As a believing Christian, Christmas is my favorite season of
the year. No other occasion on the
calendar so inspires my imagination. I
love the lofty themes set forth in John chapter 1, that the Creator of all
things (v.1-3) came to earth as a human being (v.14) for the purpose of our
salvation (v.29). While God’s ultimate mission
(Luke 19:10) in Jesus Christ was completed later at Golgotha (John 19:30), it
began with the incarnation (“enfleshment”) of God the Son (Philippians 2:5-11).
By faith I accept the Christmas narrative according to Luke
(2:1-20) as a true description of events that happened in history. I believe Jesus was conceived by the Holy
Spirit and was born of a virgin named Mary, and that she with her betrothed
(Joseph) left their hometown of Nazareth in Galilee and went to Bethlehem in
Judea in order to fulfill a taxation decree under Caesar Augustus. And I believe she gave birth to Jesus in a
stable “because there was no room for them
in the inn.”
Christmas, however, is more than a story. It is also an expression of the character of
God Almighty. It answers the age-old
question of what “god” (or “the gods”) is like.
Is He hostile toward humanity? Is
He indifferent toward us? Is He
righteous or is He just as full of folly as the gods of the Roman pantheon? Is He holy? And if so, must this mean our
doom? No single passage in the Bible
will ever answer all of our questions about God’s nature. But the first chapter of John does make clear
that the God who stretched out the heavens at the beginning of time, in the fullness
of time came for our salvation in Jesus Christ (His name literally means “God
to the Rescue!”). Furthermore, in the present time He invites all people to
come to Him in faith and without fear (Matthew 11:28, 29).
This is why the Christmas story according to the Bible does
not begin at Bethlehem. Neither does it
begin back in Nazareth (Luke 1:26-38).
It begins in heaven with the character of God who, in love, sent His Son
into the world in order to bring us salvation from our sin (Romans 5:8).
When I debated on the question, “Does God Exist?” this past December
10, my atheist challenger asked me before the audience why God couldn’t just wipe
our sin out of the picture by the wave of his hand! My reply, that our sin is more serious than
we think, did not persuade him. In
retrospect I regret that tactic. I
should have instead argued the point that God, in fact, did send His Son into
the world for the very purpose of our rescue.
The historical case for Jesus Christ is enormously powerful, as I have
begun to convey in recent blogs. For the
purpose of clarifying the range of evidence in support of the New Testament
portrait of Him I encourage you to request a copy of the following two of my essays: 1) "The
Prints are Everywhere: The Convergence of Science, History, and Experience,
with Biblical Revelation,” and 2) ”Hoax?
Myth? Or Literally True? The Evidence
for Jesus’ Bodily Resurrection.”
For me the claims of the New Testament about Jesus of Nazareth
are long ago settled. What I most wish
to convey today is the power of this long-told story to transform your life, as
it has my own, in the knowledge of God’s love for the entire world. And that includes you!
Given another chance to answer that question of why God doesn't just wipe away our sins, what would you say? I think for someone to just accept the answer that he sent Jesus, the opposition would first have to agree that the bible is true - which is not the case for an atheist.
ReplyDeleteHi Joanna, In my blog I encourage non-believers in God to actually examine the state of the evidence, as opposed to simply dismissing it out-of-hand. That is the "scientific" method of facing the evidence. At the same time, it seems valuable for non-Christians to become aware of what the actual beliefs of the Christian faith include. I fear that many have little awareness of what Christianity really claims, irrespective of whether what we believe is true.
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