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Rise the Woman’s Conquering Seed (Christmas Eve 2022)

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Christmas is a celebration of the birth of the great dragon slayer so that the human race might become a race of dragon slayers. In the beginning, God put Adam and Eve into a perfect Garden, in a perfect world, with a perfect marriage, a perfect job, and a perfect relationship with God and one another. And then God allowed a dragon into that world, a talking dragon, a crafty dragon, a lying dragon. And the woman listened to the voice of the dragon, and the man listened to the voice of his wife, and plunged our race into a snakebit darkness, poisoned with selfishness, bitterness, guilt, shame, death, and accusation.

But we serve the infinite, omnipotent God who is not stymied by anything. He is not puzzled by anything. There is nothing that can stop His plan, and everything that tries to is only taken up into His plan: He works all things together for good. And so in His mercy and justice and power, He promised to take away the sin of man, satisfy His perfect justice, and at the same time deliver man, crush sin, Satan, and death, and restore all things. And He promised to do it all through the seed of the woman, the seed of Eve. And we should have known that this would be beyond anything we might expect even from this first promise, since properly speaking, a woman does not have seed. A woman may conceive seed, but properly speaking, it is the male part of the human race that has seed, but his seed became poisoned, disfigured, and evil.

And so the women were barren: Sarah was barren, Rebekah was barren, Rachel was barren, and Hannah, and Ruth, down to old Elizabeth. Only God could open wombs. Only God could give conception. All their schemes turned into trouble and misery. But the promise was unmistakable: the seed of the woman would kill the dragon. But a woman does not have seed. And so the prophet finally said what everyone had to be thinking: a virgin will conceive and bear a son. The seed cannot come from a fallen man, a snake-bit man; God will provide the seed.

So He did, and Mary brought forth her Son, never having known a man, and laid him in a manger. Here at last in Bethlehem, for the first time is the seed of the woman. No other woman has ever brought forth a child without the aid of a man. The Holy Spirit hovered over that empty womb, and said Let there be light: and there was the Light of all Light, the Lightest Light, the Brightest Light. And she called His name Jesus, because He came to kill the dragon and save His people from their sins.

But the poison of the serpent infects everything. It is death and uncleanness in everything. Everything that a sin-infected person touches is covered in it. Evil thoughts, envy, jealousy, biting words, rage, bitterness, lust, pride, arrogance, hatred, deviance. You can’t wash it off. You can’t make up for it because even your good deeds are still full of it, your best deeds still reek of the serpent smell, the foul odor of selfishness, pride, fear, resentment, shame. The dragon is a tape worm sucking life from every corner. So how can the Seed of the Woman kill this hydra-dragon, this many-headed tape worm? The only way is for every infected human to die. Like all parasites, if the host dies, the parasite dies. But then the problem in our case is that the human has died.

So the Seed of the Woman was born in order to take the human race with Him down into the pit of the snake, down into the lair of the dragon, down into the heart of the earth, down into death itself. And there, to receive the justice for all our sin, receiving all our darkness, all our filth, every accusation, all the condemnation of the Devil, nailing the handwriting of ordinances that was against us to His cross, until every last one was paid. Until every single tape worm was dead, until the last drop of shame was starved, until perfect justice was paid.

The power of the dragon is the power of death, and he had the power of death because He accuses guilty sinners of their sin. But the Seed of the Woman has no sin. He can fight the dragon because the dragon has no power over Him. The dragon came and tempted Him, but He did not yield. He has been tempted in every way just as we are, yet He remained without sin, so that He can fully sympathize with us in our weakness, and yet He understands all of it better than us because He has never once yielded for a moment.

Death only holds those who are guilty. Guilt is a millstone and death is the ocean of God’s justice. And the dragon only needed to shove you off the plank, and sinners sink all by themselves by the weight of all our sin. The Dragon accuses, and guilty sinners cower in fear. The dragon accuses, and guilty sinners plunge beneath the waves of guilt and shame. But the Seed of the Woman is not guilty of any charge, and so when the seed of the woman died, when He was crucified on a Roman cross, the only way He could die was by virtue of identifying with us. He claimed us as His own, and in so doing, He claimed our filth, our sin, our rage, our evil thoughts, our drunkenness, our rebellion. He claimed it all, and sunk into death because of it all. But when it was all paid, when it was completely finished. There was nothing holding Him down. And so He rose: like light bursting out of the darkness, like a seed out of nowhere, like a buoy surging up through the waves, but when He rose, He did not rise empty handed. He rose with us in tow. He rose with us under His Everlasting Arms. He went down, identifying with us, with our serpent-sins, our snake-bit poison, but when He rose, He identified us with Him. He took us down so that we might die, and all our sin died in Him. And then He rose, so that we might live, so that all His Life and Light might live in us.

