Tree Trimmings #12: God With Us (Part 2)

Psalm 136 is not what you'd call a classic "Christmas text".  I can't see why not though.  It's one passage of scripture that is remarkably balanced between God's amazing works, awful wrath, and the awesome worship He deserves due to His faithful love.  When we consider that Christmas marks the coming of the "Mighty God", here's a good snapshot of Who He is:

The Most High:  "Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good... give thanks to the God of gods... give thanks to the Lord of lords... who alone does great wonders"  (Psalm 136:1-4).  God stands alone as the supreme being and most revered of all celestial personalities.

The Creator:  "...to him who by understanding  made the heavens... who spread out the earth above the waters... who made the great lights...the sun to rule over the day... the moon and stars to rule over the night..."  (Psalm 136:5-9).  He is the manufacturer, designer, and owner of all that is.  He delegates authority as He pleases and even celestial bodies do His bidding.

The Judge: "...to him who struck down the firstborn of Egypt... and overthrew Pharaoh and his host into the red sea..."  (Psalm 136:10 and Psalm 136:15).  God condemns the wicked at a time and in a way He knows to be expedient for their destruction and for His own glory.  Who do you know of that has done anything people will be talking about 4000 years from now?  But that Red Sea tho...

The Deliverer:  "... who brought Israel out from among them... with a strong hand and an outstretched arm... who divided the Red Sea in two... and made Israel pass through the midst of it... who led his people through the wilderness..." (Psalm 136:11-16).  The Mighty God makes distinctions between those who are His and those who are not (Exodus 8:22, Exodus 11:7, and 2nd Timothy 2:19).  Since all have sinned and fallen short of His glory, He is free to bestow saving grace upon whoever He pleases.  Whoever has found a refuge in Him is blessed indeed!

The Warrior:  "... to him who struck down great kings, and killed mighty kings... Sihon, king of the Amorites, and Og, king of Bashan" (Psalm 136:17-20).  The rapper Jadakiss once observed, "Dead rappers get better promotion."  The wrestler known as "Undertaker", somewhere along his very long and storied career, used to threaten his opponents by saying, "I'll make you famous".  But God has been famous for making the vast majority of his opponents nameless.  He decimates and destroys the unrepentant.  He overcomes and overwhelms those who stand against His people.  Woe to the one who refuses to kiss the Son.

The Promise Keeper:  "... who gave their land as a heritage to Israel... who remembered us in our low estate... and rescued us from our foes... who gives food to all flesh..." (Psalm 136:21-26).  Promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are all kept.  God delivered on each and every one of them (Joshua 21:43-45).  

The might of God's power is matched only by the power of His faithful love which, along with His glory motivates and informs all that He does.  It is altogether astonishing to consider the One residing in a virgin womb as the inventor of it.  We are blown away to consider the Mighty God as a little helpless baby learning to walk on legs He designed.  And although He is a judge and warrior, He came to defend the guilty and make peace with His enemies.

We might well say along with David when he wrote in Psalm 139:6, "such knowledge is too lofty for me to attain".  But then again, what should we expect when we experience Emmanuel the incomparable and Mighty God with us.

Tree Trimmings #11: God With Us (Part 1)

"So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: 'Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel,' which is translated, 'God with us.'"

Matthew 1:22-23

When we say Jesus in the flesh was, "God with us", what does that mean?  We simply must look at the way Jesus had previously been revealed prior to His birth to understand better what His incarnation meant.  To begin our quest, we look briefly at John 1:18 as the Rosetta Stone to interpret for us how we should understand the various appearances of God in the Holy Scriptures:

"No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him."

Whew!  That's worth re-reading.  I'll insert brackets to assist:

"No one has seen God at any time [if you're not Trinitarian, you're in trouble]; the only begotten God [neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit are ever described as having been "begotten" so, that leaves You Know Who] who is in the bosom of the Father [hmm... we have God with God and God at the side of God... sounds a lot like John 1:1-2 here], He [Jesus is the Son of God which logically makes Him "the only begotten God"] has explained [revealed] Him [the Father]."

Simple enough, right?

Well, it seems pretty straight forward from this verse of scripture, almost everything I used to think about God in the Old Testament was wrong.  I used to believe that every time God spoke/appeared or was otherwise revealed before Christ's birth, it had to be The Father.  It's so strange because if you had asked me whether I believed in Christ's existence before His birth, I would have said "yes".  But then, I'd go along making impositions on the Bible as if I denied it.  Anyways...

John 1:18 appears presents a problem when we consider texts like, Genesis 18:1; Exodus 24:9-11; Numbers 12:6-8.  How can it be that "no one has seen God" when these OT passages clearly speak of persons seeing God.  Plain and simple, the Bible says that Abraham saw Yahweh.  Up to and at least 70 elders of Israel saw Yahweh.  Then we find that Moses sees Yahweh's form.  This is especially confusing when Jesus tells us in John 4:24 that God is a Spirit (what form does a spirit have?) and 1st Timothy 6:16 says that seeing God hasn't happened nor CAN it happen.  How do we answer this question?

