This passage that we have before
us in Hebrews chapter two, verses nine to 18, speak to us of the
fact that the Lord Jesus Christ became a man. The Lord Jesus Christ came into
the world as a man to save sinners. Now, I want you to remember that.
That's important. That's the purpose of his coming. Paul says to Timothy in 1 Timothy
1, verse 15, this is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation,
that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. That was the purpose, that's
the principle and primary reason for the coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ into the world. A faithful saying is a true saying. It is trustworthy and it deserves
to be believed. Yet I fear that most people who
make the statement that I've just made that Jesus Christ came
into the world to save sinners don't actually believe what they
say. They will celebrate the Lord's
coming in the next few weeks. They will put the lights on the
trees. They will have their special services. They will remember
perhaps that there is some religious dimension to this party time
that will be embarked upon. But the whole idea of the fact
that the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners
will be sadly lost on the vast majority of people who have any
involvement with this festive season. Even when preachers in pulpits
quote the words that we've just quoted from Timothy, I believe
that invariably they have a different meaning than the meaning that
we understand from Paul's writings. They will say, Christ Jesus came
into the world to save sinners, but what they will mean is that
Christ Jesus came into the world to try to save sinners. They will say Christ Jesus came
into the world to save sinners, but what they will mean is that
the Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to save willing sinners. They will say Christ Jesus came
into the world to make salvation possible for everyone. They will
say Christ Jesus came into the world to save everyone. But none of these statements
are true. None of these statements are
faithful sayings. None of them are worthy of all
acceptation. What Paul said, he meant. And
these statements are in fact contrary to being faithful and
trustworthy, are contrary to the truths of scripture, and
as lies made by men, need to be roundly contradicted and soundly
rejected. The clue to understanding the
meaning of the Lord Jesus Christ's coming into the world is to be
discovered in his name. The angel said, call his name
Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins. Christ Jesus is the Almighty
Anointed Deliverer. That's what His name means. He is the Saviour. Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners, and if He failed to do that in
any way, then He is unworthy of the name that was given to
Him by God Himself. In the coming days, the world
will be celebrating the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and
they will celebrate him as the baby in the manger. Questioning the appropriateness
of this is like sending Christmas cards in June. It's cheap and
it's stupid. But we have to question the understanding
of men when it comes to the Lord Jesus Christ, for so few have
any grasp of his true nature. If we fail to see beyond the
Christmas card image, if we fail to understand what the incarnation
was all about, and why it was necessary, and what the Lord
Jesus Christ achieved by it, then the whole thing is just
another reason for a party. And there's nothing more substantial
to it than that. What I want to do this evening,
if I can have your attention for just a little while, is to
give you six reasons. Six reasons why the coming of
the Lord Jesus Christ in human flesh is so important and why
it is so necessary for us to hold fast to the humanity of
the Lord Jesus Christ, especially at this time of year when so
many people are celebrating the false notions that they have
of the Christ child. In Hebrews chapter two, verses
nine to 18, the writer shows that the Lord Jesus Christ is
both the eternal God and truly man. Here we have this great
doctrine of the coming together of the two natures, the divine
nature of the eternal Son of God coming together with the
human nature as the Lord Jesus Christ took upon himself human
flesh and entered into the world in our kind as a human being. The Lord Jesus Christ came to
earth as a man. And the first reason that we
have in verse nine of chapter two is that we are told that
he came for the suffering of death. Now, people will talk about the
Lord Jesus Christ's wonderful teaching. They will talk about
his exemplary life. They will talk about the high
ideals of Christianity. But the principal reason for
the Lord Jesus Christ taking human flesh and entering into
this world is given to us here in this verse. But we see Jesus,
who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering
of death. God is in his glory. The angels,
as created beings, serve him constantly. They surround his
throne, they worship him, they sing hallelujahs to his name. These angels were sent to announce
the coming of the Christ child. The skies were opened, the brightness
of glory shone around as the Lord Jesus Christ was announced
at his coming, at his birth. But the Lord Jesus Christ in
taking human flesh was made lower than the angels. In the order of God's creation,
the angels are a higher order of being than men. But Christ, as it were, jumped
over that order of superior beings and came lower than the angels
to take this flesh, this body, this blood, this mind, our human
frame. He came for the suffering of
death, crowned with glory and honour, that he by the grace
of God should taste death for every man. And so here is the
first principle that we have in these verses, that the Lord
Jesus Christ came for the suffering of death, to taste death for
every man. To taste death is a strong phrase
in scripture. It means that he entered into
the very reality of death. The purpose of the writer of
the Hebrews to describe Christ's dying as him tasting death is
to show that there was no facade, there was no fantasy about this. This was real death. It was the
bitterness of death. It was the harshness of death. It was the reality of death that
Christ entered into. There wasn't a swoon on the cross
and then his body revived later. There wasn't a mere apparition
on the cross that was like a phantom or a that was in some way crucified
in picture form. This was the reality of a man
being brutally beaten, battered to the point of his death. And
that's the Lord Jesus Christ who took our flesh. Note in this verse the word for. He came for the suffering of
death, that he should taste death for every man. That word for
there speaks of substitution, speaks of representation, it
speaks of the Lord Jesus Christ coming for someone else. And once again, this is the great
principle of our understanding of the death of Christ. It wasn't
just an example. It wasn't some sort of moral
constraint that was being put upon us to say, if God could
do this to his own son, how much more should we seek to serve
him? How much more should we do for
him? The purpose of Christ's coming
was to go to the cross, was to suffer, was to taste death, for
someone else. And we need to remember this.