Jesus is the Seed of the Woman, and He crushed the head of the dragon. He defanged the Accuser by paying for all the accusations. But the way He did it turns all those who believe into dragon-slayers. So how do the saints overcome the dragon? Through the blood of the Lamb and their testimony (Rev. 12:11). And how does that work? If we walk in the light as He is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, the seed of the woman, the Lamb of God, cleanses us from all sins (1 Jn. 1:7). How does the blood cleanse us? If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 Jn. 1:9).

How do you fight the dragon? By confessing your sins to God and one another and forgiving one another quickly. When you confess your sins, you stomp on the head of the dragon. When you confess your sins, a little more Light breaks out in this world. And this is our testimony: that we have been washed and forgiven by the blood of the Lamb, and now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, and now we are not afraid anymore.

Christmas is the celebration of the birth of the great Dragon-slayer, and in Him, the birth of a race of dragon slayers. So lift up your heads. Lift up your hearts. Christ is born. The Seed of the Woman has come. The dragon has been mortally wounded, and you have been set free. So take up your arms. Confess your sins. Forgive one another. Rejoice and sing and celebrate. This your testimony, and by this testimony you overcome the dragon.

In the Name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen.

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Incarnate Emotions (Advent 2022)

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INTRODUCTION

An essential part of the Christian confession is that Jesus of Nazareth is “fully God” and “fully man.” If you sometimes wonder why the Nicene Creed and the Definition of Chalcedon are so specific and so detailed, it is because there are numerous ways to slip off the point and into heresy.

One of the easier ways to do this is to imagine Jesus as having a human body, but being “God on the inside.” But no. We confess that Jesus was and is entirely human, and a good way to reinforce this in our minds is to consider what the Scriptures teach about the emotional life of Christ.

THE TEXT

“That word, I say, ye know, which was published throughout all Judaea, and began from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached; How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him” (Acts 10:37–38).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

The apostle Peter is preaching to the household of Cornelius, and in the course of his message he reminds them of something they already knew—how after the baptism of John, the message of Christ spread from Galilee and throughout all Judea (v. 37). The first part of the message was that God anointed Christ with the Spirit and power, and as a consequence He “went about doing good” (v. 38). He went about doing good, which was a capital offense. God was with Him, and He healed all those who were oppressed by the devil. Peter goes on to proclaim the cross and resurrection (vv. 39-40), but our concern here is the Incarnation, the precondition of that vicarious substitution.

SOME GUARDRAILS FIRST

As we will see in a moment, Christ experienced true human emotion. But we have to hold two things together. He was truly human, but He was also sinlessly human. When we experience the analog emotions that Christ felt, we need to remember that there is a sinful component in it for us that was not present for Him. But at the same time, the writers of Scripture were able to describe His emotional responses with human vocabulary.

For example, we are commanded in Ephesians to be angry—“be angry and sin not” (Eph. 4:26). But in the next breath we are told to put away all bitterness, wrath, anger, and clamor (Eph. 4:31). This is because there is a righteous anger from above . . . and then there is the other kind. “For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.” (James 1:20).

COMPASSION

The gospel writers frequently mention how the Lord was internally moved with compassion. This internal state routinely resulted in an external blessing for someone. “And Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean” (Mark 1:41; cf. Matt. 20:34; Luke 7:13). This happens in numerous instances. There is one time when Jesus Himself refers to His own compassion, and that is before He fed the multitude. “I have compassion on the multitude, because they have now been with me three days, and have nothing to eat: And if I send them away fasting to their own houses, they will faint by the way: for divers of them came from far” (Mark 8:2–3). We have numerous occasions where the Lord exhibits a spontaneous pity that was provoked by the misery of the people who were coming to Him. He did good to them because He wanted to. “Jesus wept” (John 11:35).

ANGER

We just noted that Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus. But sympathy for Mary and Martha was not the only emotion He felt there. We are told twice that Jesus groaned in His spirit (John 11:33,38). But a better translation of this, even if it seems disrespectful, is that Jesus raged in His spirit, He raged in Himself. Against whom? Against His great enemy, death.

