Let me pray and then we'll jump into this message today. Father, as always, when we gather in the name of Jesus, our Lord, we do long to know him more thoroughly, to be more truly conformed to him. He is the true light that, having come into the world, illumines every person. And there are those upon whom the light falls on blind eyes. There are those in whom the light rises in their hearts and their minds to impart to them the light of life, to make them sons of light. And Father, we are grateful that you have enabled us to be a people in whom the light has shown to give us the true knowledge of Christ our Lord. As Paul said, to give us the glory, the knowledge of the glory of the living God that is in the face of Jesus our Lord. Father, I pray for each one here. I pray that as we have gathered in your name, as we have gathered to sit at the feet of the Lord Jesus and be instructed in him and by him through your spirit, I pray that you would minister to each one of us, that you would meet us at the point of our faith and our understanding, that you would further illumine our hearts and minds that you would cause us to be edified and encouraged. Father, we carry out this life in Christ in a dark world. And we rejoice to know that the light that shines in the darkness does dispel the darkness. And yet there is still much darkness in this world. And you have called us and enabled us to be sons of light. And I pray that we would be faithful with that. That in all things at all times, not just in what we say, but in the very manner of our lives, that we would be light bearers in a dark world. As Paul said, shining like stars in the firmament in the midst of a wicked and perverse generation. But we cannot shine as your light unless we are conformed to the light. And so we pray that you would build us up, that you would teach us, that you would again encourage us. Convict us as needful, but Father, make this a fruitful time. We ask for your spirit to attend upon every heart and mind. May we be bowed below you, beneath the truth of your glory, And Father, may we be truly worshiping in spirit and in truth in this time. We ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, I mentioned to you all that this next series of messages are going to be dealing with the work of incarnation. We looked at the nature of it in terms of how the Bible actually treats it. And then we looked at practical implications of it which to me, those implications are very significant and profound in terms of what they tell us about what it is to understand even what it is to be a Christian, what it is to live the Christian life, what it is to be about the Christian mission, that which God has called us to in this world. But I want to also, because as we come into the Gospels, Some of us are probably more or less familiar with the Gospels. Some people tend to skip over the Gospels to get down to the theological meat of Paul's epistles or whatever it might happen to be. But the Gospel accounts are critically important. They are the ones that take up this theme of the fullness of the times, the coming of the Messiah. As I mentioned earlier, all of the Old Testament history is looking toward and preparing for that day. the fullness of the times, the ends of the ages, that consummative event that is the coming and the work of the Messiah. And so the gospel writers, all four of them, treat this person and work of Jesus through the lens of that Old Testament history as preparation. So it's very important that we read the Gospels in that way through that light. And as I said last time, preeminently the way in which the scriptures understand this thing of incarnation is that it is the God of Israel returning to Zion to be in the midst of his people by taking up their own life and lot in himself. The God of Israel takes up Israel's existence for the sake of causing Israel to be Israel, for the sake of Israel's own vocation in the world. That's the most simple biblical way to understand incarnation. But the Bible uses lots of different themes and images and ideas the gospel writers do in dealing with this incarnation and its work, the way in which it works itself out towards the accomplishing of God's goals. And the first two that I want to deal with together today are these ideas of light and life. We've already read some from John, and we see this very explicitly in John's gospel. these twin themes of light and life. Introduced in John's prologue and then throughout John's gospel, Jesus as the true light, Jesus as the true life. And those two ideas have to be understood, again, in the light of the Old Testament history, its presentation of the God of Israel, and even the relation between light and life in the way that the Bible deals with it. So as a starting point then in this concept of Jesus as the true light and the way in which the gospel writers treat it, light is first and foremost a metaphor for God himself. John goes so far as to say God is light. In him there is no darkness at all, right? God is light. Well, that's obviously a metaphor. God isn't literally light. But there's a sense in which he is light. And in John's way of thinking about this, biblically darkness represents that which is dysfunctional. Remember in the very beginning of the creation, darkness is over the face of the deep. That which is disordered, chaotic, unformed, unfilled, unharmonized. In a sense, the primeval condition is darkness. It's not necessarily a connotation of sin or descriptor of sin per se. In the first instance, it's just that which is disordered or