He took our flesh that he might die for us. In his death, the Lord Jesus
Christ atoned and paid and carried the penalty of our sin. He was no sinner. but he died
the sinner's death. He took the sins of others. The
Bible tells us in various places who those others are. It speaks
of his people, it speaks of his flock, it speaks of his church,
that the Lord Jesus Christ shed his blood for his sheep. And as He took our sins upon
Him, as He took the sins of those for whom He was dying, He came
into that substitutionary role. He atoned as a substitute. We call it substitutionary atonement. He atoned as a substitute for
His people. And that means that the death
of Christ and the blood of Christ was used by God to pay a ransom
for the liberation and the deliverance of the people for whom he died. This is the successful accomplishment
of the purpose for which he came. He came into the world to save
sinners. Now someone might ask and you
would be very much entitled to do so. When it says he tasted
death for every man, does that not mean that he died for everyone? Well this is one of the verses
that is often quoted by those people of a free will or an Arminian
bent. It's a significant error which
has afflicted the Christian church over the centuries and is widespread
now. It is a heresy. And yet, there
are verses in scripture, when taken in isolation, seem to support
that doctrine. But that's the whole point. We
don't take our verses in isolation. We read them in the context of
the passage. As I was thinking about this
and how to explain it, I read the words of Robert Hawker. Some
of you will have been in the past familiar with Robert Hawker.
And I thought, well, that's a very good summary. I'll take that
and I'll alter that and put it into my own words. And then I
thought, no, I won't. I'll say it just as Robert said
it himself. Here's what he said. Listen.
When it is added, for every man, it is not to be supposed that
his death was intended a ransom for every individual of the human
race, but for every one of his brethren, the heirs of salvation,
as they are called in Hebrews 1 verse 14. Now that's the point. The writer to the Hebrews has
already established who the blood of Christ is effectual for. He
has already said, are they not all ministering servant spirits
sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation? And this is the group. so that
when he subsequently talks about all men, he is talking about
all men of that distinguished group, that group that has been
set before us as the people who are the beneficiaries and heirs
of the salvation which the Lord Jesus Christ came to accomplish. heirs of salvation and all of
them are the beneficiaries of this substitutionary atonement. Hawker continues, and the following
verses of the many sons he is bringing to glory, the persons
whom he is not ashamed to call brethren, and the children whom
God hath given him, these terms very plainly define and mark
the characters of those for whom Christ tasted death. So here's
the first reason that is given to us as to why the Lord Jesus
Christ came into the world. He came into the world for the
suffering of death. He came into the world to taste
death as a substitute for the heirs of salvation. The second
reason that we have in verse 10. Verse nine gave us one, verse
10 gives us another. The reason why the Lord Jesus
Christ came to earth as a man was that it became God the Father
to send him in this way. Look what it says, verse 10.