And in the incident with the man who had a withered hand, we are told that the Lord was angry and grieved with their hardness of heart (Mark 3:5). But note that when Jesus got angry, the end result was that a withered hand was healed. When man in the flesh gets angry, the end result is a hole in the sheetrock.

We are not told expressly that He was angry when He cleansed the Temple, but He almost certainly was. He was consumed with zeal for His Father’s house the first time (John 2:17), and the task before Him was enormous, and required great motivation.

And there is another occasion where a lesser form of “anger” was displayed. When His disciples were being grown-up and very officious, and were keeping little children away from Him, we are told that Jesus was vexed, annoyed, greatly displeased (Mark 10:14).

SORROW AND EXULTATION

Christ went to the cross—for you and for me—with a strange combination of emotions within His breast. When He contemplated the cross, He exulted in His spirit (Luke 10:21). For the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross (Heb. 12:2). At the same time, He went into the black shadow with His eyes fully open to the price that He would pay. The emotional side of it was agitation, perplexity, and disquietude (John 12:27; 13:21). What He experienced was agony. “And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44). Was the Lord despondent and appalled? He was. “And he taketh with him Peter and James and John, and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy” (Mark 14:33).

TRUE SALVATION

Christ was sent by the Father to save His elect. And so when Christ came to earth, He came to save all of you, and not just a portion of you. Our tendency is to think of our humanity, in its broken and shattered state, as the true meaning of what it means to be a real human. But no—the unfallen Christ is the ultimate meaning of true humanity. And so in the resurrection, it will not be the case that all your emotions will be freeze-dried and stored in a cooler somewhere.

No, you will be men and women forever. You will be restored men and women, and you will be truly human, all the way through, like the Lord Jesus.

“When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream” (Psalm 126:1).

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Mary (Profiles in Christmas #3)

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INTRODUCTION

The godliness & virtue of Mary coupled with the profound significance of the task appointed to her of bearing God in the flesh in her womb, has led some to revere Mary in her own rite. But, when we look at her life, we must resist two temptations. One would be to overly reverence her (the Roman Catholic error), the other to disrespect her (the error of our irreverent age). She ought not be venerated, but rather, emulated.

THE TEXT

And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end (Luke 1:26-33).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

The Angel Gabriel comes as one of God’s “mighty ones” to a virgin from Nazareth in Galilee. Two important descriptions are noteworthy: first, she is an espoused virgin; second, that she (as we saw with Joseph) was of the house of David (vv26-27). Gabriel’s greeting is packed with regal honorifics: she is hailed as with royal (not divine) honor, she is highly favored, the Lord is with her, and she is blessed among women (v28). While she is quite flummoxed by this greeting (v29), the Angel goes on to unfurl the most important tidings any Angelic messenger had ever given. Mary had found favor in God’s sight (like Noah, Abraham, and Moses); like all moments of redemption, this was God’s free grace at work (v30).

This Incarnation of God in the flesh was the crowning jewel of all of God’s grace towards man. Mary is told that she would conceive & give birth to a son, who should be named Jesus (v31). So far, nothing that abnormal. Human mothers had birthed human sons before. Angels had come with these sorts of messages before. Prophets had made these sort of predictions before.

But then the Angel sets forth the towering glories of this Son. In Mary’s Son all the Messianic glories are brought into full flower. Her Son would also be divine. He would be great, the Son of the Highest, the fulfillment of God’s messianic promise to seat an eternal heir on David’s throne (v32), He was the prophesied Star which would arise out of Jacob to reign unto endless eons (v33, Cf. Num. 24:17).

THEOTOKOS

As you recite the Definition of Chalcedon at Christmastime each year, you shouldn’t forget that almost every phrase in it was the topic of long debate. One of the principle debates was whether it was right to call Mary the “God-bearer”. The Greek word is theotokos. This debate centered on who Jesus was. Was He a Son of Man which God used? Was he the eternal Christ, but more of an apparition than a true human?

A few other suggestions were proposed: theotokos should be combined with anthropotokos, or Christokos. But by landing on calling Mary the God-bearer, the theologians of Chalcedon said more with less. It forced the Church to affirm the unity of the human & divine nature of Jesus Christ.

