Class Notes: 12/23/2018

John 1:14; Merry Christmas

Youtube video: https://youtu.be/M3SXrDTmC14

John 1:14; And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father full of grace and truth.

As we have noted in our study of the cosmic system we live in an age when satan, the God of this world, Rev 12:9; rules on the basis of the evil of propaganda, lies and deceit John 8:44;

However within the world God has established nations that form compartments where the truth of Bible Doctrine can hold evil at bay to the extent that the inhabitants adhere to it. The USA is presently one of these compartments.

Satan's relentless attack continuously assaults the truth with propaganda lies and deceit to the point where he is able to establish beachheads within the compartment that he uses to advance his unrelenting assault against God, Divine Establishment, Jesus Christ and God's immutable Word of truth.

In the name of tolerance, equal privilege and equal justice using the rhetorical veils of equality and fairness evil advances it's agenda until it can consolidate power and then destroy all opposition to secure victory.

This is presently occurring in our country as the media and the socialist secular humanist progressives who are in positions of power and influence have become the point of the spear in satan's attack against almost every category of freedom and truth that was the basis of our nation's founding.

The propaganda that they are using is enhanced by the use of verbacide where over time even the definitions of words are changed so they can promote their evil agenda through deception.

This has even happened to the Christmas celebration ritual.

The failure of pastors to rigidly adhere to the standards of orthodox conservative Bible teaching has led to their failure to consistently communicate the true meaning of Christmas to their congregations has obscured the power of the gospel of grace and enabled the opposition's verbacide.

The socialist secular humanist progressives who are satan's pawns in the promotion of evil have redefined Christmas from moral arrogance and Christmas has been transformed away from focus on God's grace as deployed through the birth of Jesus Christ into a demand for the production of the evil of human good.

Because of arrogant hypersensitivity, Christocentric decorations are often banned from public spaces and even public discussion.

In order not to offend some hypersensitive individual, companies tell their employees not wish fellow workers or customers a "Merry Christmas" but instead use "Happy Holidays" and public displays are prohibited from containing any presentation of the Nativity.

Some uninformed untaught arrogant people even attempt to convolve the plight of Jesus and his family with the plight of the children of the hordes of undocumented immigrants that satan is using in his assault on the culture of the client nation by flooding it with people who do not want to assimilate.

The truth is that Christmas is the celebration of the time when Jesus Christ, the second Person of the Trinity, without ceasing to be undiminished deity, was united with perfect true humanity by means of the Virgin Birth.

The result was one Person with a divine nature including all the attributes of deity, and humanity but without the genetically formed OSN or the imputation of Adam's original sin.

The Virgin Birth is therefore the central event in human history because it marks the moment that God Himself into human history by taking on the essence of man. The Birth of Jesus was the moment God became incarnate.

The term "incarnation" comes from the Latin compound word "incarnare" in plus caro, that literally means "in the flesh."

Christmas celebrates the moment of the Virgin Birth when undiminished deity and true humanity infiltrated the devil's world by means of the Person of Jesus Christ in hypostatic union.

John writes about it in John 1:14; "The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us."

The church has chosen December 25 as the time of year to celebrate this event. The focus of Christmas should be Christocentric; meaning that it is to be centered on Christ with emphasis on the Virgin Birth, the Incarnation, the hypostatic union, and Jesus' impeccability.

Christmas is when Jesus is celebrated as the Messiah whose mission was to prepare His true humanity to become a vicarious sacrifice for the sins of the entire world.

It is a celebration that provides Christians with a platform to communicate the gospel of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

Because of this the celebration of Christmas has come under assault and has been hijacked by Satan, the evil one, with his verbacide, propaganda and deception.

The focus on Jesus in the Christmas celebration has been replaced by the need to be careful not to offend anyone and by the performance of human good works for the benefit of humanity .

Satan does this in an attempt to obscure the truth of Jesus' true identity. John 14:6; John 3:16; Acts 16:31; John 8:32; so that he can prevent people from believing in Jesus Christ so that he can maintain his control over them.

Some of the symbols of Christmas that the politically correct secular humanist socialist internationalists still permit for the moment are the Christmas tree and Santa Claus.

The Christmas tree was first made popular in New England by Charles Follen and its original symbolism when understood does contain ideas that teach the doctrine of the Incarnation.

To the original adopters in the USA the evergreen Christmas tree represented the eternal life of Jesus' undiminished deity. The lights pointed to Jesus as the Light of the World. Coming to this Light would result in eternal life for the believer.

The tree itself represented the principle of the cross, the tree where Jesus Christ would die as God's substitute for the sins of the entire world.

But these ritual concepts are only known to the very few who are taught the reality behind the symbolism. The Christmas tree is still widely accepted as a substitute for a nativity scene because almost no one knows what it represents.

If this truth ever becomes widely known the Christmas tree will also be banned as an acceptable "holiday" decoration for use in public spaces.

The poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" that was written by Clement Moore in 1822 is a story about a charitable Asian bishop that has been transformed into the Santa Claus myth.

Santa became an old elf who works his magic every Christmas Eve, bringing gifts to little boys and girls, but of course only "good" little boys and girls.

