December 17, 2008

As I prepared for worship last week, I was reminded again of
the fact that the coming of Jesus into our fallen world has ethical
implications for God’s people. It’s easy to get distracted by the
sentimentality of the season and the busyness of parties and
shopping. It’s also a temptation to get stuck on the heavy theology
of the Son of God becoming a man, expressed most clearly
in the Westminster Confession of Faith 8.2: “The Son of God, the
second person in the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance
and equal with the Father, did, when the fullness of time was
come, take upon him man’s nature, with all the essential properties,
and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin; being conceived by
the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the virgin Mary, of her
substance. So that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead
and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person,
without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which person is
very God, and very man, yet one Christ, the only Mediator between
God and man.” Paul doesn’t have much sympathy for our
thoughtless sentimentalism or our harried freneticism, but he is
one of the primary sources of this incredible Christology. And
Paul understood that truth is for life; credenda (what we believe)
and agenda (how we live) always go together.

In particular, the truth of the incarnation (what theologians
call the “hypostatic union” of the two natures in the one person
of Christ) is not merely meant to be studied and learned and
comprehended – it is meant to be apprehended, applied, and
acted upon. We see this in at least three ways in the New Testament.
First, in Philippians 2:1-11 we learn that Jesus’ choice to
leave the glories of heaven in order to take to Himself the fragility
and finitude of a human nature is a pattern that should mark
us in every one of our relationships. We are to have the attitude
of Christ, to think the way He thought – namely, we must consider
others better than ourselves, we must humble ourselves
before our brothers and sister in Christ, we are to refuse to
cling to our rights in relationships, but must deny ourselves for
the good of one another. Every marriage can stand more reflection
on these verses!

Second, Jesus reminds us in the gospel of John that He has
sent us into the world “as [the Father] sent [Him] into the
world” (17:18). How did the Father send the Son into the
world? He sent Him as one of us, the Word become flesh and
dwelling among us, tasting our miseries and entering into our
pain. He was “despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows
and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). In the same way, Christ
sends us out into the world to dwell among it, suffering at its
hands and sharing in its sorrows. We share in the fellowship of
His sufferings (Phil. 3:10), making ourselves slaves to all that we
might win more, becoming all things to all men, that we might by
all means save some (I Cor. 9:19-23). We incarnate the love of
Christ to a lost world, not refusing the pain, in hopes that God
might use us to bring in His elect.

Finally (at least for this pastor’s corner, but certainly not for
the implications of the incarnation!), Paul reminds us that the selfsacrifice
of our Savior is the new standard for our financial generosity:
“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that
though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that
you through His poverty might become rich” (II Cor. 8:9) The
Corinthians had become slack in their giving to the work of God
in the world, and to where does Paul turn? To sublime Christology!
He says, in effect, “You haven’t thought long enough or hard
enough about Jesus Christ!” Don’t be afraid to give generously,
not only because you know that “God is able to make all grace
abound to you, so that always having all sufficiency in everything,
you may have an abundance for every good deed” (II Cor. 9:8),
but also because you know that in this way you are supremely
demonstrating Christ-likeness – the very goal of your election
(Rom. 8:29). So as you approach another year’s end, don’t ask,
“What’s the least I can get by with giving to God’s kingdom,” but
rather, “Lord, how much will you let me give away to see Your
name exalted among the earth? What can I give up in order to
help build Your church?”

In case you missed it in the bulletin last Sunday, hear again the
words of Donald Macleod: “Philippians 2:1-11 reminds us that
theology does not exist in a vacuum…It exists in order to be
applied to the day-to-day problems of the Christian church. Every
doctrine has its application. All Scripture is profitable and all the
doctrine is profitable. Similarly all the application must be based
on doctrine. In both Philippians 2:1-11 and II Corinthians 8:9, Paul
is dealing with what are surely comparative trivia, the problem of
vainglory in a Christian congregation and the problem of failure of
Christian liberality…Yet Paul, as he wrestles with both of them,
has recourse to the most massive theology…Who would ever
imagine that the response to the glory of the incarnation might be
to stop our quarreling and our divisiveness in the Christian
church? Paul is telling them, ‘You have these practical problems;
the answer is theological; remember your theology and place your
behavior in the light of that theology. Place your little problems in
the light of the most massive theology.’”

May our meditation on the Lord’s incarnation, and our transformed
life as a result, not be reserved for one month or one day
a year, but 52 Lord’s Days a year, even 365 days a year.

Caleb