This isn’t just theological hair splitting; there are important practical implications, even if it gives us a bit of a headache in trying to get it pinned down. God the Son was manifested in the flesh. The Son never resigned His divinity while taking unto Himself true humanity.

If you erroneously split that theological atom, you end up with either a Christ who can’t suffer in our stead, or a mere man who can’t bring us up to glory. One is a ladder that isn’t tall enough, the other is a ladder that floats just out of reach. But theotokos puts both together. Jesus is God. Jesus is man. Mary bore God in her womb. Yes, this is mind-blowing. This was the most impossible thing to ever happen, and Mary herself knew it (Lk. 1:37).

GOD MY SAVIOR

One of the central errors of Mariolatry is that it neglects to reckon with Mary’s own words. This is seen particularly in her Magnificat. She describes there her wonder and worship at all that had befallen her in terms of fulfillment of OT types.

All the Psalmists’ pleas for God’s swift deliverance of His people (including Mary) are now answered. Mary sees Hannah’s exultation over her adversary (satan) played out once again in her own story, but cosmically, the woman’s seed overcoming the serpent’s seed. She sees that her Son is the Seed of Abraham, and this was the blessing for all the earth, for all generations.

She rejoices in “God my Savior.” She does not set herself above all others, but sets herself as the first blessed amongst all others who would receive this great blessing of the Savior. Mary needed a Savior. Later on in Jesus’ ministry, we also get a bit of a sense that Mary was pushing Jesus forward into being the sort of Savior she (as well as the other disciples) envisioned the Messiah would be. Simon surely prophesied well when he told Mary that a sword would pierce her own soul.

Mary was there when God first took on flesh, and she beheld when that flesh was hung––mangled and tortured–– upon a the accursed Roman tree. She understood, imperfectly at first, and then on Calvary she came to see more clearly, that her Son was also her Savior.

RECEIVING AS A CHRISTMAS VIRTUE

Generosity requires two parties: the giver & the receiver. One is active, the other is passive. Every gift we give is play-acting God’s creative power. It is He who made us and not we ourselves. Can the pot say to the Potter, “What gives?” Our modern world thinks that being can be taken for granted. Your existence isn’t your possession for you to do with however you please; it is a gift to be received and rightly used. All the modern jargon about “self-expression” & “finding your true self” is continuing the root rebellion of mankind.

Mary’s response is that of true faith: “Be it unto me according to your word.” Mary receives the unearned favor of God with humble faith. She doesn’t resist or object in doubt. She receives the gift. This sort of faith insults our modern egotistical age, and confronts it as a putrid rebellion against God.

What do you have that you did not first receive? Man wants to try to clean himself up to please God, before he receives God’s gift of cleansing. Man tries to reform himself, before receiving the reforming grace that God gives. Man tries to find rebirth in himself, before receiving the New Birth in Christ. The order matters, immensely. God casts His favor upon you, through no merit of your own, and calls you to receive it. Only then can you be remade.

ANOTHER REBELLIOUS MIRIAM

Mary’s namesake was Miriam, Moses’ sister. Her name meant resistant/obstinance. Miriam notoriously resisted Moses’ authority (Cf. Num. 12). Here we have a profound contrast between two Miriams. Mary the resistant, says, “let it be.” Mary receives grace, and so resists the proud.

By God’s grace, the rebellious become the receivers. This is how Mary, and all true believers, overcome the world. We receive in order to overcome our adversary. We who were once rebels of God, when we receive His gracious favor, we are made more than conquerors through Christ, the Son of Mary. The overthrow of Satan had begun, because Christ was born of Mary.

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The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Part 3

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INTRODUCTION

Two weeks ago we saw that Jesus described the sun and moon going dark like an Old Testament prophet describing the destruction of a great city/empire (e.g. Is. 13). Last week we also looked at the judgment of Satan, as the “ruler of this world,” his defeat and binding and plundering by Jesus on the cross. When the curtain was torn in two, Satan was cast down, Jesus ascended, the saints have been delivered from bondage to death and accusation, and a new heavens and new earth came into existence.

In our text this morning, we look at another New Testament reference to a prophetic destruction of an old world. And the apostle says that what the prophet was describing was happening right there in the first century in those last days at the first advent of Christ and the beginning of His Kingdom which will draw all the nations and have no end.

