During the Christmas season, as we consider the birth of Jesus, we are reminded how God became like us. But, it is also important to remember how Jesus is also unlike us. Because Jesus’ life is the sinless human life—the life that we are supposed to live by empowering grace through the Holy Spirit—it is important that we carefully examine the human life of Jesus. Unlike us, Jesus alone is without sin (2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 9:14; 1 Pet. 2:22, 1 John 3:5).... Read more

None of us can truly wrap our brain around the Christmas fact that God came to earth in the form of a man. As the great thinker Blaise Pascal said, “The Church has had as much difficulty in showing that Jesus Christ was man, against those who denied it, as in showing that he was God; and the probabilities were equally great.” In an impossible effort to explain the spectacular mystery of the Incarnation, we have a tendency to over-emphasize... Read more

Every Christmas season, our mailbox and inbox begin to fill up with cards reminding us that in Jesus Christ God became a man. But, how could this be? Incarnation (from the Latin meaning “becoming flesh”) is the word theologians use to explain how the second member of the Trinity entered into human history in flesh as the God-man Jesus Christ. In an article published by Dallas Theological Seminary, scholar David J. Macleod explains: The English word “incarnation” is based on the... Read more

Every Christmas, we sing songs and open cards about Jesus who is Immanuel, God with us. But, what does this mean? How could this be? Jesus was/is human and Jesus was/is morally perfect without any sin. This paradox has been exploding minds for thousands of years. In AD 451, the Council of Chalcedon convened in response to many heresies that wrongly defined the humanity and divinity of Jesus. The Chalcedonian Creed drafted at these meetings declared that Jesus Christ is one person... Read more

If we had seen Jesus as a man, we would have seen a normal guy carrying his lunch box in one hand and a tool box in the other, heading off to work. He did the normal things that actual people do: eating, sleeping, and blowing his nose. I say none of this to be disrespectful of Jesus, but to simply state that these are the kinds of things that we experience as humans, and Jesus Christ was not only... Read more

At Christmas, we tend to focus on all the things that others did for Jesus as a baby. This includes Mary tending to him, the shepherds celebrating him, and the Magi worshipping him. But, the story does not end with Jesus as a baby. In fact, Jesus grew up and did things that only God can do. Not only did Jesus say that he was God, he also showed that he was God. The nearly forty miracles that Jesus performed... Read more

Nobody is perfect. We all know that, and readily admit that. However, Jesus Christ repeatedly, emphatically, and publicly declared that he alone was perfect and without any sin. For a moment, just consider how monumental such a claim is. Jesus’ claim to deity includes declaring himself to be without any sin in thought, word, deed, or motive, and therefore morally perfect. In John 8:46 Jesus openly invites his enemies to recall any sin he ever committed saying, “Which one of you convicts... Read more

Every Christmas season, we are bombarded with images of the baby Jesus. But, we cannot forget that Jesus grew up to do and say the most astonishing things, claiming to be both sinless and God! Jesus’ claim to be God is without precedent or peer, as no founder of any major world religion has ever said he was God. Yet Jesus clearly, repeatedly, and emphatically said he was God in a variety of ways. If this claim were untrue, he... Read more