Talk: Isaiah 9, & incarnation, Holy Trinity Frogmore, 19th December 2004
David Heath-Whyte
NB: This is what I intended to say....
Incarnation
Christmas
"Lo, within a manger lies, he who built the starry skies"
There may have been no winter's snow when Jesus was born, but Edward Caswall, writer of "see amid the winter's snow" certainly understood what was going on at the first Christmas.
As did Charles Wesley - with Hark the Herald Angels:
"Veiled in flesh the Godhead see,
Hail the incarnate Deity,
Pleased as man with men to dwell,
Jesus, our Emmanuel."Of course, We get our theology not from songs, but from the Bible, and Wesley and Caswell have expressed well the Bible's teaching about what we call the 'incarnation'
Christmas is a celebration of the "incarnation" of God - God becoming man, human: the baby Jesus is born, and he is human and God at the same time - incarnation.
But what does that mean, and what difference does it make to us?
Isaiah
Isaiah proclaimed that it would make a huge difference.
He was proclaiming God's message to God's wayward people. Their king, Ahaz at the time of our readings, didn't trust God - and so the nation was going to suffer, under attack from neighbours, and the superpower of the time.
They were facing utter darkness under God's judgement. Here's the verse before our reading: "Then they will look towards the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness."
But - there was hope also in his message: "the people walking in darkness have seen a great light..."
God proclaims, through Isaiah, that a child will be born - a new king, who will be an effective and powerful king - the Mighty Messiah. He'll bring relief, rescue - salvation to the people. The weapons of war will be thrown on the fire. And this child will be none other than God himself: Isaiah 9:6 "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."
Isaiah himself probably couldn't grasp that he was proclaiming the incarnation - Christmas, 700 years in advance.
Does the incarnation matter?
Yes - Isaiah says this child will make a huge difference - the brightest light in the gloomiest darkness.
John
Now let's zoom forward in time, to the Apostle John, writing after Jesus' life, death and resurrection.
He says it's vitally important that we grasp the incarnation:
1 John 1v1 "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched -- this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us."
John has seen the eternal "Word of Life" there in front of him - Jesus.
And this is not just an optional idea - 1 John 4:2 "This is how you can recognise the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God."
So - do you acknowledge that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh?
Do you accept that that baby, that human being who died on the cross and who rose again - was truly human and also truly God?
Early Christians
The early Christians, in the first few centuries after Jesus, had some very important debates about this issue.
And it's not dusty old history either, because the wrong ideas that the Christians kicked out then, are still problems today.
Nestorianism
Here's one: Jesus is just a great bloke.
For many people, Jesus is just like Ghandi, or Mother Theresa. Famous, important, compassionate people, who did a lot of good.
Maybe they'd go so far as to say he was inspired by God. That Jesus was a great spiritual man of history.
But even so, Jesus is just a great bloke.
This is just like a heresy called Nestorianism - Nestorius was the bishop of Constantinople, and his teaching was condemned by the Council of Ephesus in 431AD.
Bishops can be wrong about theology!
Jesus is much more than a divinely inspired hero. He is man, and he is divine - the second member of the Trinity: God the Son.
It's very important that he is - as we'll see in a minute.
Monophysitism
What about if we go the other way, and think of Jesus as just being God?
This is a trap we can fall into very easily.
We think of Jesus in his risen and glorified state: we praise him, we pray to him, but maybe we forget his humanity.
Maybe we start thinking in a way that separates our bodies and humanness, from what is spiritual and God-like. We start to divide our lives up - Jesus is something for Sundays and when I'm praying and thinking that way; and then there's the rest of my life - Tesco's, and driving and work and family and all the rest of it - and he's got little or nothing to do with that.
We can get really good at keeping these two parts of our lives completely separate - so that in fact we have massive contradictions going on - but that's OK, because Jesus is spiritual and 'up there', and real-life is in another compartment completely.
Guess what - this is a practical form of Monophysitism - denounced at the council of Chalcedon in 451AD.
We can see very clearly in the Bible that Jesus is divine and spiritual, but also truly human. He still is truly human today. And we'll see what the consequences of that are in a moment.
incarnation?
So: The incarnation: right at the heart of Christmas: Jesus being in very nature man and in very nature God: it's obviously very important - let's see why.
There are two big issues: Knowledge of God, and Salvation.
Knowledge of God.
First of all, knowledge of God.
God with us
Because Jesus, the one through whom the Universe was made, has become man, we can know about God in a way that would be unimaginable without him.
Isaiah looks forward to this (chapter 7:14). The child that will be born will be called "Immanuel": that means "God with us" - this is astonishing! Not just God from the history books about Moses and all that - but God here and now that you can see.
And that is what people saw, when they saw Jesus. Immanuel. God with us - as Matthew reminds us in his Gospel: Matthew 1:22-23 "All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had said through the prophet: "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel" -- which means, "God with us.""
Jesus' miracles later on were signs of that - so that as we look at Jesus (now through the pages of the Gospels) we can know what God is like.
"Show us the Father" said Philip to Jesus at the Last Supper, "...Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." (John 14:8-9)
So Jesus is God making himself known.
man & God?
But does he have to be God and Man for that?
man only
If he was only man, then he would be 'just another prophet' - another Moses or Isaiah.
Of course that's a great thing to be - they make God known, that's how we have the Old Testament, teaching us so much about God.
When you want to get to know someone, it's great to hear about them from someone else, but it's so much better to meet them yourself.
And that's what people could do, because Jesus was God as well as man. "We have seen his glory" says John in his Gospel, chapter 1, (18) "No-one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known."
