Why in world did God prophecy that Jesus would come to the earth as a baby? We can usually figure out Son. This daily devotional looks at the benefits of God’s Son being born as a baby.
Nuggets
- It seems strange that, when His people needed a Deliverer, God sent a baby.
- Jesus not only showed us God’s character, but He also showed us what was the heavenly ideal — what perfection looks like.
- Sons have the same nature as their father.
- God sent His best — His Son — to all of us.
Devotions in the Prophecy of the Christ Child series
Growing up, I had trouble understanding why God would send a baby to be the Savior of the world. I could figure out why He sent a Son, but why didn’t He just ship Him down here when He was 30? Let’s check it out.
Let's Put It into Context
The Holman Bible Dictionary defines prophecy as “reception and declaration of a word from the Lord through a direct prompting of the Holy Spirit and the human instrument thereof.”
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Prophecy is a divine revelation to mankind through the Holy Spirit of a future event. This was God telling us that we would be delivered.
Why Did We Need a Child?
“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Isa. 9: 6 KJV)
It seems strange that, when His people needed a Deliverer, God sent a baby. Don’t we generally want our prayers to be answered right now? What would we gain by waiting for a baby to grow up?
But God wasn’t just answering His people’s prayer for their physical deliverance. He was sending a spiritual Savior.
That Baby had to be one of us to pay the penalty for our sins. Sins are actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
Because Jesus was born to a human, He obtained human nature. Ross wrote, “With regard to the reality of His human nature, the Scripture assures us, that it was of the same kind with ours, consisting of a human body and a human soul.”
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The Baby had to be one of us to experience what we do. Jesus had to experience growing pains. He had to experience temptation. He had to experience the death of His earthly father.
Jesus couldn’t be the Savior who experienced all of the challenges we do unless He had experienced all the challenges that we do. He couldn’t do that in a day.
Bannerman put it this way. He wrote, “(1) It was necessary that the Son of God should be made man, because otherwise He could not have stood in man’s place and dealt with God on man’s behalf, nor suffered and died, as it was needful to suffer and die, in order to offer a true atonement for human guilt. (2) It was necessary that the Son of God should become man in order that He might be qualified to enter into our human feelings and fears, and to furnish us with a pledge of His sympathy in all our infirmities and temptations.”
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Maclennan reminded us that Jesus not only showed us God’s character, but He also showed us what was the heavenly ideal — what perfection looks like. How can we work on being perfect in this life if we don’t know what that looks like?
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Glossary
We have to remember, though, that Isaiah said this Baby was going to be born to a virgin (Isa. 7: 14). His birth is going to defy the laws of nature.
We don’t want to get so caught up in the Child part that we miss the us part. Jesus is the Deliverer of every Tom, Sally, and Elaine. Boston wrote, “It is ‘to us,’ the sons and daughters of Adam; we are His poor relations; and to us as His poor relations on earth, sons of Adam’s family, whereof He is the top branch, this Child is presented born, for our comfort in our low state.”
Oh, yeah. We may be low man on the totem pole. But we are on the totem pole. We have value to Jesus. He gave His life to redeem us.
Let’s go at this another way. We find out several months in advance that a baby is going to be born. We get to prepare for the arrival. We get to anticipate and look forward to the baby joining our family.
Mary and Joseph anticipated the birth of Jesus. Israel anticipated the birth of the Messiah.
Why Did We Need a Son?
“Anyone who believes in him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God” (Jn. 3: 18 CSB)
Let’s start off this part of our discussion about God sending a Son by remembering the importance of sons, specifically first-born sons. They were not only the head of the family, but they also received a double portion of the inheritance. It was their function to ensure the family continued.
Ross explained the various iterations of identifying Jesus as the Son of God. He wrote, “He is often called in Scripture the Son of God, His own Son, His only-begotten and well-beloved Son, and as such is said to be given to us.”
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The thing we have to remember is that sons have the same nature as their father. Jesus is no different. He said, “… Whoever has seen me has seen the Father …” (Jn. 14: 9 ESV).
We can’t just focus on Jesus’ human side. Yes, He was 100% human.
Jesus was also 100% God. It is because of this we have the hope that He will save us from penalty of our sins when we ask. Hope is a future expectation, called a living hope, based on the confidence that our names will be found in the book of life.
We don’t want to gloss over was given. Jesus was the gift given by God to mankind.
- Jesus was a gift so, when we go to accept the gift, there are no strings attached. There are responsibilities attached, but the gift is offered to everyone.
- God was the Giver, so we know it is a good and perfect gift. God’s nature would allow no less.
- The gift was given to mankind. Not to angels. Not to a select group of people. It is given to everyone.
The Christ Child Was the Prophesied Child and Son
“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord” (Lk. 2: 11 KJV)
Did you see it? Did you? “For unto you …” (Lk. 2: 11 KJV). “For unto us …” (Isa. 9: 6 KJV).
Oh, the shepherds may not have really thought a Savior would be coming for them. They, too, probably had a laundry list of things that they thought disqualified them from who received the Messiah.
God didn’t see it that way. God sent His best — His Son — to them.
God sent His best — His Son — to all of us.
Hutton pointed out that God designated Jesus as the Savior. Nothing we did or don’t do changes that.
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Nothing we do or can acquire will give us salvation. Salvation is deliverance from evil and the consequences of sins to replace them with good and eternal life.
Did you also see when the shepherds got the birth announcement? “For unto you is born this day …” (Lk. 2: 11 KJV).
God didn’t wait a couple of days for Mary to get over childbirth. They didn’t have time to move out of the stable if a room had opened up.
God didn’t want to waste a minute. Salvation was finally available to mankind. He didn’t want anyone to die in their sin without hearing of the salvation.
Making the Connections
I know. I know. It is so hard to understand this because we want to keep it in the physical realm. We are talking spiritual realm here.
We aren’t talking salvation from disease or poverty. We aren’t talking about righting social injustices.
We are talking righting the separation from our Creator — Sovereign God.
The Christ Child — God’s own Son — was given to us to right the most important wrong. This is the wrong that has eternal consequences.
Jesus came to deliver us from those consequences. All of us. The whole of mankind.
All who will accept Him.
How Do We Apply This?
We said that Jesus was a gift from God to mankind. We know the gift is offered to everyone.
But we have to receive that gift. We have to accept Jesus as our Savior.
Yeah. I know I am repeating myself. Sometimes, we have to hear it a couple of times before we start accepting it.
We start accepting through faith. Faith is the conviction that the doctrines revealed in God’s Word are true, even if we do not understand all aspects of them, a belief which impacts our lives.
We have to believe and receive. Believing that there is a God isn’t enough. Believing that Jesus is the Son of God isn’t enough.
We have to receive the gift by confessing God as Sovereign God and submitting to His Will.
This isn’t about living forever. This isn’t about bettering ourselves.
This is about admitting a sin was committed by others that affected our status with our Creator. This is about righting that.
Father God. You sent Your Son to be born in this world for us. You sent Him unto us. We are humbled and grateful. We can do nothing to right the wrong that plunged man into sin. The only thing we can do is accept Your gift of salvation. We pray that all who read this, all who hear of You this season, all who are searching for You come to accept that gift. Amen.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to
live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
What do you think?
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