This of course is in accord with the satanic lie of salvation by good works rather than salvation by grace and faith alone by simply believing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. John 3:16; Eph 2:8-9;

The poem describes a believer who was actually motivated to perform acts of charity as a response to his understanding of the redemptive work of Jesus Christ but transforms him into an unreal, mythical figure, who is supposed to inspire us to be good people who do nice things for others.

The motivation for being nice that is presented in the poem is not motivation from one's reciprocal love for God that goes on to motivate unconditional love for others per 1John 4:19; but instead it promotes the false motivation of being "good' and being nice so because there will be a payoff at the end of the year.

Then there are Christmas carols and cards that present the false idea of a humanly created "peace on earth and good will toward men" in the devil's world that creates a deceptive lie by truncating Luke 2:14;

Peace on earth is impossible until Jesus Christ returns at the Second Advent and He informs us, in Matt 24:6-7; that until He returns there will be wars and rumors of wars as nation rise up against nation.

Jesus tells us in Matt 10:34; that the actual result of Christmas in the devil's world is war.

Jesus coming into the world as celebrated by Christmas was actually God advancing His war against satan the devil, the evil ruler of this world, by personally sending His Son into the world to remove satan's power over mankind. Rom 6:23; Rom 8:3-4;

This means that there will not be any peace on the earth among men or nations until the Lord Jesus Christ returns and personally imposes it by force.

There will never be lasting and meaningful good will among men except among believers who have enough doctrine in their thinking to parlay their reciprocal love for God into unconditional integrity love for other people.

Putting Christ back into Christmas has a long way to go in this country and if it happened it would still be of no value without focus on the who, what, when, where, why and how of Jesus' incarnation.

Individual believers however can choose to put Jesus Christ into their own Christmas one believer at a time and you will have your next opportunity as we celebrate Christmas this week.

In whatever way God the Holy Spirit leads you in thought, decision and action this Christmas, the principles of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ need to be fresh in your mind so your application will be based on the doctrinal reality that is revealed on God's Word of truth.

In order to do this we must first recall the definition of the hypostatic union that defines the person of Jesus Christ as one person with two natures, divine and human, inseparably united without mixture or loss of separate identity, without loss or transfer of properties or attributes, this union of God and Man in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ is both personal and eternal.

The word "hypostatic" is derived from the Greek word "hupostasis" that means "nature, essence, or substance"

We see this word as it relates to the hypostatic union in Heb 1:3a; He (Jesus Christ), Who is the radiance or transmission ("apaugasma") of the Father's glory "doxa" the exact image or precise equivalent or representation ("character") of God's nature or essence ("hupostasis").

This verse indicates that Jesus Christ is undiminished deity. In His divine Person He possesses exactly the same divine attributes that are possessed by God the Father as indicated by the English word "representation translated from the Greek word "character."

Scripture also reveals that at the virgin birth our Lord took on the exact likeness of mankind. Phil 2:7; He did this as He emptied or deprived Himself of His privileges as deity "kenoo" taking the form of a slave (true humanity), having been born in the likeness of man (without an old sin nature like Adam was before the fall)

By means of the Virgin Birth that we celebrate at Christmas, God became incarnate in the Person of Jesus Christ and entered into the world in hypostatic union "in the likeness of men."

The confirmation of the hypostatic union of undiminished deity with true humanity in the Person of Christ documented in John 1:1; In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The prepositional phrase "in the beginning" is the Greek "en arche" that refers to eternity past. The "beginning" has to do with the moment the universe was created. John is informing us that the Word already existed when the universe was created. Therefore, this can be translated "In eternity past."

Next comes the imperfect active indicative of the Greek verb "eimi" that means "to be" The imperfect denotes linear action in the past, the active voice, tells us that the Word produced the action in eternity past, the indicative mood is a declarative statement of fact.

"Logos " means "word; thought; language; or system of thought." is the ancient Greek word that was used for the principle that controls the universe. The Greek philosophers rationalized that there must be a source for the ability to think. The real you is what you think and the ability to think is unique to the human race.

John uses Logos to emphasize that the only way anyone can understand God is to have the capacity for thought. He presents God as "Logos".

If infinite God is to manifest Himself to mankind He must reveal Himself to them. He must come to them because they cannot come to Him. Rom 3:11;

John 1:1; God's revelation begins with thought that is subsequently conveyed personally through the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. Logos refers to the eternal thought of God that is now revealed in the hypostatic union of the person of Jesus Christ in unglorified humanity.

The mission for his unglorified humanity was to execute the prototype spiritual life so He could arrive at the cross impeccable as the qualified substitutionary sacrifice for the sins of the entire world.

This is the true message of Christmas and it is summarized in Luke 2:11; "Today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

v12 "And this sign is for your benefit: you shall find a baby wrapped in cloth strips lying in a feeding trough."

This passage is contained in the hymn "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing" composed by Charles Wesley in the eighteenth century.

Christ, by highest heaven adored; Christ the everlasting Lord;
Late in time behold Him come, Offspring of a virgin's womb.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, Hail incarnate Deity!
Pleased as man with man to dwell, Jesus our Immanuel.

Hark! The herald angels sing, "Glory to the newborn King."

Merry Christmas.

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