True Incarnational Faith

True Incarnational Faith and the Mystery of Godliness

Turn with me once again to Colossians chapter 2, Paul's epistle to the Colossians chapter 2. This evening, our theme, true incarnational faith. True incarnational faith. But before we handle this great mystery of the faith together, let's ask the Lord once again to bless our time.

Our great triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we desire to honor you this night through the handling of your truth and through the contemplation of truly the great mystery of godliness. That He who spoke and the worlds came into existence entered into His own creation.

We ask that you would help us to understand, that you would help us to lay aside any traditions that might keep us from truly understanding what it is that you have done in the very incarnation of Jesus Christ.

We ask to be with us by your spirit. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. Well, the season has started. I commented to my wife as we were driving out of our neighborhood. I said, well, I think we're going to see a few more lights tonight, and we did.

I don't know about you, but I like lights. I like the way they look. I think it's beautiful to light up the night with various colors and things like that. But I cannot help, I think as all believers do, as you drive around and as you you hear people using, borrowing from us, in essence, some of our language to talk about Jesus Christ and to talk about this particular season, I cannot help but wondering for what percentage of those people these words have any real meaning whatsoever.

Indeed, for many Christians, there is a desire not to have anything to do with this time period of the year because, well, it's just so obvious that for the vast majority of people, if this this season does not impact how you live in June or even in January, then why bother with it at all?

Are you not engaging in rank hypocrisy to even sing the song that we just sang together? Well, there may be truth in many of those things, but this evening what I would like to do is to talk to believers and to talk about what it is we actually believe about the incarnation of Jesus Christ.

Now, there's a term that, of course, is not the most popular term in the world, but if we are going to have a true knowledge of who it is that we worship, we need to know what the Bible says about this one and about this amazing claim that we make because we have to recognize that we make an amazing claim.

I mentioned this morning that part of my job involves having to listen to unbelievers of various kinds and various types. Some are Muslims, some are religious unbelievers in the message of Jesus Christ, but then there are the atheists and the atheists very rightly point out the radical and strange claims that we make.

When we talk about Jesus Christ, we are not simply talking about someone who lived 2 ,000 years ago, who had some special insights into the human existence and the human condition. We are not merely talking about someone who would be a parallel to a Muhammad or a Buddha or any other religious leader.

We are not content in saying that Jesus Christ was merely an individual who had a special relationship with God. Now, there are many who call themselves Christians today who will not go beyond that level.

There is a great deal of non-incarnational Christianity out there. I use the term Christianity with quotation marks around it because it really isn't Christianity. I do not believe there is such a thing as Christianity without a truly divine Christ at the center of that faith.

But the reality is that there are some who call themselves Christians and they will say, well, Jesus Christ was just a special man. But you know all that stuff that those early Christians came up with about Him being truly God and the incarnation and virgin birth and things like that.

No, we want to be more relevant to today than to believe in things like that, you see. And so they come up with a non-supernatural Jesus. They come up with a Jesus who is less than Him that we read about in Scripture.

Why do we believe in the incarnation? Why does it matter? Why should it matter to us? I mean, over the next month or so, you might even have an opportunity to talk about who Jesus Christ is. And I hope you don't do it in this sense.

Well, I'd like to tell you who Jesus is to me. Oh, there's so many today to speak like that. Well, Jesus is this to me and maybe He can be something like that to you, too. That's not how the Apostles proclaimed Jesus.

They didn't say Jesus is this to me. They said Jesus is this for everyone. He is King of kings and Lord of lords. He is your creator, your maker, your sustainer, and there is no one who can be neutral about Him.

Those are radical words. It is an amazing thing. It is an embarrassing thing from the world's perspective for us to actually believe that the one who created the entire universe, the one through whom all things came into existence, the one who holds all things together by the word of His power, actually humbled Himself to be born in a manger.

To be nestled at the chest of a woman. To have men come who were shepherds and they're the only ones who bow down. Later some kings come, but that night you only have these shepherds who come. This lowly birth, this lowly life.

He never walked the streets of Rome. He did not rub shoulders with the great philosophers. What an amazingly radical claim we are making that this one who stayed in just a small portion of the backwaters of the Middle East was actually the Creator Himself.

We can certainly understand why those who do not have a firm conviction that we possess the Word of God today find such a claim. It's just too much. We really can't tell people that they really need to believe that.

