For This Was Jesus Christ Born

I have a friend that I will call George in this piece to ensure that I maintain the peace between us. One day as we were driving by a big old church building, whose architecture rang of spectacular antiquity, he suddenly pointed at the building and said to me, “Bet if I take off the roof of that church to go down into it they would arrest me.”

Nonchalantly without hesitation I responded, “You win the bet and I would agree with them.”

He enjoyed a hearty laugh and then said, “Why? Some men did it when Jesus was here and they did not get arrested.”

I answered. “Therein lies all the reason why I would agree with them not only to arrest you, but to lock you in a sanatorium and throw away the key. There is absolutely no parallel between you vandalizing and damaging the people’s property, and what those men in the Bible did”.

He burst out into another round of hilarious laughter. I kept my eyes on the road showing no expression on my countenance. Recovering from his laughter he asked,

“How so?”

“Firstly, you are in a very different time and culture. Secondly, the architecture and construction here would not allow for such ease of removing the roof as those men had. Thirdly, Jesus was not in a church at all, he was in a house. Fourthly, you do not know to whom the house belonged. Maybe it belonged to one of the persons involved, so they had all the authority of ownership to do what they did. A vital element you definitely do not have in this proposed idea of yours. In the fifth degree, you would need a friend who is really sick on a stretcher and three more lunatics like yourself for it to vaguely resemble the Jesus’ incident. And here is the clincher, on the sixth level, Jesus would have to be in that particular church in person; and what more, you and your friends cannot get in to Him, because too many people are before you”.

By now he was doubling over with laughter. If we were not in a moving car with seat belt and all, I’m certain he would be rolling on the floor. Finally he was able to speak and said, “ I guess I would have no defence eh?”

“You would not even have a chance to show purpose much less defence.”

After a few more bouts of giggles he said, “I see.”

We both laugh then.

That humorous moment came back to my mind today when I was thinking of the birth of Jesus Christ, His life and purpose on the earth. The Bible says that He went about doing good (Acts 10:38). He healed the sick, as the man that my friend alluded to above. His friends wanted to take him to Jesus, but they could not get in, because of the crowd, so take climbed up took off the roof and let their friend down in front of Jesus, the Son of God. He raised the dead and gave them back alive to their loved ones. He made the blind to see, the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak. He fed them when they were hungry. He delivered them from lunacy and demon possession. He taught them wisdom, knowledge, and gave them understanding and hope. He enlightened them about the Father and the way to the eternal kingdom of God. He instructed them about the devil and his wiles; and proved to them that he was defeated. He manifested love, peace, truth, joy, faith, righteousness, obedience, humility and showed them how they can live victoriously and powerfully in this present world, and how to have hope for the life to come.

Four Unified Gospel Accounts

There are four gospel accounts of the earthly life of Jesus Christ in relationship to God and Man. (“Man” is both male and female.) These are namely: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, in that order. Only Matthew and Luke speak particularly of Christ’s actual conception in the womb and subsequent birth. The fast-paced actions of Mark’s writings portray Him as an extremely busy Servant going about doing the work of the Father. John presents Christ as pre-incarnate to His life on earth. According to John, “All things were made by Him, and in Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:3-4.) In short, Christ is God. Matthew identifies Jesus as Israel’s long awaited Messiah. The Old Testament sets the place of His birth – Bethlehem Ephratah – as an identifying factor of the Messiah. So by necessity minute details of Jesus’ birth had to be included in his account; so that those who want proof of Christ being the Saviour can have it. Likewise, Luke being a doctor by profession, having intimate conversations with Mary, Jesus’ mother, and whose mandate is to show Christ as the perfect Man, find it very natural to give specifications of Jesus’ birth.

If you desire objectivity in the gospel accounts, you might want to note that Luke being Greek was not numbered among the twelve disciples of Christ, and neither was Mark. They simply wrote what they saw; Luke to share the truth of the person of Christ with his friend Theophilus; and Mark, because he was enthralled with the effectiveness of Christ to deliver men from bondages. And so we have the life of Christ on the earth. If one want a panoramic view of Christ’s earthly ministry in the body of His flesh, then he (or she) has to read all four accounts of the one gospel. Now please do not take “panoramic” to mean complete details, because John is certain to certify in his account that Jesus did more things that were not written in any book, because if they were to try to write everything that Christ did, the whole world would not be able to contain the books, which is to say that it was impossible to record all that Jesus did. In fact between the four gospel accounts we have less than four hours of Jesus’ activities.

