00:00
00:00
00:01
Transcript
1/0
Well, good morning. On special
holidays, teachers who are doing a series like to somehow connect
that holiday with whatever series you're doing. Sometimes in God's
providence, it fits perfectly with what you're talking about.
Sometimes you need to bend it a little bit to make it fit your
topic. And sometimes you just can't
make it work at all. You have to start from scratch.
need a Mother's Day message or a Christmas message or a Labor
Day message. I don't know. But this morning
I was going to try to link the topics that I've been looking
at with you for the last, oh boy, three months or so. The
topic of heaven. The other night I was lying in
bed awake at about one 30 in the morning because Jeremy had
just gone down. I just put him down for a another
stretch of a few hours before I woke up again, and thinking
of passages that would link heaven and the time of Christmas, or
if you like the theological term, the doctrine of the incarnation.
I wanted to look at heaven from the perspective of Christmas,
or vice versa, look at Christmas from the perspective of heaven.
And I thought of a few different passages. Some of the Christmas
passages that we're familiar with. Matthew chapter 1. Matthew chapter 1 verse 23. I
think we know this verse well. Matthew
is quoting Isaiah 7.14 and he says, Behold, the virgin shall
be with child and bear a son and they shall call his name
Immanuel, which is translated God with us. Now the passage
in Isaiah 7.14 that prefigures Christ is a passage of encouragement
to the nation of Judah. They were in danger of being
invaded by the Assyrians and indeed the the northern kingdom
of Israel was invaded by the Assyrians and taken into captivity,
but God protected the southern kingdom of Judah for the sake
of his servant David and his line. So that was an encouragement
to them that God was with them in a particular way. And yet
in Matthew, this God being with us is taken to a literal level,
because God actually was with us in Christ on this earth. He
wasn't just with us to look after us. He was with us in his own
person, as Jesus himself was. Matthew Henry said, by the light
of nature, we see God as a God above us. By the light of the
law, we see him as a God against us. But by the light of the gospel,
we see him as Emmanuel, God with us, in our own nature, and which
is more in our interest. The name Jesus, which I think
you know means Jehovah saves, requires that he first be Emmanuel,
which means God with us. Jesus couldn't be the savior
of us if he weren't also God himself with us. And so here
in this verse, although it's not explicitly stated, we see
heaven and the incarnation or Christmas linked. God himself,
the eternal God, the second person of the Trinity, from the right
hand of God came down from heaven to this earth as a human baby
who grew and became a man in order that he might die for our
sins. Let's look at another well-known
Christmas passage, if you will, Luke chapter 2. We've read this
a couple of times, I think, in past few weeks when we look at
angels Luke 2 verses 18 to 15 or 8 to
15 Now there were in the same country
shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock
by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them,
and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly
afraid. Then the angel said to them, Do not be afraid, for behold,
I bring you good tidings of great joy, which will be to all people.
For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior,
who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to
you. You will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths, lying in
a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude
of the heavenly host praising God and saying, Glory to God
in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men. So
it was when the angels had gone away from them into heaven that
the shepherds said to one another, Let us now go to Bethlehem and
see this thing that has come to pass, which the Lord has made
known to us. And again, we see Christmas and
heaven linked as the angels themselves bring their eternal praise of
God out of the throne room of heaven to this group of lowly
shepherds sitting in a field near Bethlehem. And they bring
their heavenly song to earth. Another Christmas passage, which
you don't hear right at Christmas time, is in the Gospel of John. It doesn't really discuss his
birth in great detail like Matthew and Luke do, but we do see Christ
coming to this earth in verse 14 of chapter 1, John 1 verse
14. and the Word became flesh and
dwelt among us." A very concise Christmas story, maybe the shortest
Christmas story. The Word became flesh and dwelt
among us. Christ took on this human form, and we beheld his
glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full
of grace and truth. We see here again Christ coming
to the earth, and we see this glory, the glory of heaven was
brought to earth in the person of Christ, and while it was veiled
for a time in his humanity, it was nonetheless visible, particularly
to the Apostle John, who walked with him for those years. So
we have in these incarnation stories, these Christmas stories,
direct or indirect references to heaven as well. But let's
look at a couple other passages that occurred to me that may
not be immediately obvious. Look at Ephesians chapter 2.