This morning we looked at Colossians chapter 2. And I want to go back there, even though this morning we were talking about Thanksgiving. I want to read just a few more words in that section because it gives us a foundation of understanding our incarnational faith because that is what our faith is.

Our faith is in Jesus Christ and we believe. Not just because in the back of our Trinity Hymnal Baptist edition we have the London Baptist Confession of Faith and it tells us that Jesus Christ is very God of very God.

That's not the only reason we believe that. The reason we believe that is because that is clearly what the disciples of Jesus Christ Himself taught their followers and gave us in the New Testament. So note again the words from this morning, Colossians chapter 2 verse 6.

Therefore as you receive Christ Jesus the Lord still walk in him having been firmly rooted and now being built up in him and established in your faith just as you were instructed and overflowing with Eucharistia.

Yes, those of you this morning already have that one down. Gratitude. Thanksgiving. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world rather than according to Christ.

For in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form and in him you have been made complete and he is the head over all rule and authority. You hear these words you have the warning do not be taken captive through philosophy and empty deception.

That has been a danger all the way down to the history of the church. Now we of course have men in our congregation trained in philosophy, but they will tell you that philosophy without a knowledge of God is empty babbling.

Philosophy that does not find its love of wisdom in him who is the incarnate wisdom is normally merely a pretense for man's own hubris and arrogance. It's been my experience. And Paul says see to it that no one takes you captive, traps you like the bird caught in the net through philosophy and empty deception according to certain things, the tradition of men, according to elementary principles of the world rather than our standard and that is Christ.

Another stumbling block for the wise the world. We make the Jewish Messiah the very standard of all of human knowledge and wisdom. Think about that for a moment. Who must he be? What must his nature be to make a statement like this?

How can he be anything less than God incarnate if he is the very standard of wisdom and knowledge? You see the world will always seek to cause us to think on a basis other than that defined by Jesus Christ.

We are told that we have the mind of Christ. What does that mean? Christ is the very standard that has been given to us because of who he is. Because he is the incarnate one. Because he is the one who has eternally existed.

Because he is the God-man. Then he lived, he spoke, he taught in perfect harmony with the will of the Father. And if we have been given his mind, then we will submit ourselves to his lordship and we will view all of life and all of human knowledge including everything that our advanced science today is discovering in the light of the lordship of Christ.

It's amazing what you see when you do that. I was listening to a debate yesterday. It was painful to listen to, I'll be perfectly honest with you. Christopher Hitchens is debating again. Most of you know that my debate with him was canceled when he came down with the diagnosis of cancer.

He's under treatment and he's back speaking again. We're actually talking about rescheduling. But he was debating a man who has a science and philosophy background. The debate started off and went down from there.

I'm not sure what down from there is, but it was painful. It truly was. And as I listened to them talking about these new discoveries, amazing new discoveries. Have you heard of epigenetics? It's a whole new field.

As we've now mapped the entire human genome, we've sat back and gone, well, that's not really what we expected. Because basically we've got the same stuff that pretty much all of the living stuff has.

We thought by mapping the human genome, we'd figure out everything there was to know about us, but it didn't work that way. Fundamental ideas of how genetics work have had to be completely reoriented.

And we're starting to realize that there's just so much more here that we hadn't even been thinking about once we started peering into the DNA molecule with electron microscopes and things like that. And for a lot of people, a lot of our young people, as they go into university, they see a huge conflict between the old and now the new.

And they don't see that as I listen to these men talk about these things, as I see the complexity of life, and as we can look ever more into the smaller, smaller, smaller world of creation, or into the larger, larger, larger world of creation, either way you go, what you see and how you see it relating still goes back to where you start.

And if you think that we are just a cosmic accident, that we have no purpose, there's no transcendent meaning, we're just the result of the the toss of the cosmic dice, that's going to determine how you see how things relate, or how they cannot possibly relate to one another.

But when you start seeing the tremendous evidence of intelligent design, and I was listening to Christopher Hitchens, it was fascinating, I wasn't going to mention this, but I'll say it quickly. I hope you find this interesting.

He was arguing for the Neo-Darwinian worldview, and he was saying, well look, for example, I noticed this, and it's now been documented, but there are these lizards in certain caves in Indonesia, and they fell into these caves millions of years ago, and when you look at them today, their eyes are gone.