chaotic. And because sin and alienation and all of those things evil are the privation of God's order, the privation of that which God intends, darkness becomes a metaphor for sin and evil. But in the first instance, God as light speaks to the fact of his wholeness, his integrity. John says in him there is no darkness at all, no falseness, no obscurity, no deviation from the truth. God himself is the truth and his creation that he creates reflects him in that way. It testifies to him as the one who is the truth. So it expresses his absolute integrity and truthfulness. There is no guile. There is no darkness, no deceptiveness, no falseness associated with him. This is the way John presents him in his first epistle. But in terms of the way that light functions, light serves to illumine and to disclose. If you walk into a dark room, there's all kinds of things there. What's there is there. You just aren't aware of it. And even if you can barely see it, it's obscure and shadowy, and you may not know exactly what you're looking at. So in the first instance, light illumines, and the way that it illumines is by casting out darkness. That's our expression. But darkness is just a privation. It's not a thing. It's an absence of something. That's why it's such a good metaphor for chaos or ultimately evil or disruption. Evil isn't a thing. It's the privation of the order that God intends. Darkness is the privation of light. It's not a thing in itself. It's the absence of something. It's the absence of light. So light illumines and by illumining then it discloses. It makes known what previously wasn't seen, what previously wasn't accessible. And importantly, light as it relates to God has to do with the relationship he has with his creation. This process of illumining and disclosing has to do with God dealing with something other than himself, right? And so it has a relational dynamic. It's tied to his relationship with the creation itself. God as light illumines and discloses. But even as it is in himself, when we talk about God's words and actions being the same as himself, He says what he is, he is what he says, he is what he does. That's this whole idea of integrity. There's never any distinction between what you see in him, what you hear in him, what he does, and who he is. So to discern his words and his actions accurately is to know the God who is. And that may seem like kind of a simple thing. Okay, who cares about that? Well, in the world that we inhabit, there's always a relative disconnect between what is said, what is done, and the truth behind that. There's only relative conformity to the truth in words and actions. And it may not be hypocrisy, but there's still a lack of perfect integrity, right? that characterizes certainly human experience. But when God speaks, it absolutely conforms to the truth of who He is. When He acts, it absolutely conforms to the truth of who He is. You probably remember me saying in the past, In the Hebrew reckoning of things, when you bring this idea of word or utterance, not the sounds and not the letters on the page, but the actual entity that is designated by the words, when that utterance, when that disclosure of a thing conforms to the actual physical manifestation in action or in activity, you have what the scripture calls truth. When word and deed are perfectly consistent, you have truth. And God is the truth in that sense. He is what he says, he is what he does. So in terms of the imagery of light, God's words and deeds give light to men as conveying to them the God who is light. God's words illumine men by conveying to them not just information, but the very God who himself is light. His words convey the light that is the God who is light. Micah chapter seven, I'll just read this real quickly, a couple verses here where you see this, but you see this throughout the scriptures in the Old Testament. Verse seven of Micah seven, the prophet says, as for me, I watch expectantly for Yahweh. I will wait for the God of my salvation. Once again, the hope that God will arise in the future and he will put right what is wrong. My God will hear me. Do not rejoice over me, therefore, O my enemy, for though I fall, I will rise. Though I dwell in darkness, the Lord is a light for me. I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I know I have sinned against him. But the day will come when he will plead my case and he will execute justice for me. He will bring me out to the light and I will see his righteousness, his faithfulness, his integrity. Then my enemy will see and shame will cover her who said to me, where is the Lord your God? You see how he talks about light being God's self conveyance to him. And this is very much consistent throughout the Old Testament. Certainly you see it in the Psalms very commonly. Well, that principle of God as light and illumining and disclosing himself to men, conveying himself as the one who is light, that understanding, that basic Old Testament understanding, underlies John's sense of what incarnation represents. This is why his prologue is written the way it is. So if God's word, namely his expression of what is true, is synonymous with who he is, then the word become flesh is God's absolute self-disclosure. In other words, John is showing us that incarnation is the full and the final articulation of the living God and the truth as it is in him. That's again why I wanted to read John 5 because Jesus is saying, you don't get it. To the extent that you push back against me, you're pushing back against your God. You accuse me of breaking the