The Savior is born

Matthew 1:18a "Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise:"

From the time of the tragedy in the Garden of Eden, God began to announce the saving of what was lost.  The whole world present and future was suddenly lost in that one act of disobedience, sin. At that moment mankind was cast into a helpless situation. Fully conscious and making decisions, he still could not remedy what he had done to His very soul and the soul of every human born through Him after that. It not only took the human race into the spiritual death of every man's soul, totally separated from God and any connection with the spiritual world of God. It did, though, put him in relationship with Satan and his spiritual world and destiny called Hell. Adam and his descendants, us, were lost to God and welcomed by Satan into his own destruction. Revelation 20:10 "And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever." The human race was LOST.

"Lost" is a daunting term. People get lost in forests, in mountains, lost traveling and those are helpless times. You know how it feels to be lost when traveling, or if you have ever been lost at sea or in the forest, or mountains. It created all kinds of negative emotions. These are circumstances that we can help ourselves in solving, or fellow humans searched and found us. You remember when you were found or found your way out. Elation. Joy. Thanksgiving. Relief.

The "lost" that took place in the Garden had no way out, nor could we help ourselves, nor could fellow humans search and assist us in saving us. We can't save ourselves, nor others. It was a total blackout, eternally lost. Creation was even effected by man's disobedience, sin. Everything began to die physically and the animal kingdom, etc. began to turn against each other, and no longer could man live safely among the beasts of the field. Many have been domesticated today, but human and animal trust is always shaky. Man (Adam) took us all down. The human race was suddenly lost in sin on the way to hell and all creation began to groan with the agony of its effects. Death came upon it all. The worst was God's crowning creation, man and woman. They were plunging toward hell with no hope.

Then in Genesis 3:15 we find God giving a glimpse of the plan that would change it all...the promise of a "Seed" that would bring victory over it all, including crushing Satan, that old serpent. "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."

Throughout the Old Testament (O.T.) God demonstrated types, examples of this Seed and His power to save such as the Ark. The world would be destroyed except for those who would get into the Ark. Sound familiar? All who are in Christ Jesus will be saved. The typology goes on and on throughout the O.T. He is pictured in the life and purpose of people, like Isaac, Jacob, David, and so many others. He is pictured in the Tabernacle and the Temple and the sacrifices offered for sin in them. The structures themselves and the materials that went into them were all picture after picture of the coming Messiah, the Seed, the Christ, meaning the anointed One...anointed of God to be the Christ, the Savior of the world. His name would be Jesus the Anointed One (the Christ). He would be God with us. Isaiah 7:14 "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. This O.T. passage of prophecy is fulfilled in "Matthew 1:23 "Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us." God promised a Messiah, His Son, Jesus, and His love for mankind is fulfilled at the Cross in Him.

He could not be born of another man, otherwise He would be no more than you and I, lost in sin. He had to be holy and with the power to actually annihilate, eradicate sin. Literally destroy it and its power over anyone who would come to Him. He had to be born of the sinless holy God. Man's bloodline is totally corrupted in sin. He can only pass on sin and corruption. So, God's plan and only plan available was that He would have to send through the birth of the human womb His only begotten Son. I John 4:10 "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that 

he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." John 3:16-17 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved."

Note in our previous passage that it is the "world" that needs to be saved. This was not an isolated incident in a Garden nearly 7,000 years ago. This spanned all time to the last human being to be born. We know that the whole world will not be saved already, but God makes His point, there is not one person that is not a sinner to one degree to another, from the least to the worst of sinners, all are lost in sin.

Note the nature of Jesus..."When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost." (Matthew 1:18b) He was born of the Holy Spirit of God. Yea, born of God; God's Son. He put on human flesh and walked as any other man, but under His skin, He was God...100% God and 100% man. John 1:14,17 "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth...17 grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." He was God living the experience of man in the hard times and the good times, tempted in every way that you and I are tempted, but never sinned once. Hebrews 4:15 "For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." He was the perfect sacrifice, a picture given in the O.T. every time there was an animal sacrifice. It had to be without blemish, perfect, to be a proper offering for sin...a picture of the Christ, the Messiah, Jesus.

Jesus was born of a virgin, giving His origin from God not any man. He is that promised "Seed" announced by God in Genesis 3:15. His place in time as the Messiah, Savior some 2,000 years ago was to go to the Cross and die a sinners death, crucifixion, nailed to a cross. Man was an outcast in sin, having been put outside the Garden. Jesus took on our sin and was taken outside Jerusalem and He with our sin was nailed to the cross, and just as the blood of the O.T. sacrifices was applied as atonement for sin, so was Jesus' blood shed and applied in heaven's Tabernacle for our sin. There it was applied for whosoever will come to Him, Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, God with us, repenting from sin and believing on Him, thus receiving Him as their personal Lord and Savior.

The birth of Jesus Christ in the center of history was for all on both sides of the Cross...the O.T. believers and the N.T. believers. And by the way, for the record, "testament" means "covenant." The Old Testament (Covenant) was under the temporary blood of sacrificed animals until the New Testament (Covenant) where all from the Old and now the New are brought under the blood of Jesus Christ. The animal sacrifices covered the sin, while the sacrifice of Jesus washed their and all other believer's sins away. Revelation 1:5 "And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood," "To us a child is born."

Charles Empey is the Pastor of Cove Baptist Church, Orange, TX.