God Enfleshed, Part 2

During the season of Christmas, we sing a plethora of songs. In fact, the Christmas season has more songs written about it than any other season of the year. There are 10,000, over 10,000, different songs, both secular and sacred, written about Christmas.

There is one song that is the most important of them all, the most popular of them all. It has been recorded in 137,000 different versions across the globe. In 300 different languages.

It was written as a poem. The man's name, as a priest, was Joseph Moore. It would be a few months later that an organist from a small church in Austria, by the name of Franz Gruber, would take that song and make it into a hymn.

He specifically wrote it for a guitar. As the organist of that little church, the organ wasn't working properly, and so he wrote this hymn for a guitar. The poem was written in 1816.

It was first sung in 1818 at a Christmas Eve service in that little church in Austria. It's a song that accentuates the attributes of God. It accentuates his holiness, his peace, his grace, his love, his sovereignty.

You know this song. You hear it every Christmas. Unless you sing it every Christmas.

The song's title is Silent Night. It's kind of a play on words, because it really wasn't a silent night, when you think about it. I mean, the glory of the Lord would shine all around, and the angels would speak to the shepherds.

The shepherds would go in haste to the manger, and a manger is any place other than a silent place. You have sheep, you have cows, and you have a young girl giving birth to the Christ child. If you know anything about giving birth, which I do not, it is a loud time, not a silent time.

I'm not sure there's any woman who's given birth silently. And yet, the title of the hymn is Silent Night, Holy Night. It's a play on words, because the Lord says in the book of Habakkuk, the Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth be silent.

In other words, you are to be silent because of the holiness of the night, the uniqueness of the night. That song, Silent Night, is the most popular Christmas song to this day. But long before 1816, long before Joseph Moore and Franz Gruber, there were other songs written about Christmas.

In fact, your Bible records at least five of them in the New Testament. One is Mary's song in Luke chapter 1. Number two is Zacharias' song, also in Luke chapter 1.

Number three is the angels' song, although the angels did not sing on that night. Doesn't say they sang, it says they said. So let's make sure we keep the finger in the text to make sure we get it right, but it was recorded as a song because it was what they said.

And then there is Simeon's song a little later in Luke chapter 2. But the fifth song, like the first four, was written poetically. And the fifth song is a song that was sung in the early church over and over again.

It was called Carmen Christi, the hymn or the song of Christ. And it was sung because of its theological significance. It was sung because it was the heartbeat of Christianity.

It was sung because it was the most essential aspect of Christianity. It was written by a man in prison. He wrote it.

We know him as the Apostle Paul. And this is part of that song.

Jesus Christ, 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 bondservant, being made in the likeness of men.

The hymn of Christ sang over and over again by the early church. We could say it's the first song sung in the first church simply because of its essential nature. But we quickly read over it and you have to pause and you have to think, Jesus Christ emptied himself.

Theologians call that the great kenosis, the self-emptying of the Christ. It is such deep theological training to understand the kenosis. I'm not sure anybody this side of eternity will ever understand the self-emptying of Christ.

Theologians have tried to explain it for years. But how is it that the Christ, the Messiah, the Lord of the universe would empty himself to set aside his divine prerogatives and become a man? In fact, it says he took on the form of a bondservant. If you just thought about that for a moment, that the Christ, the creator of the universe, the savior of man, becomes a servant of man.

The son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost. Think about it, the creator of man allows himself to be created. The infinite one decides to become finite.

Try to wrap your mind around all that. Try to grasp that. He was made in the likeness of men.

He didn't come and simply indwell a man. The very fact that he would, that he could actually become man is astronomical. He didn't send a man.

He didn't indwell a man. He became man. He became something that he had never been while maintaining all that he ever was.

That is the incarnation. That is God's enfleshment. God becoming man.

And since the incarnation, he's always been known as the God-man. 100% God, 100% man. Not 50% God or 50% man or 90% God and 10% man.

No, he is 100% God. He is a 100% man. He is the God-man.

And if you say, well, that's impossible, that's because you have a finite mind. We have pea brains. That is impossible to grasp.