Sabbath. Well, then the God of Israel who gave you the Sabbath is a Sabbath breaker. Because the work that I do is his work. I don't do anything on my own. I do what he has disclosed to me. And in doing what he's disclosed to me, I am accomplishing that purpose for which he sent me into the world, which will reach its climax, obviously, at Calvary. So incarnation is the full and the final articulation of the living God, the truth as it is in him. John says Jesus is the true light that has come into the world, the light that illumines every man. And as the incarnate word, the incarnate logos, Jesus is God's fully enacted word. The Hebrew word that we translate word, dabar, It can mean an event or an occurrence because it really gets down to the actual reality of a thing that can be spoken, but it also can be acted out. And when the utterance and the action come together, as I said, you have truth. God's word is truth. but often the idea of truth or word is used for actions because it has to do fundamentally again with the actual reality behind what you hear or what you see. So Jesus is God's fully enacted word. He is God's disclosed truth acted out in time and space such that God's truth assumed actual realized existence. And crucially, this enacted word is enacted human word. Enacted in the human being, Jesus of Nazareth, and through the human words and actions of the human being, Jesus. God's full self-disclosure is human disclosure. enacted human word both in its substance and in its object. What do I mean? Jesus is God's word manifest in human existence, God's truth, but as spoken to human beings for their sake, ultimately for the sake of the whole creation. I put this quote of Thomas Torrance in here and you're going to have to chew on it a little bit, but I think it's a very succinct and intense, in a good way, expression of how we think about this idea of incarnation, the way in which the New Testament Gospel writers think about it. He says, In Christ, in the Messiah, what God communicates to man is not some thing, but his very self. This is distinct from all other acts of God. Incarnation is God's unique act, His reality in the act. And apart from this act, there is no God at all. He doesn't mean God doesn't exist. He means there is no real ultimate disclosure of God. In the act of creation, God does not communicate Himself, but He creates a reality wholly distinct from Himself. One that testifies of Him, but is distinct from Him. But here in Jesus the Messiah, God acts in such a way that he is himself in his act. And what he acts, he is. And what he is, he acts. Jesus Christ, as act of God in humanity, is identical with God's own person. Christ Jesus is identical in his human existence and life with the self-giving of God to and for human beings, men and women. And so in Jesus, it is with the operation of God himself for our salvation that we have to do. What is this whole thing about with Jesus? It's about the operation of God himself on behalf of our salvation. ultimately the deliverance and renewal of the whole creation. Thus we must think of the person of Christ and the work of Christ as completely one, so that he is in himself what he reveals of the Father. and he is in himself what he does all through his life and on the cross in reconciliation. It is only because Jesus is that in himself and lives it out in himself that he does truly reveal the Father and reconcile the world. Like I said, there's a lot to chew on in that, but it's a very profound and succinct way of getting at this issue of incarnation. This is what the scripture is concerned about, not persons and natures and hypostases and all of the kind of theological sidebars that we go down. But as we've seen already to this point, and I've tried to stress with us, incarnation, even in terms of how Torrance is expressing it here, most specifically involves the God of Israel, the God of all creation. But in terms of the fulfillment of Israel's scriptures, it's the God of Israel who promised to return to Israel. It's that God taking up Israel's own existence in himself in order that Israel should become Israel in truth in him. This is what that great extended poem of Isaiah 40 to 55, that great prophetic context is all about. Yahweh's return to Zion to put all things right, to renew his people, to regather them. The Ezekiel 37, life, restoration, renewal, kingdom, all of that, this is how God does that. He takes up Israel's existence in himself in order to make Israel become Israel in truth, in order that Israel can then fulfill its own election, its servant vocation on behalf of mankind, ultimately for the sake of the whole creation's renewal. And I know I feel like I've got one string on my banjo, but this is an important point that we really need to understand. This is the fundamental issue with the story that the scriptures tell and how to interpret the coming of the Messiah and even his climactic work at Calvary. This is the way the gospel writers understand who he is and what he's doing. It has to become the lens through which we understand it. So the God who is light then has embodied Israel as true son, disciple, servant, and witness. What was Israel? Israel was son, servant, disciple, and witness. for the sake of God's purposes in the world, to be the light of the nations. The God who is light took up Israel's life in order to make Israel become the light of the nations. Think again about the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus is challenging his Jewish audience, his Israelite audience, that this is what it looks like. This