 By James H. Cagle |
“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life” (1 John 1: 1 KJV).
There were those in John’s day known as the Gnostics that did not believe that Jesus Christ was incarnate or had come in the flesh, and as a human lived and walked among men.
John however gives personal testimony to the fact that He who was from the beginning in eternity past was an actual man who spoke and that he heard with his own ears, and one who he saw with his own eyes, and one who he looked or gazed upon as he ministered among men and who he studied or meditated upon, and who on several occasions he handled with his hands and was therefore able by all his natural senses to verify His physical existence through contact with Him.
John also says in his gospel that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (Jn. 1: 1, 14).
In order for fallen man to be redeemed back to God there had to be a sinless sacrifice. Such a sacrifice could not be found among men for all were sinners. Jesus Christ came from Heaven to earth and lived a sinless life to be that sinless sacrifice to save sinful man.
Jesus Christ is the Son who was given by God but the child who was born of woman (Is. 9: 6). Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God who came in the likeness (not exactly like but almost exactly excluding a sinful nature) of man so He could experience death and pay the penalty for man’s sin, which is death, that He might reconcile man back to God.
Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins (Heb. 9: 22). But no sins could be remitted without the blood of Jesus who was the spotless Lamb being shed and that blood could not exist and be shed without His humanity.
Jesus Christ took on flesh, became a mortal man, and lived a few years among us in order to shed His blood to atone for sinful man so that sinful man through faith in His finished work of redemption on Calvary could spend eternity with Him in Heaven.
This is why there is a Christmas story. Why there is a babe in a manger. God gave as the most precious gift He had, His Son, so that He may give eternal life to all who put their faith in Him. Jesus was born to die so that we may live. That is the Christmas story.
