reason

Not of This World.

John 8:1-30

"You are from below; I am from above. You belong to this world; I do not. That is why I said that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I AM who I claim to be, you will die in your sins." – John 8:23 NLT

Jesus was human. But He was also divine. He was the God-man, perfectly God and perfectly man. And while He was born as a baby just like every other man, and lived His life just like every other human being, He was distinctly different. He was completely sinless. He was perfectly obedient to the will of God, His Father. While He had to undergo temptation just like the rest of us, He never succumbed to it. On the outside, He looked just any other ordinary Jew. There was nothing about His appearance that stood out. In fact, Isaiah, in prophesying about the coming Messiah, said, "There was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him" (Isaiah 53:2 NLT). But in Jesus' case, appearances really were deceiving. Because He was anything but ordinary. He was the Son of God, the long-awaited Messiah, the Savior of the world, and the future King of Israel. But to the people of His day, Jesus was an enigma at best and a nuisance at worst. They didn't understand Him. They couldn't fathom that He was who He claimed to be. In terms of the Messiah, He wasn't what they were expecting. The Pharisees seemed to spend all their time trying to trap Him in order to discredit Him. In spite of His teaching, they had little respect for Him. They saw Him as a backwoods radical with no training and no understanding of the Scriptures. Being experts in the Law of Moses, they were constantly trying to expose His ignorance by putting Him in situations where He would forced to decide wrongly. That was their obvious intent when they brought the woman caught in adultery before Jesus. There was a large crowd watching and they wanted to see what Jesus would say when confronted with this delicate legal situation. But once again, Jesus confounds them. He surprises them and sends them packing, but He sends the woman away with a word of forgiveness and a warning to sin no more.

Jesus came offering Himself as a light to illuminate the prevailing darkness. He came to expose sin and provide a way to escape the penalty for sin. The Pharisees were trapped in the darkness despite their knowledge of the Word of God and their belief that they stood righteous before God because of all their religious activities. Jesus said, "Since you don't know who I am, you don't know who my Father is" (John 8:19 NLT). They were blind to the reality of who Jesus was. They couldn't see Him and they refused to accept Him. They rejected His claims, His teachings, His miracles and His offer of eternal life. And Jesus explained the problem clearly and simply: "You are from below; I am from above" (John 8:23 NLT). That was the issue. They were stuck with their limited, earthly perspective. They were of this world and couldn't recognize Jesus because He was not of this world. He had been sent by the Father into this world. He was God incarnate – God in human flesh. He was Immanuel – God with us. He could not be explained in human terms. He could not be written off based on human reason and logic.

When the people looked at Jesus, they saw a man, just like them. And He was. But He was so much more. He was God come to earth. He was the Creator of the world choosing to live among His creation. Earlier in his gospel, John reminds us, "So the Word became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness" (John 1:14 NLT). In the days of their ancestors, God would reveal Himself to the Israelites in the form of a pillar of fire or smoke. He would settle on the mountain top accompanied by thunder and lightning. He manifested Himself in powerful displays that were unmistakable and terrifying. They struck fear into the hearts of the people of God. It was obvious when He was with them and it was frighteningly clear when He was not. But with Jesus, the presence and power of God was contained within the body of an ordinary looking man. And while Jesus did extraordinary things, it was hard for the people to get past the packaging, because He appeared to be just like them. But He wasn't. Jesus said, "You belong to this world; I do not" (John 8:23 NLT).  They would die in their sins, but He was sinless. They would be condemned to a life of darkness, relegated to spend their days on this earth until they died. Jesus would die, but be resurrected and then return to where He was from. Jesus told them, "When you have lifted the Son of Man on the cross, then you will understand that I AM he" (John 8:28 NLT). Jesus' death, burial and resurrection would be the final proofs of His claim to be the Son of God, the Messiah. He would die, but He would rise again. He would do what no other man had ever done: Live a sinless life. And then He would offer that unblemished life as a substitutionary sacrifice on behalf of all mankind. He would die in our place, so that we might have eternal life. But to take advantage of His gracious gift requires belief. "for unless you believe that I AM who I claim to be, you will die in your sins" (John 8:23 NLT). You can't judge the validity of Jesus' claim based on human standards. It won't make sense. It requires faith – a trust in the claims of Jesus and the Word of God that He was not and is not of this world. He is divine. He is God. He was and is who He claimed to be, and His offer of eternal life stands. It may make no sense. It may seem illogical and impossible, but it's true. "For I say only what I have heard from the one who sent me, and he is completely truthful" (John 8:26 NLT).