For it became him, that is God the Father, for whom are all
things and by whom are all things in bringing many sons unto glory,
that is the heirs of salvation and those for whom Christ tasted
death, in bringing many sons unto glory to make the captain
of their salvation perfect through suffering. Christ dying, the
substitutionary death for his people, to bring many sons to
glory, honours serves and satisfies the nature of God the Father. The Lord Jesus Christ came into
this world to die in human flesh because that satisfied the nature
and the requirements of the Father. It became the Father. so to deal
with him. It suited the father. It was
suitable for the father that this was the means of redemption. God is a God of holiness and
a God of justice, but he is a God of love and a God of mercy. and it would beat the wisest
of men to be able to construct a scenario by which justice and
holiness on the one hand and love and mercy on the other hand
could possibly ever legitimately be reconciled. but this way succeeded. This
way accomplished, this way became the nature and character of the
Father. By coming as a man and dying
in the place of others, the Lord Jesus Christ both honoured the
holiness and justice of God and brought to bear the experience
of the love and the mercy of God. It became the perfections
of the Father's nature. His perfect wisdom was satisfied
in the atoning work of the God-Man. His truthfulness was vindicated. His justice was satisfied. His grace was manifested. His mercy and His love was bestowed. It couldn't have been done another
way. It became the Father to send
the Son to die as a man in the place of men. God is holy and
cannot deny His holiness by overlooking sin. And yet God is love, and
He loved the many sons whom He is even now bringing to glory. And therefore a just and righteous
deliverance has to be worked out. And the captain of our salvation,
the Lord Jesus Christ, the obtainer, the trailblazer, the, I don't
even know if this is a word, the opener upper of the way,
the Lord Jesus Christ. He is perfect. in the way in
which He secured and accomplished all these things. The perfect
Redeemer, the perfect Saviour, the perfect Comforter of His
people by those things which He obtained. A third reason why the Lord Jesus
Christ had to come in human flesh is that by coming in flesh as
a man he unites himself to his people. He came for the suffering
of death. He came because it became the
Father so to do. And he came to unite himself
with his people. And we read in verse 11, for
both he that sanctifyeth, that's the Lord Jesus Christ, and they
who are sanctified are all of one. are all of one, for which
cause he is not ashamed to call them his brother." There's a
union that exists between the Lord Jesus Christ and his people
because he became one of us. He joined with us in our humanity. In Christ, we are sanctified. In Christ, we are holy. In Christ,
we are just. But it is because we have union
with him, in his humanity, that we have all of these blessings. We sometimes talk about a representative
government, and we have our political representatives who go to the
House of Representatives, and there they represent us. In, I guess, in the sort of theory
of the political system, the idea there was to try, we have
another word in England, we call it the commons. And it's the
same idea. It's the same. It's to try and
get away from this idea of elitism. Someone was speaking the other
day about Downton Abbey. I don't know whether any of you
have ever seen that, but I haven't, so I'm only going by hearsay.
So if I get this wrong, forgive me. But as I understand it, there's
a sort of matriarchal figure that sort of like a big spider
that sits over the whole house and she sort of with this web,
she manages all the affairs of all the people. Now, supposing
that lady, if you can imagine that lady or someone like her,
going to the House of Representatives to be your representative, You
would think to yourself, she could never do it because she
doesn't understand me. She's way up there somewhere
in the social structure of things. And I'm a way down here. So how
can she go and represent me? How can these lords? And so that's
why we have the house of commons. That's the house of common people.