But that's the song, that's the theology of Christmas. God's enfleshment. And so since the incarnation, he's always going to be known as the God-man.

First Timothy 2, there is one mediator between God and man. It is the man, Christ Jesus. In Revelation chapter 1, when John on the Isle of Patmos saw the risen glorified Christ, he saw a man.

In Daniel 7, when Daniel received a vision of the coming Lord, Messiah, Christ, he saw one that looked like a son of man. In Revelation chapter 22, Christ says this, I, Jesus, I, Jesus, am the source and the offspring of David.

I am the source of David's life and line. And yet I am the son of David's life and line. I, Jesus, the bright morning star and the source and the son of David's life and line, proving that he is the God-man. It's just ineffable, it's inexplicable to try to understand the enfleshment of God, the incarnation of the true and living God.

So when John picks up his pen and begins to write, he says it this way, and the word became flesh. That's how John describes it. John 1, verse number 14, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we saw his glory.

Glory said the only begotten from the father full of grace and truth. John testified about him and cried out saying, this was he of whom I said, he who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for he existed before me. For of his fullness we have all received and grace upon grace.

For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten God who is in the bosom of the father, he has explained him.

The word became flesh. Unless a perfect savior becomes a perfect sacrifice, as a perfect substitute, there is no provision for salvation. The only way we could be saved from our sins is because of God's enfleshment.

Someone had to take your sin upon himself. No mere man could do that. No mere sinful man can do that.

But the God man, Jesus Christ our Lord, no, he is the only one who could. So when John writes this, what do you think the Jewish mind understood? I think we need to understand this. How did a Jewish mind understand the word became flesh? Did they have any idea that God would become a man? Was there anything in the Old Testament that would give them any idea that the God of the universe would become a man? The answer, absolutely.

From the very first prophecy in Genesis 3, verse number 15, when it said the seed of the woman shall crush the serpent's head, that would have to raise the eyebrows of any thinking man. Because women don't have a seed, the man has a seed. But it says that the seed of the woman will crush the serpent's head.

That would get any thinking man trying to figure out how any woman could have a seed. The prophet Isaiah would say it this way in Isaiah 7, verse number 14. A virgin shall conceive.

A woman who's never known a man will conceive and bear a child and you shall call his name Emmanuel, God with us. So this virgin, whoever she is, is going to conceive a child having never known a man. And the name of that man is God with us, the enfleshment of God.

And then in Isaiah 9, he would further explain it this way. You know these words, for unto us a child is born and unto us a son is given. The child is not given, the child is born.

The son is not born, the son is given. So there's this child that's born, a son that's given. Speaking of the humanity, the deity of this one called Emmanuel, God with us.

And the writer Isaiah would say, through inspiration by the spirit of God, and his name shall be called wonderful. Wonderful. His name shall be called wonderful.

Not wonderful counselor, although he is a wonderful counselor. His name is wonderful. That would give them a huge advantage of understanding who this God is, who this child that's going to be born and son's going to be given.

Well, how would they know? They would know the story of Manoah and his wife. They would know that way back in the book of Judges, the 13th chapter, that Manoah had a wife whose name was Barren. We do not know her name.

It's just Mrs. Manoah. Or Mrs. Sampson's mom. But we don't know her name because her name really is irrelevant to the story.

But the text tells us in Judges chapter 13 that the angel of the Lord appeared to the woman. Unique phrase. The angel of the Lord.

A phrase used 58 times in the Old Testament. The angel of God is used 11 times in the Old Testament. It is one of the great theological studies of the Old Testament to look and understand the angel of the Lord.

But know what it says. He appeared to her and said to her, behold, now you are barren and you have barren. You have born no children, but you shall conceive and give birth to a son.

Now therefore be careful not to drink wine or strong drink nor eat anything unclean. For behold, you have conceived and give birth to a son and no rager shall come upon his head for the boy shall be a Nazarite to God from the womb and he shall begin to deliver Israel from the hands of the Philistines. Then the woman came and told her husband saying, a man of God.