Father, You are the one who sent Jesus into the world. You are the one who gave Him His assignment. It was You who sanctioned and blessed His ministry. You are the one who required His sacrificial death on the cross so that we might have a restored relationship with You. You are the one who raised Him from the dead and gave Him new life. And it is You who will send Him back some day. Everything about the life of Jesus is divine and not of this world. And yet, too often we can be guilty of judging Him according to human standards. We overemphasize His humanness and lose sight of His God-ness. He was and is the Son of God. He was more than just a good, moral, humble, wise, and selfless man. He was Your Son sent to accomplish Your will. And He did it perfectly. Thank You. Amen.

Born of a Virgin.

Matthew 1:18-25

“Now the birth of Jesus Christ happened this way. While his mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.” – Matthew 1:18 NET

The virgin birth. For centuries, men have debated and discussed the validity and necessity of the virgin birth of Jesus. Some have denied it ever happened. Others have argued that it doesn't really matter. At the core of these ongoing debates is the human mind's need to be able to explain and understand everything. A virgin birth is impossible. It is scientifically indefensible. Anyone with a rational mind would refuse to believe something so ridiculous and obviously mythological. But our inability to understand or explain the virgin birth does not make it untrue. Ultimately, this is a matter of faith. It requires belief in the miraculous because it involves the divine, the Holy, all-powerful, inexplicable God. He does not do things man's way. He is not required to operate within our limited sphere of understanding. Yet, whenever man runs into things involving God or His Word that are difficult to explain or understand, he begins to rationalize and reason. His struggle with belief and his need to connect all the dots and explain away all the inconsistencies forces him to reject things like the virgin birth.

But our inability to understand or explain does not eliminate the reality of the event. Mary became pregnant by the Holy Spirit. We don't know how it happened. God's methodology is hidden from us. But His reasoning is clear. Jesus, as the Son of God and the Savior of the world, had to be sinless. And since the sin nature was passed down from Adam through man, it was essential that Jesus not have an earthly father. It's interesting to note that in the genealogy that ends a few verses earlier, Matthew records "Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary" (Matthew 1:16 NLT). In every other line of the genealogy, it lists the man as the father of his son. "Eleazar was the father of Matthan" (Matthew 1:15 NLT). But Joseph was listed as the husband of Mary. He is not recorded as the father of Jesus, because he wasn't. Mary's pregnancy was the result of the Holy Spirit.

A virgin birth. Miraculous? Yes. Difficult to comprehend? You bet. Necessary? Without a doubt. For Jesus to be our sin substitute, He had to be without sin. To be an acceptable sacrifice for the sins of mankind, He had to be sinless. He could not inherit the sin nature of Adam passed down through Joseph. So God did the impossible. He arranged for His Son to be born of a virgin. But is that any less implausible than God taking on human flesh in the first place? If you think about it, the virgin birth is the least difficult thing to believe in this entire story. God becoming man, being born as a baby, living a sinless life and dying a sinner's death on a cross three and a half years later, all in order to save mankind from the penalty of death – now that's hard to understand and impossible to explain. But it is the Good News. It is unbelievable, implausible, inexplicable, and yet, completely acceptable when you factor in the reality of God. This is His story, not ours. He doesn't operate according to our standards. He is not limited by our ability to understand. Everything about this story is outlandish and unbelievable. It requires faith. It requires trust in the reality and reliability of God. The writer of Hebrews reminds us: "Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. Through their faith, the people in days of old earned a good reputation. By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen" (Hebrews 11:1-3 NLT). I have no struggle with the reality of the virgin birth. For the God who created the universe out of nothing, that was nothing.

Father, everything about You is inexplicable and unbelievable. You are a great God who does things we can never fully understand. There are things about You that are unknowable to us. Yet in our pride and arrogance we try so hard to explain everything. If we can't, we simply reject it as untrue. But Father, help us to understand that You operate outside the limited boundaries of human understanding. That should bring us comfort, not consternation; peace, not perplexity. You are the God of the impossible. Amen.