This is our last series production for A Wonderful Day in the Lord for this year, 2021. It has been a long year. It has been a tough year in many ways, but in other ways it has gone very quickly. What I would like to do to finish out 2021 is to stay with the issue of the incarnation. Last week we looked at the incarnation itself, the coming of Jesus Christ as the great Godman. I’d like to spend these next five days looking at the implications of the incarnation. What does it mean to us? How does it apply to us that God became a man? In some respects, almost everything that we believe and trust in goes back to what Jesus Christ did when He came to earth as our Savior. I’d like to pick out five different implications of the incarnation that are expressed very clearly in the New Testament.
The first one, is that He has come to explain to us more fully who God is. There are three different ways that the Godhead is explained or revealed according to Scripture:
1. Nature. Romans 1:18-20 says, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” So, Scripture teaches in numerous places - Psalms 8 and 19 and various different places - about the fact that we know much about God on the basis of what we see in the world around us. The nature and universe around us reveal the glory of God. So, we do have some understanding of God from nature.
2. Old Testament Scriptures. The Scriptures in the Old Testament are replete with information about who God is and what He does. It is such a joy to read much of that Scripture especially in places like the Psalms that reveal so much about our God in those wonderful Psalms.
3. Jesus Christ. A fuller revelation about God is found in Jesus Christ. We pick that up in John 1:14 which says, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” “The Word” here is going back to John 1:1-2, the logos, which is Jesus Christ the Son of God. He became flesh. This logos became flesh. He lived among us, and “we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father.” So, there are some aspects of the glory of God that is seen in the person of Jesus Christ when He was here on earth in the flesh. In some sense, the glory of God was veiled so that when Jesus was in a human form, we did not get to see the full manifestation of the wonder of God, but there are aspects of the glory of God seen in the incarnation, in the Son of God. John 1:18 goes on to explain this further saying, “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” What a wonderful verse of Scripture. The Scriptures are clear that no one has ever seen the full glory, the full manifestation, of God. It is not possible for a human to see the full manifestation of God and live. He lives in indescribable light . . .