A man of God? I thought it was the angel of the Lord. A man of God came to me and his appearance was like the appearance of the angel of God. Very awesome.

She's bewildered. She doesn't understand. Verse 8, Manoah entreated the Lord, oh Lord, please let the man of God, whoever this man is, the man of God, whom you have sent come to us again. Lord, send this man of God back to us.

Verse 9, God listening to the voice of Manoah, and the angel of God came again to the woman. So the angel of the Lord is the angel of God.

This is not an angel, it is the angel. Came again to the woman as she was sitting in the field, but Manoah, her husband, was not with her. So the woman ran quickly and told her husband, behold, the man, not the angel of the Lord, not the angel of God, the man.

The man who spoke to the woman, excuse me, behold, the man who came the other day has appeared to me. Then Manoah arose and followed his wife, and when he came to the man, he said to him, are you the man who spoke to the woman? He said, I am. Manoah said, now when your words come to pass, what shall be the boy's mode of life? His vocation.

So the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, let the woman pay attention to all that I said. She should not eat anything that comes from the vine nor drink wine or strong drink nor eat any unclean thing. Let her observe all that I commanded.

Then Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, I thought he's talking to a man. He says to the angel of the Lord, please let us detain you so that we may prepare a young goat for you. The angel of the Lord said to Manoah, though you detain me, I will not eat your food. But if you prepare a burnt offering, then offer it to the Lord. For Manoah did not know that he, the man, was the angel of the Lord. Verse 17, so Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, what is your name, so that when your words come to pass, we may honor you.

But the angel of the Lord said to him, why do you ask my name, seeing it? It is wonderful. Isaiah said, the son given, the child born, has a name. That name is wonderful.

Note this, so Manoah took the young goat with the green offering and offered it on a rock to the Lord, and he performed wonders while Manoah and his wife looked on, for it came about when the flame went up from the altar toward heaven, that the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar. When Manoah and his wife saw this, they fell on their faces to the ground, and now the angel of the Lord did not appear to Manoah or his wife again, then Manoah knew that he was the angel of the Lord. So Manoah said to his wife, we will surely die, for we have seen God.

Whoever the angel of the Lord is, is God. Whoever the man is, he's God. So Isaiah says that the child born and the son given has a name, his name is wonderful.

Any well-thinking man, Jewish man, would know the story of Manoah, the angel of the Lord, and Samson. Of course they would know that story. Is there any idea that there would be a God-man in the Old Testament? Absolutely.

And this child, this son, is the mighty God. He is the everlasting father. In other words, in Jewish context, father means originator or author, so he is the author of eternity.

He is the originator of eternity. So to be the author of eternity, you must be eternal. So this child born, this son given, is a preexisting God because he is El Gabor, the mighty God, who is the originator of eternity.

Micah 5 too tells us that his goings forth are from everlasting to everlasting. This child born in Bethlehem, this child born in Bethlehem is a preexisting child. Did Israel have any ammunition that would give them an idea that the word would become flesh? Absolutely.

And listen, this is Christianity 101. We're still swimming in the shallow end of the pool. We haven't even dived into the deep end yet.

This is shallow end pool theology. Wait till you jump into the deep end. It gets so thick and so enormous.

But they knew, they knew the book of Zechariah. They knew what it said there. Listen to this.

Zechariah chapter 12, the Lord God Jehovah is speaking, says that in verse number 1, he says, I am going to make Jerusalem, verse 2, I will make Jerusalem, verse 3, I will strike every horse, verse 4, I will watch over the house of Judah, I will strike every horse of the peoples, verse 6, in that day, I will make the clans of Judah. In verse number 9, in that day, I will set about to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. I, I, I. God says, this is what I'm going to do.

So every Jewish mind would understand that this is what the great God of Israel is going to do, the great Yahweh of the Old Testament. Then you come to verse 10. Same I, I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and of supplication.

So they will look on me whom they have pierced. Stop. No man has seen God at any time.

That's what John tells us, John 1:18. Why, because God's invisible, God's a spirit. How do you pierce a spirit? How do you pierce that which you cannot see? You can't.