Sorry, Ephesians chapter 4. Ephesians chapter 4. Let me read
verses 7 to 10. But to each one of us grace was
given according to the measure of Christ's gift. Therefore,
he says, when he ascended on high, he led captivity captive
and gave gifts to men. Now this, he ascended, what does
it mean but that he also first descended into the lower parts
of the earth? He who ascended is also the one who ascended
far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things." This
is not directly maybe obviously a Christmas passage, but you
can see the incarnation in here. That is when Jesus took on humanity. I was interested in looking at
this passage, not only because of what it says about Christ
himself, but also because it can be kind of enigmatic as to
what exactly Paul is talking about here. Look at verse 8.
It says, He ascended on high. He led captivity captive and
gave gifts to men. If you have a King James or New
King James, you'll see it says he led captivity captive. If
you have a New American Standard, it said he led a host of captives,
and the NIV said he led captives in his train. And the Greek word
here is kind of an interesting one. It means someone who has
been taken by the spear. That's what a captive is. You
can picture in your mind somebody who's been captured by an enemy,
and he's got a spear right in his back, pushing him along,
saying, OK, here we go to the jail. And the term captivity, this
noun, is sometimes used figuratively for prisoners of war. So while
it's uncertain in a way who these captives are, it can mean one
of two things. In fact, both are true in a sense
of what Christ did on the cross. Some say that these captives
that Christ is leading are captives that Christ himself has captured. Colossians 2.15, talking about
Christ and His death and resurrection, says He's disarmed principalities
and powers, and He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing
over them in it. These principalities and powers
talk about demonic forces whom Christ conquered on the cross. And you see this public spectacle
being made of them as they are prisoners of war. They would
display these prisoners of war to the conquering peoples to
hold them up to scorn and ridicule as prisoners. And so Jesus did
that in his death and resurrection. So those might be the captives
that Paul is referring to here. Another possibility is that these
are captives who have been released. So these are the people of Christ
who had been captive and had been released and were brought
back to their city. So you can imagine a country
or a city who had been in a war and they'd have prisoners taken
and put into prisons. The general would go out and
try to release them. When they released them, they
would come back into their city with a great fanfare, like a
ticker tape parade we might have today. And these prisoners of
war would be greeted as heroes as they'd been released. So we
know that we, as God's people, were held captive to our sins,
but Christ has released us from that captivity, and so we are
now part of his great procession. So we have a couple of different
kinds of captives here. We have those whom Christ has
captured, his enemies who he's captured, and there are also
Christ's people that he has rescued from captivity and now has brought
them with himself. These victorious kings and generals
would hold this parade and they would often feature the prisoners
of war they had captured and their own people who had been
prisoners of war who would be released. that could return home
in freedom. And also these kings or generals
who had gotten the spoils of war would distribute them to
their soldiers and to the people that they saw in their parade.
And again we see that here in verse 8 in this interesting picture
of what Christ has done. It says, He led captivity captive
and gave gifts to men. So you can picture this king
handing out gifts of gold or other precious items to the people
of his city or his country as he came back with the spoils
of war. Christ has given gifts to us,
not monetary gifts, but the gifts of the Spirit, which is the context
here in Ephesians chapter 4. It's interesting that this verse
that Paul quotes here is a quote from Psalm 68. And that psalm is a psalm talking
about God as a conquering king. You may know the first verse,
let God arise and let his enemies be scattered. And you see God
coming in as a great king, as a general, as a soldier, scattering
his enemies before him. But another interesting feature
of this is that in Jewish thought over the years, this psalm was
associated and even read at Pentecost. without any knowledge of what
was to come in the future. But remember what happened in
Christian history on the day of Pentecost, the first Pentecost
after Christ was raised and ascended to heaven was the day that God
came and actually gave these spiritual gifts to men. And so
even in Jewish history, with no knowledge of what was to happen
at Pentecost, and there was no There was no prophecy that God
would give gifts at Pentecost. We knew that God would give gifts.
He would give spiritual gifts, but not exactly the timing of
it. But in this interesting historical coincidence from our perspective,
the Jews had associated this Psalm 68 with Pentecost, and
it was fulfilled in this way, Christ giving gifts to men on
that very day. Now this term, lowest parts of
the earth, in verse 9, there are different views about what
that means. If you look at Psalm 63, verse 9, the term is linked
with death. In Psalm 139, 15, it refers to the womb. You may
be familiar with that verse that God has made us in the lower
parts of the earth as a reference to his mother's womb. Isaiah
44 verse 23 talks about the lower parts of the earth in relation
to the created earth, mountains, hills, trees. So we have this
phrase used for death, used for the womb, and also used for the
created earth itself. So some commentators link this lower parts of the earth in Ephesians
4.9 with with Christ's birth, with his appearing on the earth.
