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This painting of the Nativity depicts Jesus beginning his life as
a human being. Remember the popular verse in John 3:16: "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."
Isaiah 7:14 says, "Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and shall call his name “Immanuel," which means God with us.
Notice the New Testament statements about Jesus. John 1:1 says,
"In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the
Word was God." And further in John 1:14, "…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.”
Many times in the New Testament he is called the Son of Man. He
was fully human yet was totally God at the same time. The question
arises: How could he be both at the same time? Jesus gave up his
prerogative to function as God to live only as a human, just like you
and me. As a human being he trusted and relied on the Father in
the same manner that you and I ought to. He did not live a life
that He generated himself. He relied on the fact that the Father
lived His own life through Him. John 14:10states, "…but the
Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works."
Two things were to be accomplished: first, He would be the sacrificial
lamb, to be offered at the cross. Secondly, He showed the pattern
to us of how we are to be vessels by which Jesus could live through us. II
Corinthians 4: "But we have this treasure (Jesus) in earthen
vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of
us." And, Colossians 1:27: “..to whom God would make known what
are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is
Christ in you, the hope of glory."
-James E. Seward
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