You can see where they were, you can see their cousins up still in the light, where their eyes are, but their eyes are gone. You see, it proves that life just simply randomly develops, and it didn't need its eyes down there in the dark, so the eyes are gone.

And even before his opponent could get up and point out where the problem was, and thankfully he at least did that, I was writing while listening to this, and I was just shaking my head. It might be dangerous sometimes to listen to some of these things if I was in traffic, but I was just shaking my head,.

Because there's such a huge difference between.

Recognizing that a living creature over generations will lose that which it does not need. That's called natural selection, and it works, it's real, it has nothing to do with Neo-Darwinianism, but that's true.

There's a huge difference between getting rid of something you don't need,.

And developing an eye.

The complexity of developing the eye, all the necessary nerves and interpretations, and the massively complex biochemical processes that were involved in an eye, getting rid of something you don't need, or designing something more complex than this.

Oh, yeah, that's the same thing. And I could not help but chuckle, because Christopher Hitchens is a very intelligent man. But his starting presuppositions, denying the Lordship of Christ, denying that there is a Creator, blinds him to the most obvious things.

And it's so clear, so easy to see, if your eyes had been opened. So you see, Jesus Christ is the very standard by which we are to judge all things. Who must He then be? Well, Paul tells us, For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form.

There is the Incarnation. For in Him all the fullness of Theotokos, that which makes God, God. Only place that term is used. It is a very strong term. There is a similar term, theotos, that is used over in Romans 1 .20, but it's not the same term.

Theotokos, that which makes God, God. The very definition of the divine being dwells in Jesus Christ, somaticos, in bodily form. Doesn't just appear to be there. Doesn't just pretend to be there. This Deity dwells in bodily form.

Now just briefly, Paul is emphasizing this because of the false teaching he's reacting against. The false teachers would say that God would never take bodily form. They were dualists. That which is spiritual is good.

That which is physical is evil. So to say that all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form was a direct contradiction of the false teachers that the Apostle Paul was attempting to warn against. But this is why Jesus Christ can be said to be the very standard that we are to use to measure everything.

Because He is the very Creator who has entered into human flesh. This morning in Sunday school, we looked at just some of the texts from the Old Testament. That prophesied the coming of Christ. They prophesied different aspects of His ministry.

One of those that we looked at is Isaiah chapter 9 verse 6. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Terms we all know. Most of us, even if we didn't have the reference down, have memorized those words. We've heard them in Handel's Messiah, and they become... anything you hear in the Messiah becomes imprinted upon your soul, I think.

But notice what is said. To us a child is born. It's the normal Hebrew word for child. It's not some special term about a being that just sort of pretends to be human. And the word born is the normal word for the birth of a child.

If you just saw the phrase, a child is born, there would be nothing in that that would tell you anything unusual at all. The first phrase tells us Jesus truly entered into the world as man. It was a pregnancy.

Mary traveled while pregnant. It was difficult for her to do so. There was a period of development, and there was a real birth. Unlike the strange mythology that Roman Catholicism has developed, where Jesus in essence beams out of Mary's womb, and that is the dogmatic teachings of the Roman Church today in regards to the Immaculate Conception and the perpetual virginity of Mary and all the rest of that kind of stuff, all those Marian dogmas come together in this odd, strange, gnostic view.

There is a real birth, and a real child is born. The second phrase might just be a repetition of that. To us a son is given, but I don't think so. It could be Hebrew parallelism. To us a child is born, to us a son is given.

Very common in Hebrew to restate something and to reemphasize something. It could be that, but I don't think so. I think what we have here, a son is given. The Son who has eternally been the Son, the Son of God, is given to mankind.

And when you think about the horizons of the statements that follow, how much could Isaiah understand when he refers to him as wonderful counselor? El Gabor, mighty God. Many people say, that just means a mighty man.

You can find Gabor used elsewhere. Yeah, but the problem is, in the very next chapter, Yahweh is called El Gabor. Mighty God. Everlasting Father. He's not the Father, that's true, but Father, Son, and Spirit are Trinitarian names revealed in the New Testament, not the Old Testament.

And in reality, the phrase here, Avi Ad, would best be understood as Father of Eternity, or the One who creates Eternity. Father is frequently used in the Old Testament of one engaged in creation. And Jesus is described as the One through whom all things are made, whether in heaven and earth.