THE TEXT

But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words: For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel…” (Acts 2:14-21).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

When the Spirit was poured out at Pentecost and the disciples began speaking in different languages, some mocked them as drunkards (Acts 2:13). But Peter stood up and explained that this was not drunkenness but rather the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy (Acts 2:14-16). Joel had prophesied that in the “last days” the Spirit would be poured out on all flesh, young and old, men and women, with prophesying and dreams (Acts 2:17-18). This would mark the beginning of the end of a world, with blood, fire, smoke, and the heavenly lights going out before the Day of the Lord (Acts 2:19-20). But whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Acts 2:21).

THE DAY OF THE LORD

In the Old Testament, the “Day of the Lord” is used prolifically in the prophets to describe a great judgment (Is. 2:12, 13:6-9ff, Jer. 46:10, Ez. 30:3, Amos 5:18-20, Zeph. 1:7-14ff). A similar phrase is “Day of Visitation” (Is. 10:3, Jer. 46:21, Hos. 9:7). This ultimately goes back to the day of the first sin and the first judgment: “And they heard the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day…” (Gen. 3:8). The day of the Lord is a day on which God visits His people for judgment but also salvation. This reminds us of when God came down to the Tower of Babel and confused the languages of the people (Gen. 11). In one sense, God reversed Babel at Pentecost, but foreign tongues are also a sign of judgment (Is. 28:11, 1 Cor. 14:21-22). So Pentecost was both: salvation for those who believed but judgment for those who did not.

THE LAST DAYS

So Peter says that the “last days” that Joel was talking about were right then in the first century (Acts 2:17). Hebrews agrees: “[God] hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son…” (Heb. 1:2). Likewise, later, it says, “but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Heb. 9:26). Peter is still thinking this way when he writes of Christ, “who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you…” (1 Pet. 1:20). And he seems to have the same thing in mind when he writes: “But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer” (1 Pet. 4:7, cf. 1 Jn. 2:18).

Certainly, there are references to the final last days, the final end of all things: “No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day” (Jn. 6:44, cf. 6:38-40, 54). The resurrection has certainly not happened yet, and so we await that “last day” (cf. Job 19:25-27). Christ must reign until all of His enemies are put beneath His feet; the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death – then shall come “the end” (cf. 1 Cor. 15:12-26, cf. 2 Tim. 2:18). But the primary referent of the phrase “last days” in the New Testament is the last days of the Old Covenant world, the end of that world, when Jesus came, which was also the beginning of the New World, the New Heavens and the New Earth in which the Holy Spirit has been poured out (Acts 2:17), the era in which salvation is proclaimed to the nations, so that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Acts 2:21).

AS THE WATERS COVER THE SEA

Part of the significance of the end of the Old Covenant world is the promised explosion of the gospel for the nations. “And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all the nations shall flow into it” (Is. 2:2). And the prophet Micah says almost the exact same thing (Mic. 4:1).

Daniel interprets Nebuchadnezzar’s dream as what will happen in the “latter days” (Dan. 2:28): “And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever” (Dan. 2:44). And the King’s dream was of a rock cut out without hands that shatters the metal statue and grows into a mountain that fills the whole earth. This is the promise of the Messiah: “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, Counsellor, The Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end…” (Is. 9:6-7). “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea. And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious” (Is. 11:9-10).

CONCLUSION

While there have been and continue to be the “last days” of earthly kingdoms and empires, we are in the era of the New Creation, when Christ’s kingdom grows and fills the earth. In these “last days” of sin and death, we are promised the growth of the kingdom and the nations flowing in.

The Lord certainly still visits this world with His temporal judgments, but in the New Covenant, one of the central ways God visits the world with judgment is through the gathered worship of the saints on the Lord’s Day – the Day of the Lord. In Revelation, John was in the Spirit, “on the Lord’s Day,” and He saw the saints worshipping and judgments falling on the earth. Hebrews says that we have come to Mount Zion, to God the Judge of all, to Jesus the Mediator, and God is shaking all things in Heaven and on Earth (Heb. 12).

This is why worship on the Lord’s Day is central to everything we do. In worship, we are lifted up by the Spirit into the Heavenly places to glimpse the end of all things in order to ask God for His Kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. Part of that is being worked out in us individually, making us more like Christ in every area of life, but part of that is also being poured out on the earth by the Prince of Peace who was born at Christmas.

