Incarnation

‘And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.’ Advent is about Jesus’ incarnation. While the word, ‘incarnation’, is familiar enough, taking even a moment to ponder what it means brings us into mystery and awe. The infinite God took on a very finite human body. I suspect that we will never really grasp what’s involved in that. But still, it’s good for us to do what we can to understand whatever we can about the Incarnation. To do that we’re going to use something Paul wrote as he explained and then applied the doctrine of Jesus’ Incarnation. Listen.

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2.5-11 [NASV]

Incarnation

Christmas is over. And for most of your friends and neighbors that means it’s back to work and life as it was. But that’s not true for us. The Church in the Old Testament celebrated Passover with joy and happiness on the anniversary of their deliverance from Egypt. But that doesn’t mean that they forgot about what God had done in that event once the celebrating was over. The reality of the exodus from Egypt was the foundation of their life together. And the same is true of us. God’s great work, Jesus’ Incarnation, is not some event to remember once a year. It is the foundation to our life together. And that’s why Paul wrote our text to the Philippians. In this text Paul is describing and applying the Incarnation. There are two aspects that he points to. One has to do with what happened before the Incarnation that led up to it. The other has to do with what Jesus did once He took on flesh. We’ll look at both and then see what they have to say to us.

Listen as I read Philippians 2.1-11.

Christmas Spirit II

More from Packer.

The Christmas spirit is the spirit of those who, like their Master, live their whole lives on the principle of making themselves poor - spending and being spent - to enrich their fellowmen, giving time, trouble, care and concern, to do good to others - and not just their own friends - in whatever way there seems need. There are not as many who show this spirit as there should be. If God in mercy revives us, one of the things He will do will be to work more of this spirit in our hearts and lives. If we desire spiritual quickening for ourselves individually, one step we should take is to seek to cultivate this spirit.

J. I. Packer,
'God Incarnate'
in Knowing God

Christmas Spirit

I just read this and thought it would be good to share it with you.

We talk glibly of the 'Christmas spirit', rarely meaning more by this than sentimental jollity on a family basis. But what we have said [about the Incarnation] makes it clear that the phrase should in fact carry a tremendous weight of meaning. It ought to mean the reproducing in human lives of the temper of Him who for our sakes became poor at the first Christmas. And the Christmas spirit itself ought to be the mark of every Christian all the year round.

It is our shame and disgrace today that so many Christians - I will be more specific: so many of the soundest and most orthodox Christians - go through this world in the spirit of the priest and the Levite in our Lord's parable, seeing human needs all around them, but (after a pious wish, and perhaps a prayer, that God might meet them) averting their eyes, and passing by on the other side. That is not the Christmas spirit. Nor is it the spirit of those Christians - alas, they are many - whose ambition in life seems limited to building a nice middle-class Christian home, and making nice middle-class Christian friends, and bringing up their children in nice middle-class Christian ways, and who leave the sub-middle-class sections of the community, Christian and non-Christian, to get on by themselves.

J. I. Packer,
Knowing God,
1973