Same as your House of Representatives, they're there to represent the
common people. The Lord Jesus Christ is way
up there in His divinity, in His nature, in His person. He's
way up there, way beyond that gulf, that breach, that separation
that sin inflicted upon our race was serious, It was a fracture
that we could never do anything about. But the Lord Jesus Christ,
as it were, left the realms of glory. He left all that aside
and He came and He joined us. He became common. He came into this world lower
than the angels. He came into this world as a
little baby. He came into this world with
the frailties of flesh in his body. And he became one with
us. He knew what it was to hunger
and to thirst. He knew what it was to be weary. He knew what it was to be weak
in his body. The Lord Jesus Christ had these
same weaknesses. He was without sin, but he knew
the weaknesses of our human frame. He knew what it was to shed tears
when he was sad. He knew what it was to rejoice
with his friends. The Lord Jesus Christ has an
empathy with each of us because of his humanity. And this union
means that his father is our father. We have it in common,
a common relationship. We are brought into his family. Once again, he calls us his brothers. We need to stop sometimes and
just think about this language. So the Lord Jesus Christ is in
heaven, he's in glory. And the angels are praising his
name. They are desirous of the least
of His commands, that they might immediately rush and do whatever
it is that will please their God and their King. And the Lord
Jesus Christ stands up one day and he says, see that sinner
down there. See that mean, unrighteous, bedraggled
state of a man down there. Well, he's my brother. What do the angels think about
that? He's my brother and I'm going
to take his flesh and become united to him. The Bible talks
about adoption and that speaks about us being brought into the
family of God, being adopted into the family of God. But I
think there's an even stronger relationship spoken of in scripture
than that filial relationship. And it's the relationship of
marriage. And it's a relationship which
Christ speaks about with regard to his church, his bride. And such is the union between
a man and a woman when they are bound together in marriage that
the Bible says the two become one flesh. They're no longer
regarded as two. They are one before God. They are one flesh. And the whole
family is built upon that union between the man and the woman
and the one flesh relationship that exists between them. I honestly
believe, it's a bit of an aside, but I honestly believe that's
the reason why Satan is endeavouring to do so much damage today to
the established principle of marriage. He does his damage
by fragmenting and shattering the relationships that there
are between husband and wife. The ease with which people seem
to jump in and jump out of marriages is almost unbelievable. You would
almost wonder as to why we would even bother anymore. Just take
a year or two to spend with someone and then leave them and go. Or
else, ironically, On the other side, you have the whole idea
of two men or two women being married together. What is this
all about? It's about undermining the biblical
pattern. It's about taking the very heart
and ripping it away so that when people talk about marriage anymore,
they can't conceive of something as beautiful as the union that
Jesus Christ has with his church. At least in times past when there
was a faithfulness between a man and a woman and there was a commitment
to one another and there was a desire to serve and to please
and to provide and care for one another and to bond themselves
together, to raise a family together, at least there was a picture
there. of what Christ has with his church. But now every single part of
that is marred and defaced to the point that you speak about
the marriage feast of the lamb and people think, marriage, huh? You know what my experience of
that is? The eternal God is not ashamed
before angels and devils to call men his brother. It's a staggering
statement and it's an amazing truth and it is what we have
in our union with Christ. So the Lord Jesus Christ came
into the world as a man in order to taste death because it became
his father so to enact the way of salvation in that way. He
came to be united to his people. And fourthly, he came as a man
in order to gain victory over death. Now that might seem a
little bit odd and if we just Pause for a moment and think
about it. Aren't we talking here about Almighty God? Aren't we
talking here about Almighty God who dispossessed Satan of his
role in heaven, who cast him down to earth and a third of
the angels with him because of their pride, because of their
hypocrisy? Is it not within the ability,
the power of God to slay Satan, to kill Satan just as much as
he created him and gave him life? Why can't he just take his life
away? Why can't he just destroy him? But you see, the argument is
a little bit more subtle than that. The argument is something
like this. Satan has a just claim on human
beings. Because Adam fell, we fell into
the clutches of Satan. We fell into the grip of Satan. And Satan has a legitimate claim
upon us. The reason why the Lord Jesus
Christ had to come in flesh and blood was because he had to beat
Satan in Satan's domain. He had to destroy the devil and
the power of the devil from that very seat that the devil held
legitimate claim over. Verses 14 and 15 of Hebrews 2
says this, For as much then as the children are partakers of
flesh and blood, This is the heirs of inheritance, the children
of salvation, those that he is pleased to call his brethren.
For as much then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood,
that's us, that's our physical bodies and our frames, the life
that we live, he also himself likewise took part of the same
that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death,
that is, the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death
were all their lifetime subject to bondage. By taking our flesh,
the Lord Jesus Christ subjected himself to fight our battles
on our terms. Death had no hold on the eternal
Son of God, but as a man, Christ was subject to human and physical
death, that same death that stalks you and me. And the Lord Jesus Christ, in
his submission to death, he was unique insofar as he is the only
person in history who has ever dismissed his spirit and given
up the ghost. The Lord Jesus Christ did not
have his life taken from him. He voluntarily submitted it in
order to enter into death, in order to be subject to death. in order to, as it were, enter
the palace of the strong man armed, in order to come into
Satan's very domain, into the very chasms where Satan had a
rule, a legitimate rule, because of the sin and because of the
wickedness of man, and there to face our greatest adversary
as a man, and to destroy his power, which is death. Because that's the power that
Satan has over every one of us. I don't know if you're frightened
about dying. I don't know if the prospect
of dying causes you distress and uncertainty and doubt. But
this is what the Bible says. It says that humankind is all
their life subject to bondage through the fear of death. This is it. This is what Satan
has on us. This is the trap. This is the
snare. These are the claws that are
all around about us. And we don't know. We don't know
what day they're going to snapshot. The gates of hell are in the
streets all around us. They're in the highways and the
byways of this world. Men enter those gates of hell
daily. Sometimes it's as simple as stepping
off a curb and they're gone. Sometimes it's a long protracted
illness that eats them away from inside. But ultimately there's
an appointment that every single man and woman on the face of
this earth will keep. And we are subject to its bondage.