is what the kingdom looks like. This is what it looks like for you, the people of Abraham, to be truly who God called you to be, the light of the nations. A city on a hill cannot be hid. You don't light a lamp and put it under a bushel, right? You set it on the table where it illumines the whole room. So you are to bear light before all the nations. Let your light so shine before men that they will see your good deeds. What good deeds? The works of sonship. They will see the Father when they see you. Essentially, Jesus, by all of that instruction in the Sermon on the Mount, is pointing them back to him. I am what it looks like to be Israel indeed. and even the thing of turning the other cheek and going the extra mile. He's going to do all of that in a climactic way with Calvary, the ultimate act of self-giving. So the whole Sermon on the Mount is describing to them what it looks like for Israel to fulfill its calling as son, servant, disciple, and witness. And that will ultimately be him that will be that, but he will be that so that in him they can become that. This is what it will look like for them. So Israel's restoration would see them becoming Yahweh's light into the world. But as he had first returned to Zion to shine upon her and deliver her from the darkness of alienation and exile. Again, I mentioned this larger section of Isaiah and it kind of then comes to this climax in chapter 59 and 60 if you're familiar with that section, it begins with God saying, what's the problem here? Is my arm too short to save? Is my ear too deaf to hear? No, but your iniquities have separated you from your God and your sin has turned him away so that he will not hear. And then it's this long, woeful assessment of the people of Israel that there's nobody, no matter where you turn, no matter who you look to, no matter how hard somebody might try to escape from all of this, there's no hope. It's just hopelessness. But God says when he sees that there is no one, he says, I will put on the breastplate of righteousness. I will put on the helmet of salvation. I will come. I will put this right. So this is this last section of chapter 59 going into 60. Now Yahweh saw and it was displeasing in his sight that there was no justice. And he saw that there was no man to rectify this. There was no one. He looked through the whole of the house of Israel and he was astonished that there was no one to intercede. Then his own arm brought salvation to him. He took up this power of deliverance and his righteousness upheld him. He put on righteousness like a breastplate, a helmet of salvation on his head. He put on garments of vengeance for clothing and wrapped himself with zeal, passion, fervor to accomplish this like a mantle. According to their deeds so he will repay, wrath to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies. To the coastlands he will make recompense. By dealing with the enemies and the enmity he will renew. And so they will fear the name of the Lord from the west and his glory from the rising of the sun. For he will come like a rushing stream which the wind of Yahweh drives. That same imagery of the spirit, wind, breath, spirit. And a redeemer will come to Zion, to those who turn from transgression in Jacob, declares Yahweh. And as for me, this is my covenant with them, says the Lord, my spirit which is upon you, this redeemer who will come. And my words, which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth, nor the mouth of your offspring, nor from the mouth of your offspring's offspring, says Yahweh from now on and forevermore. Therefore, here's the word to Zion. Arise and shine, for your light has come. And the glory of the Lord is risen upon you. For behold, darkness will cover the earth, deep darkness the peoples, but Yahweh will rise upon you like the sun. His glory will appear upon you and the nations will come to your light and kings to the brightness of your rising. And think about Zacharias when John is born. You, my son, will be called the prophet of the Most High. for you will go ahead of the Lord to prepare his ways, to give to his people the knowledge of salvation that is in the forgiveness of their sins by virtue of the tender mercies of our God with which the sunrise from on high shall shine upon us, shall visit us, to shine upon those who sit in darkness and to guide our feet in the path of peace, right? It's the same imagery. So Yahweh is going to return. He's going to come as Israel's light and shine upon Zion. And when he does this work of illumination and renewal, then Zion herself will become the light of the nations. Jerusalem was regarded as the center of the earth and the temple sat on the top of Mount Moriah and the light of the city shone out. And that's what Jesus is again saying in the Sermon on the Mount, a city on a hill cannot be hid. Jerusalem was to be the light of the world. You, the people of Israel, the light of the world. Well, now in me that will come. So these things again, as I mentioned at the outset, highlight the fundamental relational dynamic in this light imagery. God as light speaks to this issue of illumination and disclosure. That means to something other than himself. It's ultimately Yahweh's light into his creation, but with human beings at the center of that. So light dispels darkness and illumines, but for the sake of intimacy or essential connection. Light is introduced as the very first piece of God's creation in Genesis 1. Let there be light. That's where God begins. The fundamental point of disordering the darkness, the chaotic, uninhabited, uninhabitable