White Horse Inn: Appearances of Christ Before His Incarnation

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Christmas is the time in which we celebrate the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the Word who “became flesh and dwelt among us”.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

But this same Word, who was God and was also with God…

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. (John 1:1-2)

…actually made a number of appearances throughout Israel’s history. On this program the hosts will take a look at these “theophanies,” or manifestations of God in human or angelic form in numerous Old Testament passages as we conclude our series on The Incarnation.

“We’re told in the Bible, God can’t swear by anybody higher than himself. So, the angel of the Lord says to Abraham, ‘By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord.’ So, you can go all the way back to theophanies and see, this person is distinct from the Father and yet he’s called God. The same point that John makes in his prologue, ‘the Word was with God and the Word was God.’ This isn’t a second-tier God, this is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and yet it’s also the Angel of the Lord.” – Michael Horton

Term to Learn:

“Of the Incarnation of the Son of God”

We confess, therefore, that God has fulfilled the promise which He made to the fathers by the mouth of His holy prophets, when He sent into the world, at the time appointed by Him, His own only-begotten and eternal Son, who took upon Him the form of a servant and became like unto man, really assuming the true human nature with all its infirmities, sin excepted; being conceived in the womb of the blessed virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit without the means of man; and did not only assume human nature as to the body, but also a true human soul, that He might be a real man. For since the soul was lost as well as the body, it was necessary that He should take both upon Him, to save both. Therefore we confess (in opposition to the heresy of the Anabaptists, who deny that Christ assumed human flesh of His mother) that Christ partook of the flesh and blood of the children; that He is a fruit of the loins of David after the flesh; born of the seed of David according to the flesh; a fruit of the womb of Mary; born of a woman; a branch of David; a shoot of the root of Jesse; sprung from the tribe of Judah; descended from the Jews according to the flesh; of the seed of Abraham; since he took on him the seed of Abraham, and was made like unto his brethren in all things, sin excepted; so that in truth He is our Immanuel, that is to say, God with us.

(The Belgic Confession, Article 18)

(This podcast is by White Horse Inn. Discovered by e² media network and our community — copyright is owned by the publisher, not e² media network, and audio is streamed directly from their servers.)