We can't liberate ourselves from it. We can't deliver ourselves
from it. There's nothing that we can do but dread its ultimate
realisation. So the Lord Jesus Christ had
to come and fight our battle in the very teeth of our enemy's
stronghold. Romans 5.12 says, Wherefore as
by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so death
passed upon all men, for that all have sinned. But our Saviour
our Saviour in coming as a man and representing us in his human
nature. He is the one of whom Paul speaks
in Romans 6 verse 9. Knowing that Christ being raised
from the dead dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over
him. He's thrown off the shackles.
He's defeated Satan at his own game. He has met him on his own
battlefield and he has destroyed him. And he no longer has that
power over human flesh because one who had human flesh has beaten
him. And that's our great hope. That's
the hope that we have. If one man, only one, can beat
Satan, then maybe there's hope for us. And that's the power
of being united to Christ. Christ has destroyed him that
had power of death, that is the devil. He has bound him up in
a great chain and he has delivered them who through fear of death
were all their life subject to bondage. Friends, we must not let the
prospect of death terrify us, frighten us. We know enough about
Christ to know that he has defeated death. He has beaten the devil. Christ has the victory. He has
won. The evidence of the resurrection
is the proof of his victory. He came back from the dead. Had
he not won that battle, Satan would still have him in his trap.
But the bands are burst. Christ is risen and he is our
hope and we look to him and the fact that he and his humanity
is risen from the dead means that death has lost its sting. In reality it is nothing any
more now than a shadow. It is a door for believers that
opens to everlasting bliss and everlasting life in the presence
of our beloved Jesus. The psalmist says, Yea, though
I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear
no evil, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort
me. Christ is with us. He is the
rod with authority, the kingly rod. He is the staff upon which
we lean. He has the authority as the God-man,
and He is our strength in His human frame. He has the authority
as God, and He is our strength as a man. and with the rod and
staff we are comforted. Fifthly, why did the Lord Jesus
Christ come to earth as a man? Well, he came to be a continuing
mediator. Look at verse 17. Wherefore, in all things it behoved
him to be made like unto his brethren, that's us, common human
flesh like us, that he might be a merciful and faithful high
priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation for
the sins of his people. The Lord Jesus Christ mediates
and advocates before God on behalf of men. Our Saviour is in heaven
today. Our Lord Jesus Christ is in heaven. And there He dwells in His glorious,
resurrected human body. We sometimes sing the hymn, there's
a man in the glory. It is the resurrected human body
of the Lord Jesus Christ, a glorious body, but it is his human body
that is in heaven today. And as the Lord Jesus Christ,
our brother and our representative and our mediator and advocate,
he stands before his father and he speaks on our behalf. That's
what an advocate does. The voc in the advocate is the
voice. He speaks out on behalf of another. The Lord Jesus Christ in the
glory is a great high priest and it is as if he's there in
the presence of his father as a constant reminder of the efficacy
of the blood that was shed. In his hands he carries the marks
of the nails, in his feet the marks of those instruments of
torture that nailed him to the tree. And there he stands as
our great high priest, In chapter 9, verse 24 of the same book,
the writer says, for Christ has not entered into the holy places
made with hands, which are the figures of the true. He's not
entered into an earthly temple, a physical building. The same way as the old high
priest had to do as he entered into the tabernacle or he approached
the altar with the blood of the sacrifice. He's not entered in
like the old high priest, like the Aaronic or the Levitical
high priest. He has entered in in a new way
as a mediator of his people. But into heaven itself, now to
appear in the presence of God for us. Do you see what this means? Christ
is right now representing us in heaven. Do we sin? I do. Do we fall? Do we stumble? Do
we succumb to temptation? Do we have an accuser that rails
against us and says, not that one. He doesn't deserve it. Not that one. She doesn't deserve
it. I've got a whole tally here of
the things that she's done and the things that he's done. And
it's a long tally. But the Lord Jesus Christ silences
those railings, because he stands before the Father as our high
priest, as the man Christ Jesus. If any man sin, says John, we
have an advocate with the Father, Christ Jesus, or Jesus Christ,
the righteous. Paul says to Timothy, there is
one God and one mediator between God and men, the man, Christ
Jesus. Finally, point six, and then
we'll be done. Why is Christ's incarnation so
important? Why is it, why did he have to
come as a man? Why was this the way of saving
people from their sins? Well, he had to comfort his people. He had to be our comforter. In
Hebrews 2, verse 18, the last verse that we read together,
it says this, for in that he himself hath suffered being tempted,
he is able to succor them that are tempted. Now, we don't use
the word sucker very often these days very much. If you did, you'd
be looked at. People would say, what do you
mean by that? Well, I'll tell you what it means. If you sucker
someone, you run to their assistance. You run to their assistance.