It's impossible. But the prophet Zechariah is explaining to us what's going to happen at the end. He says, they will look on me whom they have pierced.

Notice, in John 19, that phrase is quoted of Christ when it says, they will look on me whom they have pierced. Revelation 1:7, they will look on him whom they have pierced, quoted once again from Zechariah, speaking of Jesus, the God-man. So it says, and they were born for him, who? Changing pronouns, not changing person.

Changing pronouns, not changing person. They will look on him, him who? The one they have pierced. They're gonna look on him whom they have pierced, and they will mourn for him, they will mourn for, listen, the only son.

The only son. As one mourns for an only son, or the only son. That same phrase used in Genesis chapter 22, verse number 2, translated in Hebrews 11, verse number 17, as the only begotten son.

They will look on the only begotten son whom they have pierced, and they will mourn for him, for they will recognize that they pierced the God who became man. I mean, this is all throughout the Old Testament. There's no way you can miss this.

Any thinking person who is serious about understanding the Old Testament would begin to see that everything prophesied would be the arrival of the Messiah, who is divine, who is human, he is the God-man. So when John says these words, that the word became flesh, this is not something brand new to a Jewish mind. This is something they should have already known, specifically because of the angel of the Lord.

In fact, listen to these words, way back in the book of Genesis, because in Genesis chapter 16, you had the first appearance of the angel of the Lord. And the angel of the Lord's first appearance is not to a Jew, but it's to a pagan Gentile woman named Hagar, the angel of the Lord. The whole phrase, the angel of the Lord, recorded 58 times in the Old Testament, 11 times the angel of God should give every Jewish mind the understanding that God can become man.

This is the pre-incarnate Christ before the incarnation. This is what he did before he was incarnated. And they would come and show up at different times throughout the Old Testament.

But when you come to John chapter 1, he comes and he stays. He doesn't come and leave and come again and leave. He comes and stays for 33 years, not 33 minutes.

But all throughout the Old Testament, you have the angel of the Lord. You know the story about Sarah, Abram, Hagar. They had received this Egyptian handmaid when they went down to Egypt during a famine in Genesis chapter 12.

It's been 10 years since they entered the promised land. And the promise of God has not come true yet. God promised them a seed.

God promised them a son, but they've waited 10 years. And so what do you do after you waited on God for 10 years? You do what you wanna do. You take matters into your own hands.

You wanna help out God, right? You ever been there? Don't say you haven't been there. You've all been there. I've been there.

We say, well, it's been 10 years. We gotta push God along. God's a little slow in providing his promise.

Let's help God out. So Sarah has this brainstorm idea. Hey, why don't you go sleep with my handmaid, my hand servant, Hagar.

She will conceive and that will be the promised son, the promised seed. This is Sarah's plan. The Bible says in Genesis 16 that Abraham listened to his wife.

Bad, bad situation. You can't listen to your wife when she asks you to do something immoral, wrong, or try to enact the plan of God. But Abraham did.

He went into Hagar, she conceived. And Sarah wasn't like, yippee, this is great. No, she was bitter.

She was jealous. She was angry. And Abraham said to her, hey, she's not my problem.

You wanna get rid of her, get rid of her. Don't talk to me about it. She's your handmaid.

You do what you want to with Hagar. So she kicked her out. Come to verse number seven of Genesis 16.

Now the angel of the Lord found her. First time the phrase is used. The angel of the Lord found her.

Why? Nobody ever finds God. God always finds you. Because no man seeks after God.

Think about it. If no man seeks after God, he's not gonna find God. Because he's not seeking after God.

But God always finds you. Because he came to seek and to save that which is lost. The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, by the spring on the way to Shur.

He said, Hagar, Sarah is made. Where have you come from and where are you going? And she said, I am fleeing from the presence of my mistress, Sarai. Then the angel of the Lord said to her, return to your mistress and submit yourself to her authority.

Moreover, the angel of the Lord said to her, I will greatly multiply your descendants so that they will be too many to count. Listen, no regular angel can do that. Only the angel of the Lord can do that.