creation, the primeval creation, the first point of God's ordering and filling is light. The dispelling of darkness. You see the Spirit brooding over the deep, brooding over the deep. The darkness is over the face of the deep. And so the Creator Spirit is starting this work of ordering and filling with light, but not as a detached and distant power, but as intimately present in the world. The Spirit is brooding over the darkness. The Spirit is present. So the introduction of light is with the immediate presence of God. You see it, and I'm just giving you some examples here, but light comes to the forefront again in the Egyptian redemption in Exodus. Remember, one of the plagues was the plague of darkness. God brought darkness over the whole land of Egypt, so they couldn't even see their hand in front of their face. But in Goshen, where the sons of Israel were, it was light. And when God had crushed Egypt and its gods, the power of Egypt, and brought his people out. He led them with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. His luminescent presence, his light, led them through the wilderness to his promised land. And when they came into the land of Canaan, God said, build a sanctuary for me that I can dwell in your midst. How did he dwell in their midst? In his Shekinah in the Holy of Holies, the luminescent glory cloud that hovered between the wings of the cherubim over the ark in the Holy of Holies. And outside of that Holy of Holies was the holy place that had the lampstand. And the priests went in there every day and trimmed the wicks and kept the oil filled. so that you had perpetual light inside of this sanctuary that was constructed and ornamented through its fabrics and all of that to look like the Garden of Eden, the original sacred space, the original place of God's habitation. And so you had a perpetual day in the sanctuary. It was always light in there. It was never dark. the perpetual day in God's habitation. Well, eventually God departed from them because of their unfaithfulness and Israel went into exile. Once again, darkness had come. Death, desolation, darkness had come. But Yahweh promised to return. They were waiting for his light to again dawn upon them. And it did dawn upon them in a way they never could have imagined. We've seen this. The way in which the Lord returned to Zion, the way in which his light again returned to his dwelling place was not the Shekinah, the glory cloud in the Holy of Holies, but the light of his presence that was a human being. Think again about John's prologue. In him was life and the life was the light of men. He was God's true light coming into the world that illumines all people, so that everyone who beholds that light and embraces it becomes himself a son of light. In John 12, this is when Jesus is just getting ready. His cross is just right around the corner. And some of his disciples come and say, there are some Gentiles that would like to talk with you. And he says, it's not gonna happen right now. My hour has come. Let me just read a little bit of this. Philip came and told Andrew, Andrew and Philip came and they told Jesus about these Gentiles that wanted to see him. And he said, the hour has come for the son of man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. The one who loves his life loses it. The one who hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal. If anyone serves me, let him follow me, and where I am, there my servant will also be. And if anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. Because you serve me, you're serving the Father. And now my soul has become troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? No, it was for this very purpose that I came to this hour. Father, glorify your name. And there came then a voice out of heaven saying, I have both glorified it and I will glorify it again. And the multitude who stood by heard it were saying that it sounded like thunder and others were saying, no, an angel has spoken to him. But Jesus responded and said, this voice has not come for my sake, but for your sake, because now judgment is upon this world. Now the ruler of this world shall be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to myself. the seed that goes into the ground and dies so that it can bear much fruit. The multitude therefore said to him, we have heard out of the law, out of the Torah, that the Christ is to remain forever. The Messiah is to abide forever. We saw that even Ezekiel 37, right? My servant David will be prince over them forever. How is it that you can say then, if you are this one, the son of man must be lifted up? Who are you talking about? He said to them, for a little while longer, the light is among you. Walk while you have the light. It illumines your path. See, understand, discern. Walk while you have the light. The darkness may not overtake you, for the one who walks in darkness does not know where he is going, and he will stumble and he will fall. While you have the light, believe in the light that you may become sons of the light. Once again, this is John's gospel, a key theme throughout his gospel. So Jesus then is God's light in the world, which itself spoke to his own identity as embodying Israel and fulfilling their calling to be the light of the nations. He was Israel unto Israel, and thus the focus of Jesus' exhortations throughout the gospels. He keeps saying over and over again in various ways that to follow Him, to embrace Him, to become one with Him is to return to Yahweh and to have Yahweh return to you, to be reconciled and to be