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Earthy & Holy (Advent 2022)

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INTRODUCTION

During the course of Advent, we are celebrating the Incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. I say celebrating, not mourning. In contrast to a number of Christian traditions, we do not treat this season as a penitential season, but rather a season of anticipation and longing. We celebrate the Incarnation itself, with the deliverance it brought to us, when we come to Christmas itself. But in faith we celebrate the promise of deliverance as we prepare ourselves for the full celebration.

But what is entailed in that promise? The Incarnation highlights two things that we need to have anchored firmly in our minds. First, it underscores the essential goodness of the material creation. The Word of God took on human flesh. Second, it emphasizes the depth of our sin and rebellion. This is what it took to deliver us from our unholy condition. And so the Incarnation must be seen and understood as simultaneously earthy and holy.

THE TEXT

“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit” (Romans 8:1–4).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

The reason we are able to celebrate in Christmas joy is because light has appeared in a very dark place. That light is liberation from guilt and condemnation. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (v. 1). But this is not for those who merely say they are in Christ Jesus. There is no condemnation for those who do not walk after the flesh, but rather after the Spirit (v. 1). The condemnation we are no longer under is the condemnation of “sin and death” (v. 2). The thing that set us free is the “law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” (v. 2). In this deliverance, God did for us what the law could not do (v. 3). The law could not perform because it was weakened, hampered, crippled, by the flesh (v. 3). God did this by sending His own Son into the world in the likeness of sinful flesh—not sinful flesh, but the likeness of it (v. 3). God then condemned, in that sacrifice, sin “in the flesh” (v. 3). He did this so that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in those who do not walk according to the flesh, but rather according to the Spirit (v. 4).

FLESH AND FLESH

Throughout his letters, the apostle Paul uses the word flesh in two distinct ways. The word is sarx, and it can simply mean a material, living body. “Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the sarx” (Romans 1:3). Jesus took on a human body, in other words. He truly was descended from David.

But Paul also uses the word to describe the principle of sin that is resident within us. “For when we were in the sarx, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death” (Romans 7:5).

So in our text, this is why he says “in the likeness of sinful flesh.” This means Jesus was truly and fully a human being—the sinfulness excepted.

AN UNLIKELY MARRIAGE

So what Christmas represents is a celebration of materiality and earthiness, on the one hand, and a rejection of unholiness on the other. This is a sensate holiness, in other words. We are called, as Christians, to be earthy—not worldly.

This is very hard for sinners to grasp, particularly religious sinners. We think we understand holiness, but we tend to veer into a rejection of stuff—as though we though the sin was resident in the matter itself. But Jesus, in the Incarnation, took on a body that was just as material as yours. “THAT which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life” (1 John 1:1). They heard Him speaking, they saw Him in the flesh, and they touched Him with their hands. No, the sin is not in the molecules.

But then sinners veer in the other direction, and think that if the material realm is good, it must be good as our hearts naturally conceive it. But our hearts are where the problem lies.

THE LIFE I LIVE IN THE BODY

So imagine a platter of fudge in front of you. Christmas fudge, the kind you like. Is there a possibility of sin here? Absolutely, but the problem is not in the fudge. It is never in the stuff itself.

“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh [sarx] I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).

We are to set our minds on things above:

“Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth” (Col. 3:2).

Now as we do this, it liberates us from the sinfulness of what is going on down here (Col. 3:5). But it also enables us to put on the new man (Col. 3:10), which brings with it a host of practical and very earthy responsibilities (Col. 3:12-17). Being spiritual does not entail becoming a ghostly wraith that floats around the house, beaming at everyone with a ghastly grin. You really need to knock that off.

TOO HEAVENLY MINDED?

You have perhaps heard the expression that someone was “so heavenly minded they were no earthly good.” This does happen, and we must guard against it. But if we have taken the lessons of the Incarnation seriously, something else will happen. We will set our minds in the heavens, and with our hands and arms we will pick up material things, and we will do good with them. When I say “pick up material things,” think of Dad carrying all those presents to the car. Think about all the love represented there.

“If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity).

So I would always remind you to think of Christ. Set your minds on Christ. Prior to the Incarnation, before the Word was sent into the world, He was entirely heavenly minded. But remaining that way would have left us in our sins. And so He dwells in everlasting joy now, at the right hand of the Father. But He got there by taking on a material body, which He still has. The Incarnation was permanent, not temporary, and this means that the sanctification of matter was permanent. Being heavenly minded therefore means an ongoing affirmation of material holiness.
Our task is not to “be holy.” Our assigned task is to be “holy with stuff.”

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