Principalities, powers, dominions, authorities, all things created by Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. The Prince of Peace. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

How much of this could Isaiah have understood? People disagree. But the understanding of the prophet does not provide a limitation of the revelation of prophecy. Here you have words that are fulfilled in their fullness in the New Testament, especially in those tremendous words of John chapter 1.

After describing the Word as having eternally existed, the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In the beginning was the Word. As far back as you want to push the beginning, the Word existed.

The Word was with God. There was fellowship between the Father and the Son. The Word was God. As to His nature, He was deity. That Word, verse 14 says, became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory.

Glory is the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. The Word became flesh. The Word did not cease being the Word. The Word became flesh. He truly was flesh. John wants to emphasize, both in the Gospel and in the Epistle, the reality, the truth and the reality that Jesus Christ was truly man.

He did not merely appear to take on human flesh. He did not merely manifest what looked like a human body for a period of time. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. He went to bed. He got up in the morning.

He ate breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He went fishing. He walked along dusty roads and had to have his feet washed. He dwelt among us, and yet we have seen His glory. I think there he's talking only to believers because unlike all of the pictures you see in the old books, Jesus is walking down the narrow dusty roads of Jerusalem, and He has a halo on, and He can walk at night because He glows.

You know, I mean, and they didn't have to worry about tripping over stuff because Jesus glowed as He walked. No, that's not the case. He did once on the Mount of Transfiguration. One time in the presence of the Father, His glory shone through, but the only ones who saw His glory saw His glory with spiritual eyes, not with physical eyes.

The Word truly became flesh and dwelt among us, and there is no Christianity without an enfleshed Word. There is no fulfillment of prophecy. There is no redemption. There is no death, burial, and resurrection.

There is no King of Kings and Lord of Lords. You just got a religion if you don't have a divine Savior. But that divine Savior is the one that people don't want to hear about because if He's truly divine Savior, then what He says goes and must be obeyed.

The reality of the Incarnation is likewise seen. Remember, when we were in Hebrews chapter 2, we read these words. Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, and through death that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.

Do you hear those words? Since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death... You see, if He wasn't truly man, then He didn't truly die. He didn't truly give His life.

And so He partakes of flesh and blood without our corruption, but He shares our nature. So the life He gives is a true life. He was the God-man, not 50 God and 50 man. There is no mixture. He is not a demigod or an exalted man.

He is the God-man, truly God, truly man, 100 God, 100 man. Two natures, one person. Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. But I think the greatest incarnational text of all must be that tremendous text in Philippians chapter 2.

It is truly the incarnation text. Paul, in giving us an example of humility, says you must have the same mindset among yourselves that was in Christ Jesus, who, although He eternally existed in the very form of God, did not consider that equality He had with God the Father something to be held on to at all costs.

But instead, He made Himself nothing by taking on the very form of a slave, by being made in human likeness. Having entered into human existence, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death.

Even to death one dies on a cross. Because of this, God the Father exalted Him to the highest place and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that the mention of the exalted name of Jesus, everyone who is in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, bows the knee and every tongue confesses Jesus Christ is Lord.

All to the glory of God the Father. Here you clearly have the assertion of the incarnation. Even though He had eternally existed in the very form of God, He had equality with God the Father. He did not consider that equality He had with Him to be something to be held on to at all costs, but instead, He made Himself nothing.

He made Himself nothing. Not He was made nothing. Now, I don't know. I'm getting up there in years. I can remember back when in eighth grade, I had a teacher that really emphasized grammar. And there was actually two English teachers.

They really emphasized grammar. And I had the one who didn't. But every once in a while, we had to go over to the room with the one who did. Later on, I wished I had the other teacher. To be honest with you, it would have helped me a lot when I took Greek.

But grammar means something. Grammar is how we express things. And there is a difference between saying, He made Himself nothing and saying, He was made nothing. There's a difference between those two statements.

In the first, He is acting upon Himself. It's a reflexive action. He made Himself nothing. In the second, it's a power outside acting upon Him, making Him nothing. The voluntary nature of the humiliation of Jesus Christ, the humiliation, the humbling, the entering into human flesh, the incarnation.

