The Plan Revealed

Does anyone noticing the wonder of Christmas know where this sense of wonder comes from? Do we understand the power of the Holy Spirit who puts hearts at rest, fills us with generosity, gives us this unusual joy that begins a few weeks earlier than the day? Do we know why our hearts are more deeply grieved at the losses of loved ones now more than ever? What is it about Christmas that brings out emotions, makes us smile at excited children, or even produces a ‘bah, humbug’ in attempts to avoid the delight of it?

I know Christmas is challenging for some. Those with limited budget, or no faith, or another faith, or the loss of dear ones, yet there is this thing in the air. Some call it the spirit of the season, or related to the delights of giving and receiving, but could it be that this is the Spirit of God reminding us that love came down? That He did not want heaven without us? That we, sinful and proud of our own goodness really know nothing about goodness until that Baby was born?

The reality of Christmas is that God loves us, yet He cannot welcome us to Himself because of our sin. Sin separates. It separates relationships, married people, fathers from their children, but most seriously, us from our Creator. What is He to do about that? Christmas is the beginning of a plan created long before humanity appeared:

He (Jesus) was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you (1 Peter 1:20)

While the Jews who knew the promise did not expect a baby, nevertheless that was how the plan unfolded, “even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.” (Ephesians 1:4)

Redemption’s blueprint was drafted in love: “This is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:10) His plan to deal with sin removed the barrier for all who respond to this Babe who grew to manhood, and who calls as the Father sends: “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” (John 6:37)

And for those who are called and who come, their lives are changed forever, and this is part of the wonder. The power of God, even is hinted to those at Christmas who know nothing or very little about the child born in a manger. For those who do, the Bible says:

And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:30–31)

And because of this, I see and feel the wonder this day, and most all other days...

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! (Romans 11:33)

PRAY: Lord, for many this season is only about gifts and glitter, a mad rush to measure up to the expectations of others — real or imagined. It can bring headaches too, and sad memories, pressures and no joy at all. For those who hurt or even hate this time of year, I pray that they will discover the plan of God that started before the world began, and was made known beginning with a baby in a wooden straw-filled manger who eventually cried “It is finished” from a blood-stained wooden cross.

How does anyone know about God . . .

 

In many Bible classes and sermons the leader or speaker says that the OT people of God did not have the same knowledge as we now have with the NT. For them, the promised salvation was not as clear.

Something in me disagrees. I read the Bible for years and didn’t ‘get it’ so understand how people cannot ‘get it’ but when Jesus Christ came into my life, everything changed. This is not because I moved from the OT to the New but because the things of God are not fully understood by more information but because God reveals truth through the Holy Spirit who illuminates minds.

How else could Job say in 19:25–26, “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God” or else could the psalmists and the prophets write about His role as REDEEMER?

Some uses of that term is about redemption from slavery in Egypt, exile in Babylon, enemies and sickness, but some of it is clearly redemption from slavery to sin as He proclaims through Isaiah: “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘Behold, your salvation comes; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.’ And they shall be called the Holy People, the Redeemed of the LORD.”

In Psalms and Isaiah, the Redeemer helps His people in need, but also frees them from sin. This verse is an example of pleading for such a redemption:

Psalm 19:14. “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.”

Isaiah speaks often for the Redeemer who reveals Himself as the Holy One of Israel, their Creator and King. He says, “I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god” and “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea; your offspring would have been like the sand, and your descendants like its grains; their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me.”

They knew about sin and obedience. They knew that their peace depended on God as well as their prosperity. Not only that, the pagans around them knew this also, all without a full Bible:

Isaiah 49:7 and 26. “Thus says the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel and his Holy One, to one deeply despised, abhorred by the nation, the servant of rulers: ‘Kings shall see and arise; princes, and they shall prostrate themselves; because of the Lord, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you . . . I will make your oppressors eat their own flesh, and they shall be drunk with their own blood as with wine. Then all flesh shall know that I am the Lord your Savior, and your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.’”

While many references are about redemption from troubles in this life, others clearly point to redemption from sin and the need for repentance:

Isaiah 59:20. “And a Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression,” declares the Lord.

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. How many times did I read through the Bible and miss the fact that Jesus died for my sin? At least a dozen and maybe more. But the day came when He came into my life and I knew without a doubt that Christ is God the Son who came to redeem me — a sinner enslaved and under the curse of the law. He did it by suffering the death I deserved. That is, the sinless, uncursed Christ suffered an accursed death so that He could remove God’s curse from me!

Without reading 1 Peter 1:18–19 again, I knew I was “ransomed from the futile ways inherited from my forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.”’

I also knew the truth of Titus 2:13–14, that my “great God and Savior Jesus Christ, gave himself for me to redeem me from all lawlessness and to purify me for himself . . . for his own possession.” The words were there for me but I didn’t ‘get it’ until the truth was put into my heart, just as Zechariah praised God because He “made redemption for his people” when John the Baptist was born and Anna “gave thanks to God, and spoke about him to all the Jews who were looking for redemption when she saw baby Jesus. This was revealed to them.

All this does not mean we can get truth without the Word of God. It does mean that God reveals truth so we can understand it and then use it to verify anything that comes to us as “God told me” apart from reading it. He is the truth-Revealer — and our Redeemer, Savior and Friend.