Some would link it with his death, that is, he was buried in the
earth for a time. Some would link it to when he
actually visited Hades, the realm of evil spirits, and spoke to
them, depending on how you interpret different passages. And some
would connect this lower parts of the earth with his whole earthly
ministry, including his birth, his death, and his resurrection.
So it's interesting because you read these commentators and say,
this lower parts of the earth certainly means this, or very
probably means this. And they all say different things.
So you've got to figure out where you're going to rest your probabilities
with some of these commentators. And it's hard to say for sure.
I'm leaning towards referring to the entirety of Christ becoming
man, living and dying and being raised again, just as the writer
of Hebrews says that he was made for a little while lower than
the angels. And that little while refers to the time from the virgin
conception all the way to his ascension. So Christ has ascended,
verse 9, but he also descended into the lower parts of the earth.
And here is the connection with the Christmas story, the incarnation,
the appearance of God in a human child born on this day 2,000
years ago. note at the end of verse 10,
he who descended is also the one who ascended far above all
the heavens that he might fill all things. So we see heaven
at the beginning of the story when Christ descends into the
lower parts of the earth and then at the end when he ascends
far above all the heavens that he might fill all things. And
this this view of Christ seated above all the heavens at the
right hand of God is literally in at least a dozen verses when
I looked in the concordance last night. And I won't read all of
them to you, but let me read a few passages that refer to
Christ being exalted in heaven. Back even in Ephesians chapter
one, verses 20 to 23. Paul here is speaking of God's
mighty power, which he worked in Christ when he raised him
from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly
places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion
and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also
in that which is to come. And he put all things under his
feet and gave him to behead over all things to the church, which
is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. Hebrews
chapter 10. verses 12 and 13 but this man
that is Christ after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever
sat down at the right hand of God from that time waiting till
his enemies are made his footstool 1st Peter 3 22 Peter speaks of the resurrection
of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right
hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject
to him. So again, we have a figure of
Christ here as a conquering king, making these angels, authorities,
and powers being subject to himself. So Christ comes out of a place
of great glory, becomes a man, is for a little while lower than
the angels. and after that has ascended to
the right hand of God in power. Let's look at one other passage
that connects the incarnation with heaven. Philippians chapter
2. By the way, I'm doing these passages
at the risk of stepping on whatever Brian's going to talk about today.
I know he's going to be talking from Hebrews chapter 1, but hopefully
we won't copy too much. We haven't coordinated this at
all, but hopefully whatever we say will reinforce each other.
That means you have to pay attention both times though. Philippians
chapter 2, this famous passage on the incarnation of Christ
starting in verse five, let this mind be in you, which was also
in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God did not consider
it robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation,
taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of
men. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the
cross. Therefore God also has highly
exalted him and given him the name which is above every name.
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in
heaven and of those on earth and of those under the earth,
and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is
Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Now at the risk of stepping
too lightly over this passage, we want to look at it again from
our perspective this morning, heaven linked with the incarnation,
with Christmas. The context here, Paul isn't
just rattling off a number of theological details, but just
for the sake of a systematic theology, the context here is
that he wants them to be humble as Christ is humble. And so he
is showing how Christ himself is the greatest demonstration
of humility that ever was. That's why he, earlier in the
chapter, is talking about humility, being of the same mind in verse
two, let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit,
but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than
himself, verse three. And here's the example, verse
five, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.
Now we see humility everywhere in the Christmas story, don't
we? You look at the circumstances, Of his birth, his parents were
not of the nobility, although his parents on both sides, his
earthly father, his adoptive father, and his birth mother
were of the lineage of David. There was no king at that time
from that lineage, and so they were just of a humble birth. He was born in an insignificant
town. He was laid in an animal's feed trough. He wasn't put in
a king's palace with great glory and honor. God, although we don't
know exactly to whom God spoke on that first Christmas night,
what the Bible tells us is that he gave his message to shepherds,
which were about the lowest classes you could find. They weren't
the high and exalted, respected ones. Yet God did make his birth
known to some who recognized who he was, that is, the Magi.
who were exalted and gave Christ gifts. Jesus himself grew up
in Nazareth, which is a fairly despised community. Think in
your mind, I won't name any places, lest I offend anybody, but think
of places in your region that are sort of the lowest socioeconomic
level, the place that everybody loves to make fun of, people
from that place. That's the kind of place Nazareth
was, the lowest, kind of region, the lowest kind of town that
everybody scorned. That's where Jesus grew up. He
resisted attempts to make him king. The people wanted him at
least at one point to be their king, and he would not take that
opportunity. Jesus himself associated with
the lowly. He washed the disciples' feet.