Jesus was involved with that. It was voluntary. He made Himself nothing. Think about that. You see, the world isn't overly frightened of the little babe in the manger until we emphasize the fact that the babe in the manger had created the manger.

He created the tree from which the manger was built. He designed the mechanism by which the hay grew that filled the manger in which He lay. And He had made Himself nothing. He, by His power, had been involved in bringing Himself into that place.

Now, I'm not talking about a Gnostic Jesus who lays in the manger and goes, Hey, want to have a discussion of nuclear physics with me? Because the Bible says He was the God-man and He grew. He didn't talk as a child, unlike certain Gnostic myths and the Koran says He did.

He grew. He developed. But He made Himself nothing. And notice, how did He make Himself nothing? By doing two positive things. By taking on the very form of a slave by being made in human likeness. The incarnation was the means by which He made Himself nothing.

To step down from the throne in heaven, to fill His glory for the purpose, eternally chosen purpose of the triune God, Father, Son and Spirit, that the Son, not the Father, not the Spirit, the Son would take on human flesh, He would take on the form of a slave, He would be made in human likeness for the purpose of humbling Himself and becoming obedient to the point of death, even the death one dies upon a cross.

That wasn't some afterthought. That was the purpose of the triune God from eternity past. That's why He is described as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the earth. But what in humility? Humility is power under control.

This One who, going to the cross, reminded us, I could ask my Father and He would give me a legion of angels. But He doesn't. Because that power is under control for the purpose, the fulfillment of the will of God.

And it was God's will that Christ die upon the cross. Because in that act, the triune God is fully glorified. The Incarnation. You may have opportunity over the next few weeks to give witness to your faith.

And I hope you will be bold in the Jesus you present. Because our society is filled with weak, wimpy Jesuses. Jesuses that make no demands. Jesuses that just come along and sort of fit in where you give them room.

There is no such Jesus. This Jesus. This One who made Himself nothing. Has been exalted to the highest place. He's been given a name which is above every name. And someday, every knee will bow. Even Americans who don't bow knees.

Every knee will bow. Every tongue will confess. Christopher Hitchens will someday confess. The One that he has hated is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. That will happen. The Incarnation. Without the real Jesus.

Without the God-Man. None of this makes any sense whatsoever. As you have opportunity to give witness to Jesus Christ. May you do so, first of all, firmly convinced. That you do not worship and honor a myth.

A story of old. But just as we saw in the scripture reading tonight. All of this took place in time and history. Myths of ancient religions never cared about providing us with backgrounds. And where nations came from.

And time frames. And who was ruling when. Didn't care about things like that. Because they weren't really telling you a real historical story. But that's not what the Bible does. The Bible tells us that at a certain time.

A certain place. A certain manner. God invaded His own creation. And since that time. He has been building His kingdom. And now on the other side of the planet. In a language that did not exist. No one had even thought of in the days.

Of those shepherds around Bethlehem. People who possessed technology that those men would have found to be. Pure magic. They could not imagine the things that we have. Space travel. Satellites. And everything else.

And yet. On the other side of the planet. Two millennia later. We still bow our knees. Before the same. You want evidence of the supernatural. You want evidence of the miraculous. You want evidence of God fulfilling His purpose in this world.

Think about that. That after all the world has done to try to extinguish this message. You sit here this evening. And as you ponder. What Christ has done for you. Your heart is filled with awe and wonder.

Awe and wonder that one so powerful. One so great. One so glorious. Would do what He did. And then 2 ,000 years would send His spirit into your life. Open your eyes. Remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.

Give you eternal life and forgiveness. Unite you to Him. Not because you did anything. But simply because He's that gracious. What a Savior is ours. What a Gospel is ours. Let us pray together. Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

We thank you. That you are building your church. And we thank you that when we worship you. Our Lord and Savior. We do so in spirit and truth. Because you are our great God and Savior. You are the incarnate one.

You are worthy of our worship. We thank you for what you've done for us. Father, Son, and Spirit. We thank you for all that the Triune God has decreed to accomplish and is accomplishing. We thank you that that is included.

The founding and the sustaining of the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. And the bringing together on a cold November night of that congregation to once again consider the great truths of the incarnation.

Lord, we thank you for what you've done for us. May we be bold in our witness for you. A boldness born of our love for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Give us opportunity to bear testimony of these truths.

We pray in Christ's name.