LETTER for DECEMBER 1993

Dear Friends,

Every Christmas is better than the last for the Christian because there is always much more in the Bible for us to learn, understand and experience concerning God's gift of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is true in spite of the fact that our temporal circumstances may be worse this Christmas than previously, because in appreciating Jesus given for us, we have joy that can transcend even temporal trials. As we rejoice in the Advent of Jesus Christ on the anniversary of his birth, and as we meditate on the revelation given of it in the Bible, the Holy Spirit deepens the wonder and blessing of it to our hungry hearts.

I have just been reading again in Galatians chapter 4 and verses 4 and 5. Here the Apostle Paul tells us "But when the time was fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive the full rights as sons".

The word that has stood out for me first and foremost in this text is the word God. GOD sent his Son. All the action, all the initiative, all the purpose, comes from God. God, the sovereign eternal creator of the universe, whom we human beings have so mortally offended by departing from him, breaking his law, and above all not acknowledging him or loving him, is the one who has acted to give the world the most costly of gifts, even his own Son.

Christmas is a reminder and commemoration of God's amazing act, when rather than treat us as we deserve, he gave us himself. He could not have given anything more. God has given to the very limit. Such love is beyond our understanding, but how wonderful the result.

There was no struggle in the heart of God to give his Son. He did not decide to give after having to reject many less costly options. Nor was his decision a reluctant one. We read here rather that it was always God's incredible loving purpose. Paul tells us this when he says "when the time was fully come". These words indicate that the coming of Jesus at Bethlehem was a predetermined plan of God from the very beginning, and one so carefully planned that it took place at just the right and best time.

This enhances our understanding of the gift of Christ to us. God so loved us that he planned down to the last detail this giving of Jesus, and all that comes to us in him, so that we have in Christ the fullness of his blessing.

Paul enlarges and emphasises the blessing of God's gift to us by reminding us the way Jesus was given. He was given so that he may become like us, truly human - born of a woman, and that he was given to be placed under the law of God - born under the law, so that he was placed under the same conditions in the world as we are. This emphasises that Jesus was given by God to take our place before God. He became human so that he could truly represent us before God. He was placed under the law of God so that on our behalf he may meet all that God demands of us in his law. So our Lord Jesus lived perfectly, but as he is given by God to each of us as our personal Saviour from sin, Jesus was born to be our sacrificial Lamb, and we have this wonderful gift of being allowed to transfer all our sins to him. Jesus took them gladly and willing, with all their disgrace, defilement and punishment, and laid down his life to redeem us.

The Gift of God in Jesus includes all this and has this at its centre, that Jesus took all our sins upon himself and suffered in our place. He redeemed us from all the demands of the law of God. The law demanded our death. Jesus redeemed us by paying the debt in full, so that the law of God may have no claim upon us and have nothing for which to condemn us or accuse us. It was God who planned and gave Jesus to do all this for us.

But God's gift is not even exhausted here, for Paul goes on to say that God did all this and gave so fully in order that we might receive the FULL rights of sons. The full rights of sons means that there is nothing that is not included in the gift. There is no right or privilege of being a son or daughter of God that is withheld.

As fully members of God's family through our Lord Jesus Christ, we are clothed for ever in the perfect goodness and righteousness of Jesus, so that God never sees sin in us to condemn us ever again. Also we are beloved of God, under his care, and can come to him at any time as a child to their father. God will always love us, listen to us, bear our sorrows, uphold us in difficulties, guide us in the right ways, and much more. Further we are heirs of heaven. Heaven is now our home and inheritance. A place is reserved for us there, not as a servant, or a slave, or even a guest, but as a member of God's family. All the riches and privileges of heaven are ours.

All that is Christ's becomes ours as well. We can't and never will be the only begotten of the Father as Christ is in his unique relationship with the Father as God; but we are so fully sons and daughters with Jesus by this gift God has given us in Jesus that we shall reign in heaven with him for ever, and we shall even judge angels, whatever that precisely means.

Such is the blessing, as Paul then continues in Galatians to tell us, that God makes us to know and experience this relationship, the love and security of it, by giving us the spirit of adoption, the conviction and feeling of it in our hearts and minds, so that we cry to God "Abba, Father" i.e. Dear, dear Father.

Each Christmas particularly, but of course throughout each year, God by his Holy Spirit deepens our knowledge and understanding of his gift to us in Jesus. The heart of Christmas is in our worship of God in the services that we attend in church, and in some sense the height of our joy is in the worship on Christmas Day and before. There is no greater joy than to find our experience and knowledge of God's love to us in the giving to us of his Son deepened and enlarged.

May this be your joy this Christmas.

Your servant for Christ's sake,