You can imagine in those days they didn't have shoes like we
have. They wore sandals on the hot, dusty, unpaved roads. Very dirty, we'd call it disgusting
kind of work. And yet Jesus himself put himself
in the place of the lowliest slave to wash the disciples'
feet. on the night in which he was
betrayed. You might think Jesus said, you
know what, this is the last night before I die. Can't I just get
a little bit of exaltation here? Can't you throw me a party? Can't
you just celebrate me for a while? But no, he took off his robe
and washed the disciples' feet in great humility, even in this
time when You would think on a human level, of all times,
he could expect a little love from the disciples. He's showing
love to them instead. And finally, Jesus submitted
to death, although he was innocent of anything that was worthy of
capital punishment. Let me read you a quote from
C.S. Lewis in his book on miracles. He was a writer and a philosopher. He looks at the idea of miracles
from a philosophical perspective. He was an agnostic for much of
his life and gradually became convinced that the Christian
story was true and that Christ himself was God. He talks about that miracle. In fact, he calls it the grand
miracle. He says in his book called Miracles, the central
miracle asserted by Christians is the incarnation. they say
that God became man. Every other miracle prepares
for this or exhibits this or results from this. Let me go
on here. And he says, in the Christian
story, God descends to re-ascend. And this echoes what we saw in
Ephesians 4. He comes down, down from the
heights of absolute being into time and space, down into humanity,
down to the very roots and seabed of the nature he has created.
But he goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world
up with him. One has the picture of a strong
man stooping lower and lower to get himself underneath some
great, complicated burden. He must stoop in order to lift.
He must almost disappear under the load before he incredibly
straightens his back and marches off with the whole mass swaying
on his shoulders. Or one may think of a diver.
first reducing himself to nakedness, then glancing in midair, then
gone with a splash, vanished, rushing down through green and
warm water into black and cold water, down through increasing
pressure into the death-like region of ooze and slime and
old decay, then up again, back to color and light, his lungs
almost bursting, till suddenly he breaks surface again, holding
in his hand the dripping, precious thing that he went down to recover.
He and it are both colored now that they have come up into the
light, Down below, where it lay colorless in the dark, he lost
his color too. In this descent and reassent,
everyone will recognize a familiar pattern, a thing written all
over the world. It is the pattern of all vegetable
life. It must belittle itself into something hard, small, and
death-like. It must fall into the ground,
thence the new life reascends. It is the pattern of all animal
generation, too. There is descent from the full
and perfect organisms into the spermatozoan and ovum, then the
slow ascent to the perfect embryo, to the living conscious baby,
and finally to the adult. So it is also in our moral and
emotional life. The first innocent and spontaneous
desires have to submit to the death-like process of control
or total denial, but from that there is a reassent to fully
formed character in which the strength of the original material
all operates but in a new way. Death and rebirth, down to go
up, it is a key principle. Through this bottleneck, this
belittlement, the high road nearly always lies. The doctrine of
the Incarnation, if accepted, puts this principle even more
emphatically at the center. The pattern there is there in
nature because it was there first in God. All the instances of
it which I have mentioned turn out to be but transpositions
of the divine theme into a minor key. I am not now referring simply
to the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. The total pattern
of which they are only the turning point is the real death and rebirth.