And the Lord Jesus Christ is able to run to our assistance
when we are tempted. because he himself in his human
flesh has suffered temptation. That's why it's so important
that he came as a man. That's why it's so important
that he has accomplished all these things as a man. When we are tempted, when we
are tried, when we're weary, when we're wounded, when we're
sick, when we're sorrowing, see who runs to our help. One who
has experienced all those things for himself. One who can stand
with us in our loneliest moments, in our hardest experiences, in
the times of our deepest distress and share with us an empathy
because he's already been there and he knows what we're going
through. That's wonderful. That's wonderful that God has
done that. Now, I don't want to be disrespectful
here in any way, but we're back to this idea about the representative
and how can that lady or how can that man possibly understand
me here? How could God in all of his infinite
glory and majesty ever give us a sense or a feeling of unity
and empathy with us in our needs. If he's a way up there and we're
a way down here. But that's not how it is because
he came to us and he walked this path and he went this way and
he endured and he suffered for those 33 years of his life. probably
such contradiction of sinners that we may never have to ourselves,
certainly in the fullness or comprehensiveness of the Lord's
suffering, have to endure. But to whatever extent we are
called to taste the bitterness of sin in this world, the Lord
Jesus Christ can empathise with us because he's been here before. Hebrews 4 verse 14 says this,
listen, Seeing then that we have a great High Priest that is passed
into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast
our profession. Do you ever feel as if you could
give this whole thing up, the whole lot of this? It's just
all too much. Seeing that we have a great High
Priest, one with us, one of us, who has passed into the heavens. The battle's already won. You
don't give up when you're on the winning side. The battle's
already won. He's already entered into his
glory. He's accomplished and succeeded.
He has passed into the heavens. Jesus, the Son of God, let us
hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest
which cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities,
but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly
unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find
grace to help in time of need. God's Son, the eternal Son of
God, the Lord Jesus Christ, was made of a woman. He was born
in flesh, He came into this world as a man. This is the mystery
of godliness. In his humanity, he is a comforter
in all points to his people in ways that would otherwise be
impossible. In his human body, he died in
our stead. He satisfied God's justice. He bound us together with himself
in union. In his resurrection, he overcame
Satan. He ascended into glory in his
human body. And there he dwells, interceding
for us as our great high priest and advocate. If you don't know any more about
the incarnation than the little baby that lies in the manger,
then you really know nothing about why the Lord Jesus Christ
came in the flesh. The world will celebrate as the
world celebrates in their ignorance, largely in the main. But let
those of us who understand something of why the Lord Jesus Christ
came keep these six principles of Hebrews chapter two, verse
nine to 18. In the forefront of our thoughts,
he came to die. He came because that was the
way God required it to be. He came to have union with us
and to unite us to himself. He came to destroy the works
of the devil. He came in order to sympathise
and empathise with us in our need. In Hebrews chapter 10,
verse 5, the writer to the Hebrews was clearly writing to men and
women who had an understanding of all the old Hebrew systems
of religious approach to God and their rituals and their sacrificial
ceremonies. And all the blood that was spilled
on those altars, all the dirt and the filth and the stink and
all the pain and the shrieking and the bloodiness of that whole
terrible system. It was to be no more. The Lord says, Wherefore, when
he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering
thou wouldst not. But a body hast thou prepared
me. A body. a body like this and the Lord
Jesus Christ came in human flesh. God grant us wisdom and understanding
to grasp the scale of our great salvation in the wonder of Christ's
incarnation and his humanity. Amen.