Well, like any kid who's ever been to Sunday School knows, when you can't answer the question, just say "Jesus".  And in this case, it's not just the trite thing to do, it's the most profound answer possible. 

As one who holds to the doctrine of the Trinity, I believe Jesus is God.  But I don't believe that Jesus is the Father.  In the OT, there weren't any obvious or plain distinctions between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Perhaps this is in part because God's first step in revealing Himself is was to impress the singularity of His being upon His people.  We can see that being essential because of the polytheistic systems of religion that had to be avoided and denied by Israel in order that they would be the Lord's people.  

But the revelation of Jesus requires a distinction between persons in the Godhead.  In NT talk, "God" is almost always a reference to the Father and "Son" is naturally a reference to Jesus.  So we find that Jesus is SENT by God although He is God (even OT passages hint to this kind of distinction, see the speaker in Zechariah 2:8-11).  

Therefore, when we see a passage like John 1:18, declaring that no one has ever seen God it says plainly that those who saw Yahweh didn't see the Father, but they saw the Son.  Jesus is the One Abraham, Moses and the 70 elders saw.  Jesus is the One Who has explained and revealed the Father, not only in the NT but in the OT as well.  .  John 1:18 has not introduced a contradiction, but a clarification.  

So all those times God appeared in the Old Testament, that was Jesus?  Yes.  All the judgement, all the fire, all the thunder-- that was Jesus?  Yes, yes, and yes.  Amazingly, "God with us" did not come to kill as many had feared (see Exodus 20:18-19).  Emmanuel came to save us.  

Tree Trimming #5 (or #4 Part II): Christ the Lord

"For unto you is born this day, in the City of David, a Savior, Who is Christ the Lord."

Luke 2:11

The most stunning aspect of the Savior's identity is that He isn't only the Advocate of the guilty but also the Judge of the condemned.  In the previous post from this series on Tree Trimmings, I stated that there was a much greater threat to non-believers than the Devil of hell could ever be or impose.  The greatest threat to the unrepentant sinner is God.  The fact that so many might bristle at the thought of this speaks to how poorly we have understood the extent of God's love demonstrated in Christ to save the undeserving.

In Genesis 18:25, just before God carried out sentencing on Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham called Him "the Judge of all the earth".  Psalm 1 is celebrated as a passage with an encouraging picture of the righteous.  However, that particular psalm has just as much to say about the wicked (Psalm 1:4-6).  In fact, Psalms is a book that many retreat to for comfort and "inspiration" because of the emotional and poetic expressions of highs and lows of this life.  But God's emotions are also on display-- see Psalm 7:11, Psalm 90:7-9, and Psalm 110:6.  The prophetic utterances in Jeremiah 11:11 and Zephaniah 3:8 have varied contexts but both express God's red-hot anger against sin and righteousness in judging those who despise and disobey His law.  This is not just an Old Testament thing.  

James, the brother of Jesus makes it clear that as a judge, God both defends and destroys (James 4:12).  Peter writes the church to assure them that their accusers will have to answer to God for their sins against His people (1st Peter 4:5).  Luke's account of apostolic preaching is riddled with references to judgement (Acts 10:42, Acts 17:30-31, etc.).  Paul explains that God is not only judging the visible and vocal sins but the sinful expressions hidden from others within our thoughts, attitudes, and emotions (Romans 2:16).  For anyone so deceived to believe that their good deeds will outweigh their bad deeds on Judgement Day, the Apostle writes,

"Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God.  Therefore no one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law; rather through the law we become conscious of sin."

Romans 3:19-20

At this point, someone will argue that I'm over-doing it.  Why go on and on about God as judge?  The title in this post isn't "Judge", after all.  I labor the point of judgement because at this time of year, maybe the last thing on even the Christian's mind is the judgement with which God could have righteously executed upon the earth at His first visit (Christmas).  But it is precisely because of the fact that the human race collectively and individually worthy of the God's guilty verdict (Romans 3:9) that Christ the Lord came to save.

The immensity of His work as Savior is directly proportional to the wrath which was due us.  Minimize one, and you've depreciated the other.  Omit one and the other is null and void.

Asking for one's opinion of who/what the "Messiah" or "Christ" would do/be carried almost as many conceptions as there were people to share them.  Political leader, teacher, arch-rebel against Rome, military genius... one's guess may have been as good as another.  But the celestial statement was probably more shocking than anything almost anyone could have expected, hoped for, or feared: this savior is Christ the Lord; God Himself.

To be sure, Israel has had many saviors and deliverers before Jesus.  A host of relatively unknown characters from the Old Testament were said to have saved/delivered Israel (Judges 3:9, Judges 3:31, Judges 8:22).  But this Savior is the one who saved the saviors.  And what's so awesome about Him is that, in a very real sense, He has saved all those who trust in Him unto Himself, from Himself.  When have you ever seen a judge take off his robe, relinquish gavel, and become the defense attorney for the guilty?  Who else but Christ the Lord!