On Christmas, we celebrate something quite wonderful: God entering our time and space. The eternal becomes temporal; the eternally infinite becomes temporarily finite; the Word that created all flesh becomes flesh.
It truly is a mystery! The One who knows all things (John 16:30, 21:17) must “grow in wisdom” (Luke 2:52). The all-sufficient One (Acts 17:25) must hunger and thirst (Matt. 4:2,John 19:28). The creator of all must be homeless (Matt. 8:20). The Lord of life must suffer and die. God in the flesh must endure estrangement from God the Father (Matt. 27:46).
As Jesus, God the Son, Who knows the end from the beginning (Isa. 46:10), must watch His eternal plan unfold bit by bit, moment by moment. He grows from infancy, to childhood, to adulthood, responding to events as they happen. One time He rejoices; another time He weeps. From day to day, from hour to hour, the changeless God endures change. But God the Son incarnate is still God, still transcendent. As He responds to events in time, He also looks down on the world from above time and space, ruling and governing all the events of nature and history in complete sovereignty—truly a mystery!
Why did God enter time in Christ? First and foremost, for His Father’s glory so that God the Father could remain just in forgiving and justifying sinners who deserved His wrath (Rom. 3:25-26). The Son of God took on the limitations of time, space even death, so that He would pay the penalty for the sins of anyone and everyone who would believe in Him. In this way and only through this way is God the Father able to forgive believing sinners and remain true to His own righteousness. Jesus entered time to glorify God in providing the means by which believers would be forgiven and find their joy in God.
Whereas, at the incarnation, when God the Son became the God-Man, He entered time to live and die for those of us who believe—He also entered time to “be with us”. That is what His Christmas Name “Emmanuel” means: God with us.
He is still with us, now. Jesus said that He would be with us always (Matt. 28:20) in the Spirit (John 14:15-18). That means that God is an actor in history (His-story), as well as transcends history. He is with me as I write, watching one moment pass into the next, responding appropriately to each event, bringing his sovereign Lordship to bear on every situation as it comes, hearing and responding to my prayers. But He is also looking down on the world from his transcendent, timelessly eternal viewpoint. He is both transcendent and immanent. As transcendent, He brings all things to pass according to His eternal plan. As immanent, He works in and with all things, moment by moment, to accomplish His sovereign will.
Thus, in the incarnation, God the Son invades the time and space of history to become the “leading man” in His own drama of redemption which He planned in eternity past. But as He plays His part in His own divine drama from below—He also and at the same time acts above History as its divine sovereign director holding every atomic particle of every being, thing, and action in place (Col. 1:17).
There are those who believe that if we are to do justice to this apparent “give-and-take” relationship that we see unfolding in the pages of the Bible between God and his creatures in history, we must reject God’s sovereign control over history, even his exhaustive knowledge of the future. Those conclusions do not follow logically, and they are not biblical. Rather, these biblical pictures of God’s seemingly “give and take” relationship with His creatures actions in time should lead us to a heightened view of God’s sovereignty. Our God is one who can and does accomplish his sovereign will, not only “from above,” by his eternal decrees, but also “from below,” by making all things work together for his good purpose (Rom. 8:28). Even those events which the biblically non-informed would see as an apparent defeat for God (ie. The cross, our sin defeats, etc.) are the out workings of his eternal plan. In the very death of Jesus for our sins, God was acting in time to bring his sovereign purpose to pass (Acts 2:23). Likewise, in our moments when sin has gotten the best of us, God is at work doing a work in us that is greater than the immediate overcoming of sin (Luke 22:31-32).
So Christmas reveals in a wonderful way that God acts in time as well as above it. Christmas shows us how wonderfully God relates to us, not only as a mysterious being from another realm, but as a person in our own realm: interacting with us, hearing our prayers, guiding us step by step, chastising us with fatherly discipline, comforting us with the wonderful promises of the blessings of Christ. Truly He is Emmanuel, the God who is really with us and Who is nonetheless eternally the Sovereign Lord above and beyond us.
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