God only
But what if he wasn't really a man, and was just God pretending to be a man?
If that were the case, then we'd lose something just as important as us knowing God: and that's us knowing that God knows us. Jesus, as a man, has known temptation, and sorrow, and hunger, and friendship, and laughter, and all those emotions that we know.
Of course God must know these things about being human anyway: but having come and lived as a man himself, we know we can trust the Lord Jesus. As the writer of Hebrews puts it, speaking about Jesus as our 'high priest' : Hebrews 4:15-16 "... we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are -- yet was without sin. 16 Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need."
As the carol puts it "And he feeleth for our sadness, And he shareth in our gladness."
uniqueness
So the incarnation means that we can know God in a far greater way.
Of course the implication is that Jesus is unique.
A prophet will tell you: "this is what God is like, worship him."
But the Son of God says: "this is what God is like, worship me"
Jesus, being both God and Man, makes God known, so that we seek God is through Jesus: and he's unique in doing that.
Islam (for example) reduces Jesus to the level of prophet, and for that matter, a lesser prophet than Mohammed.
However much we respect muslims and love and honour them as fellow human beings, we have to say that are wrong about Jesus, and so they are wrong about God. You can not get to God by denying the truth about him. You need to reject what Mohammed has said, and turn to Jesus.
I know it's not very multi-cultural and all that. But the incarnation tells us that God is not relativist. All things are not relative. It may be a strange thing that he has done, but God has chosen to make himself known in this way, so that all human beings can know how to seek him and find him - through Jesus.
The incarnation brings us knowledge of God.
Salvation
And then secondly, the incarnation brings us salvation.
This was the whole purpose of Jesus coming.
Isaiah
Isaiah proclaims that the child will bring salvation, rescue: (Isaiah 9:7) "Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and for ever. "
On this occasion Isaiah uses the language of the Mighty Messiah, the King who has the power to defeat the enemy.
Later on, Isaiah also introduces us to the Suffering Servant, who will be a representative to bear our sin.
The Mighty Messiah, and the suffering servant. Power to defeat the enemy, and a representative to bear our sin.
The cross
Now the cross and the incarnation bring those two things together.
On the cross, Jesus died, to save us. His death is the sacrifice that takes away God's anger for my sin, and yours.
And we need Jesus, this saviour, to be man and to be God.
man
We need him to be man, so that he can die.
God can't die. He is immortal, imperishable, without beginning, and without end.
So if God the Son was going to die for our sins, he had to take on flesh, and become human. Hebrews 2:14-15 "Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death"
If he's going to be the Suffering Servant, the representative who bears our sins, and dies - he's got to be 'one of us'.
Imagine you're a dustbin man, and you need a new union representative. What's one of the essential qualifications? He or she has got to be (or have been) a dustbin man - surely?
When a substitute is sent on in a football match, it's a footballer that is sent on, not a cricketer or a golf player.
If the one dying on the cross is to be Isaiah's Suffering Servant: our representative, our substitute standing in for us, if he is to die the death that we deserve - he has to be man.
We need him to be man, so that he can die.
God
And he also has to be God.
He has to be able to overcome death, and he has to be able to do it not just for one person, but for billions of people. And only God has the power to do that. On the day of Pentecost, Peter told the crowds: (Acts 2:24) "... God raised [Jesus] from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him."
In Colossians we read that Jesus, (2:15) "... having disarmed the powers and authorities, ...made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross."
The one dying on the cross has to be Isaiah's Mighty Messiah, the one with the power to defeat the enemy - he has to be God.
You may have met Jehovah's Witnesses. They're often very nice, earnest people - but they say Jesus isn't God.
They say he's very special, he's like God, he's a Son of God - but he's not God.
And so it's no surprise that they have no real confidence that they will ever be with God, and that they don't speak much about salvation.Jesus is divine - and we need him to be.
salvation
If our sin is going to be dealt with, we need both the Suffering Servant, and the Mighty Messiah. We need one like us, to be our representative and die, in our place. We need one with divine power to defeat the enemy.
And so the incarnation is the answer.
And what a fantastic answer it is.
A famous mathematical problem has been solved recently - Fermat's last theorem. But the solution is inpenetrable. It's a real let down for Mathematicians - their favourite problem is solved, but it's beyond most of them to understand how!
God, on the other hand, has given us an amazing solution to the problem of sin, that we can grasp and understand, in our Lord Jesus.
Sure: it is full of 'mystery', in the sense that we'll never fully grasp the amazingness of what God has done - but we can understand it, and wonder at it.
And that's why Christmas is so special - and it would be, without the presents, the trees, the decorations, the turkey and the stuffing. Just Jesus, being born of Mary - both baby, and God - human and God, so that he could provide the perfect salvation for you and me, and so that we can truly know God and be known by him.
Conclusion
The incarnation: I wonder which side of it you are inclined to forget?
Some people want to keep Jesus just human - just a good bloke - like Ghandi: good for films, and then forgotten. But he can't be forgotten, because he's God.
Some people want him just to be spiritual - great to pray to and praise, but kept completely out of their everyday lives. You can't do it, can you? Jesus is still fully man - and he wants complete involvement in your human life, all of it.
The incarnation - Christmas is vitally important for our knowledge of God and our Salvation.
"Lo, within a manger lies, he who made the starry skies"
And he had to, He had to become Man, because he wanted to save us - and so he had to able to die, for you and me. And now - he understands us completely.
"Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, Hail the incarnate Deity,"
He was always, and is still, God. Able to overcome death for you and me, all of us, the one perfect sacrifice - and the one who shows us God completely.
"Pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus, our Emmanuel."