renewed, to become Israel in truth. You will become Israel by being a part of me. So Jesus and the New Testament writers who record his words and his actions associate him very closely with these themes of light and life, and I want to deal with this life part briefly in closing. And those two themes themselves are closely related. They're both introduced in the creation account. As I said, light is the first thing that God creates as part of this ordering and filling, but it's unto what end? It's unto life. Light first, then the creation of life. And we see that even played out in the natural world, right? If the sun were for some reason to be darkened, life would end on the planet very quickly. Everything depends on light for life. So light comes first and it enables the introduction of life. And that principle of relationship continues throughout Israel's history throughout the scriptural presentation. Light is associated with God's presence, His provision, while darkness, the absence of light, is a symbol for death, desolation, and chaos, as they reflect God's distance, His absence. So even when Jesus and the New Testament writers use this language of condemnation and final judgment, it's dwelling in outer darkness, right? Weeping and wailing gnashing of teeth, outer darkness, separated from the life of God. Darkness is the absence of light, light being God's presence and provision. relational distance. Light is about intimacy, things being brought together. So darkness, desolation, and death emblemized Israel's alienation and exile, which means that God's promise of deliverance and reconciliation was the promise of light and life returning to his people. That's why I wanted to read Ezekiel 37. Can these dead bones live? The whole house of Israel is dry, desolate bones scattered in a barren place. The Gospels take up that theme by announcing Yahweh's return and restorative work in the messianic figure, the messianic son. Yahweh is returning to again breathe life into his covenant people. But whereas they had, through the centuries, come to perceive that largely in terms of the restoring of Israel's national life, their theocratic life, God's intent was that this would actually be the restoring of human life, life at the very essence of existence. Once again, having its substance, its first fruit, its substance in the Messiah himself, the Living One. This isn't just about things getting better, or the people of Israel coming back to the land, or somehow, you know, a son of David on the throne in Israel. Not national life, but life at the very essence of human existence. Life as it speaks to the human purpose as God's image bearer. What it is to even be human beings. human renewal at the essential level. So when God brought life out of death to Israel, what would that look like? It would look like the Messiah, the Living One. Then what would result is God's people becoming true imaged children. So the Messiah was going to deliver his people from desolation and death, not by liberating them from Gentile powers, but from the enslaving, destroying power of sin. The deliverance he was going to bring was going to transcend earthly circumstances. Jesus did not deliver Israel from Rome. In fact, they would be crushed by Rome about 40 years later, and then again after that. Finally crushed by Rome in the 130s in a way that they gave up any hope of revolution beyond that. The Bar Kokhba revolution of the 130s. That was the end. And that was all Rome. Rome didn't go away through this. The Messiah didn't come and conquer Israel's national enemies. He had come to address the dark enslaving powers behind Rome, behind Israel itself, behind the hostility and fury of Israel towards Yahweh and his Messiah. He'd come to address the dark powers and he would do that, he would defeat them by letting them do their worst. He let the dark powers rally themselves against him. This is what you see in Luke's account. Now is the time, now is the power of darkness. But he has nothing in me, but in order that you might know that I love the Father, I go and do this. Now is the time and the power of the hour of darkness. Through death, he would become the Lord of life. So the life he was bringing was not just national resuscitation. The life that he was bringing was the infusion into human beings of the very life of God himself. It is the life that inheres in God himself. In him is life and the life is the light of men. The son is given to have life in himself and to give life to whomever he wills, right? The hour is coming and now is when whoever hears the voice of the son of man will rise and will have life, right? Life out of death, life out of death. It's a whole different thing than what Israel was expecting. Once again, incarnation telling us what this looks like, what it's really all about. The life that God intended for his image children was the life that is in God himself, bound up in the Messiah, conveyed to other human beings through the enlivening power of the Spirit. God taking up human beings into his own life. When the scripture uses the language of immortality, it's talking about us being taken up in the life of God. God is the immortal one. and this is a whole different topic, but the scripture does not talk about the inherent immortality of the soul. That's a pre-Christian pagan idea. God is the immortal one and immortality is that which he bestows to human beings. How does he bestow it? By taking them up in his own immortality. So the spirit who ordered and filled the earth with light and life did so with a view to his