Behold the Birth of Christ

by Andy Caldwell

Angels We Have Heard on High

On that glorious day, there were some shepherds keeping watch over their flock by night, when suddenly an angel of the Lord stood before them, and said to them, “Behold, I bring you good news of a great joy which shall be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord”. And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased”.   What child was this who arrived on that holy night?

Unfortunately, the eternal truth of this narrative is meaningless to a significant number of young people in America who, being steeped in atheism and agnosticism, either altogether deny there is a God or question if anyone can know for sure.  This is calamitous for America, for as founding father and President John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other”!

Nonetheless, the Bible declares that Jesus was the exact representation of the nature of God.  He was infinitely loving, kind, compassionate and humble, but he also detested evil in all its various forms.  That is, Christ, as a reflection of the glory and image of God, held in perfect tension, all of God’s nature including love and wrath, forgiveness and mercy, and judgement and grace, with nary a contradiction.  Moreover, the scriptures declare that God’s invisible attributes are clearly seen through the ongoing miracle of His creation so that there is no excuse for either atheism or agnosticism.

The apostle Paul, while speaking to an ancient version of a think tank in the form of Mars Hill in Greece, said something very prescient.  He said that the nature of God is not formed by either the art or thought of man.  That is, God’s nature, his very existence, is independent of our thoughts, judgements, unbelief, and wishful thinking.  In other words, we do not have the luxury of making God in our image.  On the contrary, we are made in His image and that image has been distorted by both sin, idolatry, and unbelief.

Love, Hate and the Defeat of Death

For those who can’t fathom that God’s nature simultaneously includes both wrath and perfect love, resulting in either damnation or salvation, well then, you are at a loss as to why you need a savior.  For the very reason Jesus was born was to pay the price for the sins of mankind and thereby defeat death to bring humanity into a right relationship with God for eternity.

Consider the verse John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten son that whosoever will believe in him will have eternal life”.  Furthermore, there in the following verses, John 3:17-20, Jesus says “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world should be saved through Him.  He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.  And this is the judgement, that the light is come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light, for their deeds were evil.  For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.” 

This Christmas holiday, please consider the words of President Ronald Reagan (which echo those of President Adams) who warned “that if as a nation we cease to live as one nation under God, then we will soon be a nation gone under”.