Seeing The Invisible God

The story of Christmas is that God the great creator and provider reveals Himself to us. There in the manger of Bethlehem lay the Light of the world. 2 Cor 5:19 "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself." God had come to us, putting on skin, joining the human race, as one with us. Every Christmas, thousands of clergymen are in error when they speak about the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, as the beginning of the life of Christ. Even the Gospel writers, Mark and Luke start their accounts of the life of Jesus with the coming of John the Baptist. Matthew, has a strong sense of his nation's history, so he starts the story of Jesus by going back to Abraham 1800 years before. But they all miss the point. Only John understood. The life of Jesus Christ has no beginning. The Bible affirms that Jesus Christ is eternal, without beginning or end. It declares rather, that He is the beginning and the end. That He was there at the creation and will be there at the end of this world. He is alpha and omega. He is beyond time.

hristmas records the incarnation of Christ, (John 1:14) "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." If Jesus existed before His birth, what then was Jesus doing before Bethlehem? That is a question that deserves an intelligent answer. Paul understood and wrote: (Col 1:15-17) "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." Jesus Christ expresses to us the essential nature of the eternal God, that He existed before all creation, that He was involved in the creation of everything, that the whole of creation was through Him, and for His glory. He is above all created things, is the centre point around which everything else revolves, and the cohesive force that holds everything in its proper place. That Jesus Christ is bigger than many have realised!

Our God who expressed Himself in Jesus in Bethlehem for our salvation, first expressed Himself through the eternal Christ in creation. Jesus Christ is God-man. John says Jesus Christ was "in the beginning with God" but whose life "in the flesh" is the centre of our salvation. Jesus Christ is beyond time! To be God is to be timeless. The nature of the divine is to be eternal. Jesus never achieved eternal life: He always possessed it. That is how He is able to share that eternal life with us. "Veiled in flesh the Godhead see; Hail the incarnate Deity! Pleased as Man with men to dwell, Jesus, our Immanuel."

Rev The Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes, A.C., M.L.C.