As iron sharpens iron,
one person sharpens another. (Proverbs 27:17)
“In fact, his humanness having a beginning is absolutely essential to truly being human. Jesus is truly man. Therefore, there was a birth, albeit a virgin birth, but a real birth, thus a real man. So, then, how can Jesus claim, he is the I AM in John 8:58 without deserving execution (Lev. 24:16)?” - Cripplegate
“At Christmas we celebrate the good news that Jesus came here to defeat our enemies but perhaps we need to be reminded who our real enemies are. After all, our Christian faith teaches us that our real enemies are not flesh and blood.” - Eric Geiger
“Dr. De Caro says that astronomers now believe the 4 B.C. eclipse of the moon would not have been visible in Jerusalem after all, but other possible eclipses would suggest that Herod died in either 2 or 3 B.C., meaning that Jesus could have been born in the year One B.C.” - Veith
“Yeshua means Yahweh saves. That this unique child’s name would be Yahweh saves was understandable for Joseph. Of course, God’s people needed saving — from the Gentiles. From the Romans who ruled over them; from local puppets of Caesar, like Herod and Pilate… . Then the bombshell: ‘he will save his people from their sins.’” - Mathis via Veith
“It wasn’t just the commercialization of Christmas that Lewis disdained. It was the trivialization of the historical event of Christ’s birth. Lewis thought the commercial racket should be detached from the remembrance of what the angels celebrated nearly 2,000 years ago.” - Christianity Today
“Ever since ‘the lights went out in Eden’ with Adam’s fall this world and our race have been living in darkness both morally and spiritually….How striking, therefore, that John should give us the words that most aptly sum up the significance of the story of redemption that is embedded in the history of our world and incarnated in the Person of Jesus of Nazareth.
“One of my personal traditions over the past few Advents has been to read J. I. Packer’s chapter on the incarnation in Knowing God. This is far and away my favorite chapter in my favorite extrabiblical book, and it’s my joy to revisit it often.” - TGC
Anselm published the final version of Why God Became Man in 1094. It’s a stunning achievement, structured around a fictional dialogue between himself and a curious student, named Boso. It’s popular among many Christians to assume the medieval period was a “dark age” for the church; a time of intellectual bankruptcy and stagnation. Anselm’s work proves that theory wrong.
This is an excerpt from Athanasius’ work, entitled On the Incarnation of the Word. Here he describes one of the reasons for the incarnation:1
Jesus’ birth was the beginning of the end for Satan and his kingdom of darkness. That old serpent, the devil, tried his best to stop Christ from coming into the world. He knew if he failed, his fate would be sealed. Over and over again, Satan tried.
In the wicked man Haman, he came near to pulling off a mass genocide of Israelites – cutting off Christ before He could come. Through Herod, he slaughtered untold numbers of young children in the region around Bethlehem (Mt 2:16-18).
The Apostle John summed up the matter in his vision of the dragon and the woman (Rev 12:4b-5a). Satan tried to stop His own Creator, God’s unique and one and only Son, from coming into the world. He failed. Instead, Jesus completed His work, then “was caught up to God and to his throne.”
Why did Christ come? He came to save us from ourselves.
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