A Story Without End

     The unmatched, inconceivable, incomprehensible, exhaustless story of Bethlehem. The very idea that God would humble Himself and become a human being! For real? Yes, for REAL!

      The many different stories that have come down to us from so many different cultures and people groups, show with what longing people have held to the original promise of God. No matter how far from God, no matter how fallen from the original creation we have degenerated, we have looked and cried for the fulfillment of that first promise: “God said to the serpent...I will put enmity (hatred) between you and the woman, between your seed and her SEED...” (Genesis 3:14-15) From Eve's joyous hope at the birth of her firstborn: “I have gotten a man from the Lord”, (Genesis 4:1) down through the centuries the hope still burned, though it grew dim and almost went out. All people everywhere looked for the time when a Savior would come to us to save us from the power and penalty of sin.

      We have chafed under the lash of our taskmaster – Satan. And while there have been people who lived for God, who set worthy examples of what God can do for us in breaking the chains of the devil, yet they too were sinners and unable to help anyone else. We needed, and still need, power outside of ourselves, yet wielded by Someone Who understands us completely. The “Desire of all nations” (Haggai 2:7) must come, but how long O Lord, how long?

      “In the fulness of the time” set by our Heavenly Father, Whose purposes know no haste nor delay, “God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, that He might redeem them that are under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” (Galatians 4:4-5) Whoa! Redemption from sin is great, but to also be taken in as God's children? To be treated as God treats His Son? This is beyond comprehension! To be as pure and holy as Jesus the Son of God? To be overcomers as He overcame? To bask in the approbation of the Father? What a glorious privilege, yea destiny, is ours! And all because of a Baby born in a manger in Bethlehem.

      While we are never God as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are, yet because of that Baby born in Bethlehem we can be “partakers of the divine nature”. (2 Peter 1:4) Because of that Baby of Bethlehem, in Whom was mysteriously blended the Divine and the human, there can be in us a blending of the human and the Divine. “Unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior Who is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:11) That Baby, born into this world as any other baby is born, nurtured and marked as any other human is nurtured and marked in the womb of a mother; that infant now has grown up and has been seated at the right hand of God on the throne of the universe! Jesus, the Son of Man, at God's right hand, shows us how loved we are by God.  That Baby reveals the plans God has for every human baby born into this world.  “How precious are Your thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them!” (Psalm 139:17)

Kept By The Cross

     The Cross of Christ is the “power of God unto salvation”. (Romans 1:16) Everything we need to know about God, or indeed can know about Him, is revealed in the Cross. For all eternity we will find in this Cross our science and our song. The Cross is also what will keep all of God's created beings, including us, from ever sinning again.

      In speaking about the Cross of Jesus, I am not referring to just the two pieces of wood on which our Lord was crucified. Rather it refers to the process by which God has revealed His character of self-sacrificing love, which led to the plan for our salvation.

      The power of God as revealed in the Cross involves different aspects of God's plan for our salvation. It involves forgiveness of our sins, and how wonderful that is!  But the sad thing is that the large majority of Christians today stop right there. They seem to think that forgiveness is all that is needed. In fact it has been stated that even the angels will find the forgiving power of the cross to be what keeps them from falling. Unfortunately, this reveals a very shallow understanding of the gospel.

      Before the creation of our earth Lucifer, in heaven, rebelled against God and led a third of the angelic host to follow him in his rebellion. As the angels who did not rebel have watched the continued working out of Lucifer's (now Satan's) principles as well as God's principles, they are able to understand and rejoice in God's plan of government. But what will keep them from repeating Satan's fall in some far distant future? Is it the “forgiving power of the cross”? They haven't sinned, and need no forgiveness. The forgiveness that means so much to us means nothing to them personally.

      Even for us, the infinite value of God's forgiveness is not enough. While we are thankful for the forgiveness that comes to us as a result of Jesus' death in our behalf, we need more than forgiveness. “If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.” (1John 2:1) What happens when Jesus ends His work as our Advocate? In the far distant future when we are livng the life of the saved, will it be the memory of an event far in the past that keeps us from falling again? Will we obey God because we don't want to have to be forgiven again? Is the fact that we have been forgiven enough to keep us from falling again now?

What we will rely on in the future, and what we need to experience now, is the Keeping Power of the Cross. What all of the intellegent creation of God will have is that power of the Cross that keeps us from falling. The apostle Peter, talking to the “elect”, says they are those: “Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation”. (1 Peter 1:5)

“Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling...” (Jude 1:24) Being perfect is no guarantee that you won't sin. Sin originated in the heart of one who was in the very presence of God. Adam and Eve were perfect, without any tendency toward rebellion against God, yet they fell. So what will keep us in the future? It is only the power of God as revealed in the Cross of Christ. The more we study the Cross, the more humble, submissive, and obedient we will become. The view of what God was willing to do for our salvation leads to a love that will not fail. “We love Him because He first loved us”. (1 John 4:19) 

      It is this love from God that grows in us and keeps us from sinning against Him. We can have that power of love now working in us to keep us from falling. As this love grows we become ever more secure against the evil of transgressing God's law. And it all begins by “looking at Him Whom we have pierced”. (Zechariah 12:10) The more we look, the more love grows, and the more God's power grows in us; until His power completely controls us and we are fully secure in Him.