What “Christmas Spirit” Ought to Really Imply

The Christmas Spirit

For you recognize the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that although he was wealthy, but on your sake he turned poor, so that you just by his poverty would possibly grow to be wealthy.
—2 Corinthians 8:9

It’s right here, within the factor that occurred on the first Christmas, that the profoundest and most unfathomable depths of the Christian revelation lie. “The Phrase turned flesh” (John 1:14); God turned man; the divine Son turned a Jew; the Almighty appeared on earth as a helpless human child, unable to do greater than lie and stare and wriggle and make noises. Needing to be fed and altered and taught to speak like some other little one. And there was no phantasm or deception on this; the babyhood of the Son of God was a actuality. The extra you concentrate on it, the extra staggering it will get. Nothing in fiction is so implausible as is that this reality of the incarnation.

How are we to consider the incarnation: The New Testomony doesn’t encourage us to puzzle our heads over the bodily and psychological issues that it raises, however to worship God for the love that was proven in it. For it was an excellent act of condescension and self-humbling. “He, Who had at all times been God by nature,” writes Paul, “didn’t cling to His prerogatives as God’s equal, however stripped Himself of all privilege by consenting to be a slave by nature and being born as mortal man. And, having grow to be man, He humbled Himself by dwelling a lifetime of utter obedience, even to the extent of dying, and the demise he died was the demise of a standard prison” (Phil. 2:6, phillips). And all this was for our salvation.

The important thing textual content within the New Testomony for decoding the incarnation is just not, subsequently, the naked assertion in John 1:14, “the Phrase turned flesh and made his dwelling amongst us,” however slightly the extra complete assertion of two Corinthians 8:9, “you recognize the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that although he was wealthy, but on your sakes he turned poor, so that you just via his poverty would possibly grow to be wealthy.” Right here is said, not the actual fact of the incarnation solely, but in addition its that means; the taking of manhood by the Son is ready earlier than us in a manner that reveals us how we should always set it earlier than ourselves and ever view it—not merely as a marvel of nature, however slightly as a surprise of grace.

For the Son of God to empty himself and grow to be poor meant a laying apart of glory; a voluntary restraint of energy; an acceptance of hardship, isolation, ill-treatment, malice, and misunderstanding; lastly, a demise that concerned such agony—non secular, much more than bodily—that his thoughts practically broke below the prospect of it. It meant like to the uttermost for unlovely males, who “via his poverty, would possibly grow to be wealthy.” This Christmas message is that there’s hope for a ruined humanity—hope of pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory—as a result of on the Father’s will Jesus Christ turned poor and was born in a secure in order that thirty years later he would possibly hold on a cross. It’s the most great message that the world has ever heard, or will hear.

We speak glibly of the “Christmas spirit,” hardly ever that means extra by this than sentimental jollity on a household foundation. However what we’ve stated makes it clear that the phrase ought to in actual fact carry an amazing weight of that means. It should imply the reproducing in human lives of the mood of him who for our sakes turned poor on the first Christmas. And the Christmas spirit itself should be the mark of each Christian all of the 12 months spherical.

If God in mercy revives us, one of many issues he’ll do will likely be to work extra of this spirit in our hearts and lives.

It’s our disgrace and shame as we speak that so many Christians—I will likely be extra particular: so most of the soundest and most orthodox Christians—undergo this world within the spirit of the priest and the Levite in our Lord’s parable, seeing human wants throughout them, however (after a pious want, and maybe a prayer, that God would possibly meet them) averting their eyes, and passing by on the opposite aspect. That’s not the Christmas spirit. Neither is it the spirit of these Christians—alas, they’re many—whose ambition in life appears restricted to constructing a pleasant middle-class Christian residence, and making good middle-class Christian buddies, and citing their kids in good middle-class Christian methods, and who depart the sub-middle-class sections of the group, Christian and non-Christian, to get on by themselves.

The Christmas spirit doesn’t shine out within the Christian snob. For the Christmas spirit is the spirit of those that, like their Grasp, reside their complete lives on the precept of constructing themselves poor—spending and being spent—to counterpoint their fellow males, giving time, hassle, care, and concern, to do good to others—and never simply their very own buddies—in no matter manner there appears want. There will not be as many who present this spirit as there ought to be.

If God in mercy revives us, one of many issues he’ll do will likely be to work extra of this spirit in our hearts and lives. If we want non secular quickening for ourselves individually, one step we should always take is to hunt to domesticate this spirit. “Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that although he was wealthy, but on your sakes he turned poor, that ye via his poverty is perhaps wealthy.” “Let this thoughts be in you, which was additionally in Christ Jesus.” “I run within the path of your instructions, for you’ve gotten set my coronary heart free.” (Ps. 119:32)

This text is by J. I. Packer and is tailored from Come, Thou Lengthy-Anticipated Jesus: Experiencing the Peace and Promise of Christmas edited by Nancy Guthrie.

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