Only God can multiply your descendants. Children are a gift from the Lord, not from an angel. So whoever the angel of the Lord is, it has to be the Lord himself because he promises to multiply her descendants.

The angel of the Lord said to her, further behold, you are with child and you will bear a son and you shall call his name Ishmael, which means God hears. God hears. Because the Lord has given heed to your affliction.

And he will be a wild donkey of a man. His hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand will be against him. And he will live to the east of all of his brothers.

Then she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her. You are a God who sees. You are El Roi, the God who sees.

For she said, have I even remained alive after seeing him? Here she is speaking to this individual who's understood clearly in Judges 13 as a man of God. And she's clearly communicating with him. He's talking to her and she explains it this way.

Have I even remained alive after seeing him? Why? Because every man knows that having seen the God of the universe, you should die. Therefore, the well was called Bir Lahai Roy. That is the well of the living one who sees me.

Behold, it is between Kadesh and Bered. And the angel of the Lord is recognized by Hagar as the God of the universe. The triune God is made known to man always and only by the manifestation of the Son.

This is the pre-incarnate Christ. And you have it all throughout the Old Testament. Jacob would wrestle with this man of God, this angel of the Lord, and call the place Peniel.

I have seen the face of God. It was the angel of the Lord who stopped Abraham on Genesis chapter 22 when he went to offer his son as a sacrifice, but the angel of the Lord would stop him and tell him, I know now that you fear me. All this to say that when John says the word became flesh, this is nothing new to the Jewish mind.

They knew this, or they should have known this because it's clearly presented in the Old Testament. And they should know from the very beginning in Genesis chapter 16 that the angel of the Lord, this pre-incarnate Christ, you have the same thing in Genesis 18 when three men come to Abraham's tent two are angels and one is the angel of the Lord, but he sees them as men. God's enfleshment is seen in the Old Testament.

The pre-incarnate Christ arrives at Abraham's tent. And so every Jew would begin to realize that when there's a need, when you're in distress, when you've been rejected like Hagar, in Genesis 21, the angel of the Lord comes to her again when she thinks her son is going to die. And the Lord comes to her again in the wilderness amidst the fact that she is desperate and in dire need and the angel of the Lord shows up again, why? Because listen, we told you last week that it's the presence of God that brings fullness of joy.

Amen. Only God can do that. So when the angels gave their song, they said, we bring you good news of great joy.

Great joy. Not good news of joy, but good news of great joy. The greatest of all joy.

The joy that can only come through the angel of the Lord, the enfleshment of God, the one who is the true and living God of the universe. The one who came to save you from your sin. Ask this question to yourself, has he found you? Has he saved you from your sin? Have you given your life to the Christ? This portion of scripture in John one is huge.

It's everything. It would be Charles Wesley who said, veiled in flesh, the Godhead see, hail the incarnate deity. Pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus our Emmanuel.

The word became flesh and tabernacled, pitched his tent among us, not for a brief moment, but for 33 years. And John says, you know what? We beheld his glory. What is that? What is the glory that John beheld? What is it, the thing that he would say in first John that he would taste, he would hold, he would see, and he would say, I write you these things in first John one, so that you will have fullness of joy.

I wonder this morning if you have fullness of joy. I wonder if you have an overwhelming sense of God's presence in your life. See, that's the essence of God's enfleshment.

He came not to be with us just, but ultimately to be in us. Christ in you, the hope of glory. Is he in you? Do you know that? You can, by giving your life to Jesus Christ, the son of the living God, the one who explains God to us.

Let's pray. Father God, thank you for today. Lord, there's so much to say about you.

You are so amazing. Yes. There's so much to describe you.

You're the God who's wonderful. And I wonder if there's anybody here who hasn't experienced the wonder of God. That's who you are.

And when we give our lives to you, you never disappoint. You are the God who cares for his own. Lord, we are grateful that you found us and that you've saved us from our sins, that we might serve the true and living God from this day forward until you come again, as you most surely will.

In Jesus' name, amen.