For certainly no seed ever fell from so fair a tree into so dark
and cold a soil as would furnish more than a faint analogy to
this huge descent and re-ascension in which God dredged the salt
and oozy bottom of creation. just a picture of what God did
when he came to this earth. We tend to think of it, perhaps,
as just no big deal. We do Christmas every year and
get caught up in a lot of the other things surrounding Christmas
and forget from what an exalted place Christ came to this sinful
world, this, in C.S. Lewis's words, a slimy, oozing
sort of world that you would certainly not you certainly wouldn't blame
Christ if he chose not to do that, and yet he did it for our
sakes. Let me briefly look at five ways
in which Jesus emptied himself. We see here in verse seven of
Philippians 2, in my translation it says that Jesus made himself
of no reputation. That Greek word is literally
a word that means to empty himself, and I think probably the New
American Standard says that. There are five ways that John MacArthur
says that Christ emptied himself. And yet, in doing this emptying,
he never became anything less than God. First of all, he temporarily
divested himself of his divine glory. That is, the glory that
Christ had with God before the world was, was veiled for a time. People in the time of Christ,
when he was on this earth, didn't see him walking around with a
halo, like you see in a lot of pictures. In fact, I saw a picture
recently, and we have one in our house, of baby Jesus is in
his manger, and he's got a little halo around his head, just so
you know exactly who he is. But there was no unearthly glow
about that little child. Anybody seeing him without knowing
the story would think he was just a regular baby. Secondly, Jesus emptied himself
of independent divine authority. He had submitted himself to the
will of the Father. Jesus said he didn't do anything
of his own accord, but only what the Father told him to do. He
also emptied himself of the voluntary exercise of some of his divine
attributes. In his humanity, he was not everywhere
present, although there are times when you get a glimpse of that.
He didn't know everything, as he did in his deity. There are times people ask him
questions and he didn't know the answer. He was veiled from that for a
time. Christ also emptied himself of his eternal riches. 2 Corinthians
8-9 says, For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that
though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that you
through his poverty might become rich. Now, this is not saying
that Jesus was materially poor, although he was at certain points
in his life, perhaps. But he became spiritually poor
in the way that he went from heaven with all the glories and
riches of heaven. He came to this earth as a man. That is
quite a change in position. You think of the richest man
in the world becoming a penniless, a beggar. That's the sort of
idea you see of when Christ comes to this earth from the glories
of heaven to this lowly earth. And then finally, Jesus emptied
himself temporarily of his unique, intimate, and face-to-face relationship
with his Heavenly Father. And that was especially true
on the cross when God the Father turned his back on his Son for
a moment in time as the wrath of God poured upon him to take
away the sins of the world. So in these ways, Jesus Christ
emptied himself, came from heaven to this earth, and suffered these things at
the hands of wicked sinners. And yet that's, of course, not
the end of the story. We know that therefore, verse 9 of Philippians
2, God has highly exalted him and given him the name which
is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee
should bow, of those in heaven and of those on earth and of
those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Well, let's
apply this very quickly because I know we're running late. First
of all, this should be an encouragement to us to be humble. As Paul says
in Philippians 2, Christ himself humbled himself. How can we do
any less than that? A common theme in scripture is
that you are humbled before you are exalted. If you exalt yourself,
you will be humbled by God. Proverbs 29.23, a man's pride
will bring him low, but a humble spirit will obtain honor. James
4.10, humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord and he will
exalt you. And then Matthew 23.12 from Jesus' own lips, whoever
exalts himself shall be humbled and whoever humbles himself shall
be exalted. And besides responding in humility,
we also must respond in thanksgiving. Of course, 2 Corinthians 9.15,
Paul says, thanks be to God for his indescribable gift. That
is the gift that we hope truly celebrate at Christmastime. The
gift in that context is grace and salvation, but ultimately
that gift is Christ himself. Paul says in Romans 8.32, he
who did not spare his own son, but delivered him up for us all,
how will he not also with him freely give us all things? Christ
is the fountain from which all of our heavenly blessings flow. Without Christ, there's no grace,
there's no forgiveness, there's none of the gifts that we have.
But with Christ, we have everything that God can grant to us. Well, we're over time, so let's
pray. Father, we thank you for this Christmas story. We wouldn't
want to be like the world in forgetting who is at the center
of this wonderful, beautiful incarnation, to use a theological
term, but to use the term that means so much to us, Emmanuel,
God with us. Thank you that Jesus, the second
person of the Trinity, became this Jesus, became an embryo,
grew into a little baby, was born that day so many years ago,
became a little boy, grew to become a man, and eventually
died on a cross for our sins. It was raised and now sits at
your right hand. We thank you for that, for that truth that
he did not regard equality with God, something to be held on
to, but he gave that up for a time for our sakes. Thank you for
that great gift, for that great grace. Give us humble hearts
and give us thankful hearts this morning as we contemplate these
things further in Jesus name. Amen.
1689 Confession, ch. 31, State of Man After Death, Part 17, Heaven and Christmas
Series 1689 31 After Death
| Sermon ID | 6612025226750 |
| Duration | 34:05 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday School |
| Language | English |
Documents
Add a Comment
Comments
No Comments
© Copyright
2026 SermonAudio.