ultimate creative work The spirit who is the creator spirit would become the recreate her spirit. His ultimate creative work, which is bringing forth God's new creation that has its substance and fullness in the glorified image son, the one who is the man of the spirit. That's the way the scripture presents who the Messiah would be, man of the spirit, animated, informed, empowered, led by the Spirit of God. Man who operates in the power of the life of the living God by the Spirit of God. That one in whom is the light of life, even as he is the manifest fullness of the God who himself is light and life. So these are very important themes, not only for understanding the Incarnation, But once again, understanding what even this thing of salvation in the Christian life and the Christian destiny and the Christian vocation are all about. This is about God gathering up the creation into himself in and through human beings who are themselves the fullness of the Messiah himself, the one in whom God has fully embodied himself, that God would become all in all. And I know these are big ideas, I say it all the time, but this is the way the gospel writers want us to understand the Messiah, want us to understand the Christ event. It's not just simply a matter of God is unhappy with people because they have not obeyed him the way they ought, and Jesus comes to let himself be killed for that reason so that God's anger can be appeased and now God can be happy with people. That's not what this is all about. Hopefully, just even in what we've considered these last several weeks shows us that that's not what this is all about. Does God deal with those issues of violation and guilt and shame and all of that? Yes, absolutely. But not for the sake of simply being happy with people or forgiving them, but in order that his purposes for the creation would be realized, which is the gathering up of everything into himself that God would become all in all perfectly intimate with his creation in and through human beings. The light shines in the darkness. Light is a relational thing. And the conveyance of life is the conveyance of the life of God himself in and through the Messiah. If we are Christians, we have died and our lives are hidden with Christ in God such that Christ is our life. Unless we partake in the Son of Man, the living bread out of heaven, we have no life in ourselves. This is about life. Life brought about through the communicated light of God in the world. This is what incarnation teaches us. Hopefully these are things that we can meditate on in our bed, in our breakfast, you know, in our quiet times. And they become a real source of, I think, joy and exultation in our hearts, certainly even in our personal worship and hopefully in our corporate worship. And they have a transforming power. Well, let me close this in prayer and then we'll finish our time with this final hymn. Father, as always, I ask that you administer these things to us. We do confess that we struggle often to understand. We struggle to see clearly. There is yet a haziness, a kind of obscurity that hangs over our hearts and our minds. We are not yet fully conformed to the Lord Jesus Christ. We do not see as we are seen. We do not know as we are known. But we do hold tightly to that promise that John himself recorded and acknowledged and wanted his readers to celebrate when he said, what a blessed thing it is to be called children of God. And such we are. And yet we do recognize it does not presently appear what we shall be. Because in the day that will come, we will know as we are fully known. We will see as we are fully seen. We will see you as you are in completion by seeing fully, exhaustively the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the truth of the living God. The one in whom we know you in truth. And ultimately, in a marvelous way, we will know Christ fully because we will know ourselves fully as those who together are the fullness of Him who fills all in all. Father, when our knowledge is complete, there will be a complete and perfect knowledge of ourselves as the image of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the true human image, who is the true fullness of the living God. And when that day comes, then faith will fully have become sight. And we will be fully conformed to you as image children. And so help us to live in light of that day. Help us not just to kind of hang on and muddle through our days in the hope that one day we're gonna go to a wonderful place called heaven. But Father, we are already raised up in Christ Jesus. We inhabit the heavenly places in him. We are seated in that place of authority and dominion and I pray that we will be truly living out this life in this world. Christ is Lord over all and we are stewards of that Lordship, stewards of that life, stewards of that light. May we be light bearers and truly manifestors of the life of the living God in all things, in all times. not in magnificent deeds of ministry or whatever, but simply in the living out of life day by day in our homes, in our work, in our relationships, in all things, Father, may we be the fragrance of Christ. So help us, bless us, give us hearts and minds that are zealous to continue to pursue conformity to these truths, not out of duty, but out of great delight and exultation. Bless us as we close our time of worship. And Father, I thank you for each one here and just the privilege to grow up together in all things into Christ who is the head. These things we offer up to you with all gratitude, all praise in Christ our Lord. Amen.