation for He will save His people from their sins.

The apostle John notes that God has shown us great love in that He has called us sons of God. Because the world doesn’t know Him, it doesn’t know us (1 John 3:1). We have just begun our transformation to be like Him, and when He comes again, that will happen (v. 2). Everyone who hopes this way is hoping for that final purification. And you cannot hope for purification this way without it having a purifying effect (v. 3).

God has decided not to purify us all in one instantaneous moment. He has determined to do it over time, subjecting us to His loving discipline. He disciplines us so that we might be partakers of His holiness (Heb. 12:10). So pursue peace, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord (v. 14). The direction is real holiness.

The Problem

We are told in Scripture, in no uncertain terms, that God’s whole point in sending His Son into this world was to accomplish our salvation from sin. He liberates us from sin, which is the condition of not being like God at all, to holiness, which is the condition of partaking in what He is like. This is a momentous liberation, and for it to occur it was necessary for Jesus to take on a human body that could die, live a perfect, sinless life in that incarnate state, die on the cross, and to come back from the dead. The reason He did this was to bring you from somewhere to somewhere. He did not do all this aimlessly.

But holiness has somehow gotten a bad reputation. Who wants to be a holy Joe? It has gotten this reputation because we have not looked at the scriptural descriptions of it, and have allowed certain posers to step in. We pretend that we don’t like those posers, but they are really very convenient for us.

If someone, a preacher, say, declares that “without holiness no one will see the Lord,” we say, “yes, but . . .”

  • Yes, but I don’t want to be like those dour people in that legalistic church I grew up in. Well, who asked you to?
  • Yes, but I don’t want to be like that smarmy goody two-shoes who is photogenic enough to garner every faculty award known to man. Well, who asked you to?
  • Yes, but I don’t want to slip into a works-righteousness mentality. Well, who asked you to?

Holiness is not what we sometimes want to pretend it is. Holiness is being like God. Does He have issues? Does He have problems?

Understanding the Options

Think of it this way; let’s look at teenagers growing up in biblical homes in order to make the point stick. There is actual holiness and there is looking like you are pursuing it. Given these two variables, we have four options.

  • Someone can want to not be holy, but want to look like he is pursuing it. This is the hypocrite, Pharisaism junior grade.
  • Someone can want to not be holy, and want to look like he doesn’t want to be holy. This is the open heathen.
  • Someone can actually want to be holy, just so long as it doesn’t look like he wants to pursue it. This is the poor white kid who tries to stay out of actual big-time sinning, and who gets a nose stud five years after the trend-setters among 7-11 clerks quit wearing them.
  • Someone can want to be holy, and he doesn’t mind who knows it. This is the open Christian. He doesn’t want to sidle into holiness, without which no one will see the Lord. He doesn’t want to sneak into holiness, without which no one will see the Lord. He wants to be with the Lord, and to be like the Lord. There is nothing to be ashamed of here.

What Holiness Is

We were told earlier that the Lord disciplines us so that we might become partakers of His holiness (Heb. 12:10). His holiness is the pinnacle of all His attributes. The seraphim do not cry out, Patience, patience, patience, or Righteousness, righteousness, righteousness. Rather, they cover their faces and feet and cry out Holy, holy, holy. As white light is the sum total of all the colors in the spectrum, so holiness is the sum total of all that God is like.

Among other things, personal holiness is the point. Jesus did not come into this world in order to create a bunch of boring little Christlings, ashamed to be with Him. No, we are after Christians. How does Paul labor? “Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily” (Col. 1: 26-29).

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The Wise Men And The Nations

Joe Harby on

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Introduction

This part of the Christmas story is not a stand alone story. In the narrative, we find a type of how all the rulers of this world will eventually come to kiss the Son.

The Text

“Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judaea in the days of Herod the king, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him. When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him . . . When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was. When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy. And when they were come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary his mother, and fell down, and worshipped him: and when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way” (Matt. 2:1-3, 9-12).

