December 2, 2015

But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law,  to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons (NIV; Galatians 4:4-5).

            Yesterday I noted that Christmas is the beginning of God’s plan of salvation, not the end. Truth be told, it’s a little shocking how little emphasis Jesus’ birth gets in the New Testament. Matthew and Luke tell parts of the story; Mark and John completely skip it. Paul references it a small handful of times. It seems that Jesus’ birth is often simply taken for granted by the New Testament’s writers. It’s like they’re thinking, “Of course a man has to be born before he can die.”

            Jesus’ death is different. It fills the pages of the New Testament. It’s in His death that atonement is made, sin is paid for, redemption is won. You can’t have forgiveness without the death of Jesus. I once met a man who told me one Holy Week that he really didn’t like Good Friday; he found it gruesome. Yes, it is. Because sin and its consequences and costs are never pretty. But Jesus took that gruesomeness to Himself to save us from it.

            If we’re going to understand God’s ends, one more thing needs to be said. If Jesus had only been born and died, well, then nothing would have happened to Him than happens to every human. We have to push all the way to Easter and Jesus’ resurrection to understand things. In the fact that God vindicated Jesus by raising Him from the dead, all things become clear. In the light of the resurrection, we finally understand who this baby is (the one who is perfectly human, born of woman, and perfectly God, His Son from eternity) and we understand what His death meant (not the wages of His own sin, but the wages of our sin). In the resurrection, we receive the “full rights of sons.” In the resurrection we understand the whole story.