Advent 3 - The Incarnation is Holy

The child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. -Luke 1:35b

Welcome back to DAY 3 of GOD WITH US–as we attempt to go deeper in pondering the Doctrine of the Incarnation!

As we already read on day one- The book of John declares that JESUS–the Living Word–”became flesh and DWELT among us.”

While this may appear to be a short and simple statement, it really is HUGE, because the word “dwelt” here means that God “tabernacled among us.”

This is significant because of the Biblical theology of the Tabernacle throughout Scripture. In the Old Testament, God moved in and LIVED WITH His people by living in THE TABERNACLE. It was the Tabernacle that signified and housed the very PRESENCE OF GOD.

And so–this presence of God–which originally resided in the Tabernacle was then fully placed into the very Person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God! This is why the angel, Gabriel, said to Mary in Luke 1:35–

“The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called HOLY–the Son of God.”

No other child in history would be given such a title or name, “Holy.” Furthermore, the womb of Mary would become in itself a HOLY OF HOLIES. Staggering!

The Incarnation is genuinely AWESOME. The presence of God takes on flesh and lives as ONE OF US. Consider that through the Incarnation, Jesus was born of a woman, He grew from infancy to manhood, and He grew in wisdom and stature. Like us, He got hungry and thirsty, He ate and He drank. He grew tired, marveled, felt pain, rejoiced, and wept. Jesus prayed, He read, He suffered, He was tempted, and He submitted to the will of His Father. Finally, in His human body, He suffered severely; He was mocked, beaten, bled, and brutally murdered. In His human body, He was then buried, but then ROSE and ASCENDED into Heaven. And one day soon He will RETURN in the same way that He ascended, as fully God and fully man.

Let’s make time in our schedule this month to pull up the weeds of distraction in our lives–things that take up the affections of our hearts and the concentration of our minds. What can you PUT AWAY in order to TAKE UP the beauty and glory of your Saviour this season?

As the Christmas carol reminds us–

Christ, by highest Heaven adored,

Christ, the everlasting Lord,

Late in time behold Him come,

Offspring of the Virgin’s womb;

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;

Hail th’incarnate Deity,

Pleased with us in flesh to dwell,

Jesus, our Immanuel!