A Cameo Glimpse of Christ’s Earthly Life

The accounts encompass three years of Jesus’ adult life, but only about four hours of those three years. The reader gets only cameo shots of Christ’s doings. If you want to test this theory there are two methods by which you can do so. One – read the longest gospel account in one sitting. (Incidentally, that would be the Book of Matthew.) Even if you are a very slow reader, it should take you a lot less than four hours. Or two – go through each of the gospels and estimate how many minutes of each miracle or teaching is recorded. Add them up and see if you get more than four hours. For example when Jesus fed the five thousand men besides women and children, the Bible says that they were out there all day, but we only see the time it takes Him to get the disciples to find Him the bread and fish. He blessed the five loaves and the two small fishes, then He gave them to His disciples and told them to share it to the people in companies. The next thing we are told is that after they had all eaten and were filled they had twelve baskets left over. That account is less than ten minutes of a whole-day episode.

The Greatest Thing that Christ Did On Earth

I used to think that the miracles and teachings of Christ were the greatest things of His life on earth, until I read Psalm132:11 which shows me plain straight that “the LORD sworn in truth unto David …. (that) of the fruit of his body would He set upon his throne”. This means that God told David that one day He (God) would become a Man and sit upon his (David’s) throne. This is confirmed in John 1:14 which reads, “The Word (which was God in the beginning) was made flesh and dwelt among us”. And again in Hebrews 2:14 which says, “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same…” The greatest thing that God the Creator did was to transform Himself into the lower life form of one of His creations, and yet maintained all of His being. Nothing or nobody else can do that. Man can invent and make many things, but a man cannot make himself into one of his own creations. Let alone to make himself like something that he created, and yet maintained his original self. Flesh and blood is a lower form than spirit. God is a spirit (John 4:24) but when He condescended to flesh and blood, He was still in full authority and function ontologically. WOW! What greatness. There is none like Him.

Why Did Christ Come to Earth (John 6:38-40)

So for what purpose did God bring Himself to be subjected to the earthly life of fallen Man? The answer rings of love, pure love. He came down to bring us up. We had lost the Way (John 14:6) of life and was speeding with reckless abandon towards death. No one else could reroute us, but the Lord of glory Himself. We had sold ourselves to the enemy of God for nought, and He had to be made into our kinsman in order to redeem us. God had started a work in eternity to make Man exactly as Himself, and we were not completed, when we sided with evil, and interrupted our process. God will not be daunted. What He has started He will definitely finish. Since earth is where we are at, then He had to come here. When Adam and Eve sinned in Eden, bondage and death entered Man’s blood line. All human being is gendered through Adam’s lineage, and inherited polluted sin-infested blood. Sin, our slave master before redemption, demanded pure sinless blood (from Man) as the price to buy us back. Therefore, no one from Adam’s lineage had the blood necessary to redeem the race. God had to make Himself a Man, equipped with the price of our redemption to buy us back. When He poured out His blood in the earth at Calvary, He paid the price and Man’s redemption was paid in full. Thank You Jesus.

Those of us from Adam’s fallen race, who believe this and accept Christ by faith, is infused with the pure blood of Christ, by baptism in His name, and as we ingest the words of God daily, then we are being completed in Christ. If we abort not this process, then one of these days we will awake in His image and after His own likeness, which was what He set out to do before time was. Shout hallelujah! Death and the devil is defeated and we are set free, by the finished work of Christ on the cross, in the grave and through us. And yes, He had to be born on the earth as a Man to complete His work here. Praise the Lord! Jesus Christ has proven Himself to be Lord in heaven, earth and under the earth! He was born in the human race, so I could be born again in the God race. I have accepted Him and praise the Lord. I am redeemed, a new creature in Christ Jesus my Lord and Saviour. Bless the Lord OH my soul!

The Christmas Season

It is Christmas. It’s the time of year that the world recognizes the birth of Christ as Man on the earth. (I am attempting to make it plain for all.) Many have lost sight of the true meaning of the season. Many more do not even realize the reason for the season. Commercialism permeates the atmosphere, and confusion reigns. “Mas” the last syllable of the word means “birth”, so thus Christmas denotes Christ’s birth. It seems so obvious. However, today there is so much controversy as Christianity is subjected to sabotage. In an attempt to erase the memory of Christ, it is now considered politically incorrect and offensive to say the word, which is an accepted part of the English vocabulary. It is downright ungrateful to reject Christ, after all He has done to save mankind. And if some do not believe the Christ’s story, why persecute those who do? In the West here we still have the democratic right of freedom of speech and religion. So I do not know how a person could lose his/her job for upholding Christmas. Christmas nor the things of Christ are not being used against anyone, so why are the others offended? Why do not they simply ignore us? How is the retention of Christ hurting anyone? The sad fact is that many Christians do not even see December 25th as Christ’s true date of birth, but they are persecuted for acknowledging Christ. If you take Christ out of Christmas what would you have left? An empty “mas” or mess. Christians need to recognize their legacy and stand up together for our inheritance.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to All – Just and Unjust.