Summary of the Text

After the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, certain wise men from the east appeared in Jerusalem (v. 1), and they were looking for Him (v. 2). The one they were looking for was King of the Jews because they had seen His star in the east, and intended to worship Him (v. 2). Herod heard about this and he was troubled, along with all Jerusalem (v. 3). After Herod gets some information from his rabbis, he deceitfully sends the wise men on their way. After they left Herod’s presence, the star they had seen back home led them to the right house in Bethlehem (v. 9). Seeing the star gave them great joy (v. 10). They came to the house (not the stable) where they saw the young Jesus along with Mary, His mother (v. 11). From the age of the boys murdered by Herod, we can infer that the wise men arrived sometime within two years of Christ’s birth. They fell down and worshipped Him, and presented their famous and costly gifts—gold, frankincense and myrrh. We don’t know there were three wise men, this being simply an inference from these three gifts. God warned the wise men in a dream, and so they went home by another route (v. 12).

We Three Kings

Now these men are not described as kings, but there are good reasons for treating them as members of the ruling aristocracy, as men who could decide to go to visit a king. First, in the Old Testament, this kind of person was frequently found at court (magi, wise men). Second, these men were dignitaries of sufficient rank to have their questions attract the attention of a king, and to be summoned to his court. Third, their gifts to the young Christ were kingly gifts—the kind of gift that kings would receive from princes. Fourth, the text draws attention to a comparison between their eagerness to worship Christ, and Herod’s false willingness to do so. Fifth, not only did God want the reader of Matthew to know that a king was born in Bethlehem, God wanted Herod to know that a king had been born there. And He wanted him to know it on the kind of authority that he would accept.

Foreshadowing

So what is this story doing here? The clear intent is to show us that Christ is a king, and He is the kind of king who receives legitimate worship from nobles. This is a proleptic story, meaning that it is prophetic. If the toddler Jesus receives this kind of honor, what will He receive later? He receives hostility at the beginning (from Herod) and He receives prostrate worship from Gentile noblemen at the beginning. This is an a fortiori situation, and which one will win out?

Honor and Glory

Paul says that God wants all kinds of men to saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4). This “all kinds of” includes kings and those in authority (1 Tim. 2:2). In this matter, Paul practiced what he preached. When he had opportunity to present the gospel to kings and rulers, he did so (Acts 26:28). Kings are told to kiss the Son, lest He be angry (Ps. 2:12). While we are to fear both God and the king (Prov. 24:21), the king is to fear God particularly (Dt. 17:18).
But sin being what it is, this is not something that kings like to do. The gospel being as powerful as it is, however, means that the kings of the earth will come. They all will bring their honor and glory into the Church (Rev.
21:24, 26). They do become nursing fathers to the Church (Is. 49:23), submitting themselves to the Church, and being discipled by the Church. The phrase “nursing fathers” can be misleading, making us think the Church is somehow subordinate to the State—which is the opposite of what the passage says. In the restoration of Israel’s fortunes that is the Church, what does it say? “And kings shall be thy nursing fathers [lit. nourishers], and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am the LORD: for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me.” The leaves on the tree of life are for the healing of the nations, and they cannot be applied without the nations actually getting better (Rev. 22:2).

Tribute and Authority

There are two ways to give. One is an act of authority and the other is an act of submission. There are two ways to receive—and not surprisingly, one is an act of authority and the other is an act of submission. Telling the two of them apart is perfectly clear for the humble, and opaque to the proud. Were the wise men placing Jesus and Mary in their debt with these very expensive gifts? Or were they showing their indebtedness? When our federal government today cuts a check, are they exercising authority or showing submission? This is not a hard question. This story right at the beginning of Christ’s life shows us the pattern that we should expect and require. Christ will not receive (and His Church must not receive) any money whatever from the state unless it is accompanied by prostration before Christ and true worship of Him.

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