Why Did Christ Need a Body?

00:00:00.000 | [Music]

00:00:04.000 | God so loved the world that he sent his son into it.

00:00:07.500 | That's what we celebrate this week, the birth of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,

00:00:11.500 | the incarnation of God in the flesh, Emmanuel, God with us.

00:00:17.000 | So, of course, we can ask the question, "Why?"

00:00:20.500 | Why was the eternal Son of God born in a manger?

00:00:24.500 | Why was he enfleshed? Why did he need a body?

00:00:27.500 | This obviously is at the very heart of the incarnation, and to explain,

00:00:31.500 | here is a sermon clip from John Piper as we find him preaching his way through the Gospel of John,

00:00:35.500 | and particularly as he and the church approach the Christmas season of 2009.

00:00:40.500 | Here he is to explain the purpose of Christ's incarnation.

00:00:44.500 | There is no Christmas story, no traditional birth of Jesus story in the Gospel of John.

00:00:53.500 | We're still in the Gospel of John, still in chapter 6, but we're stepping back to get a bigger picture now

00:00:59.500 | of how Christmas is woven into this Gospel.

00:01:03.500 | It doesn't have a story at the beginning like Luke does and Matthew does.

00:01:09.500 | Instead, the Christmas story is woven through the Gospel,

00:01:15.500 | and its meaning is given repeatedly in the Gospel.

00:01:20.500 | So it begins, the first verse of the book, "In the beginning was the Word,

00:01:26.500 | and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

00:01:30.500 | So all the way back into eternity, there was the Word, and this mysterious statement,

00:01:37.500 | "The Word was God," and paradoxically, "The Word was with God."

00:01:44.500 | Was God with God? And immediately you're into weighty Trinitarian matters, aren't you?

00:01:50.500 | I mean, you don't have to go reading theology books to know that's strange.

00:01:55.500 | How can you be God and be with God at the same time?

00:01:59.500 | Well, that's why we are who we are.

00:02:02.500 | In Trinitarian, he is God, and the Son is God, and the Spirit is God, and the Father is God.

00:02:09.500 | There's one God and three persons. They're with each other, and they're one.

00:02:13.500 | And then verse 14, Christmas, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us,

00:02:20.500 | and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth."

00:02:26.500 | Verse 16, "And from His fullness we have all received grace upon grace."

00:02:34.500 | So the eternal Word that had no beginning, never came into being,

00:02:40.500 | now, in the fullness of time, becomes flesh.

00:02:46.500 | And in that way, the Son of God becomes flesh.

00:02:52.500 | The Son of God, Word, same person, becomes flesh,

00:02:58.500 | and in becoming flesh, reveals God like He had never been revealed before.

00:03:04.500 | So here we have God, He was God, clothing Himself with flesh, and the glory of God,

00:03:12.500 | the glory as of the only Son from the Father, is being revealed,

00:03:17.500 | like that glory had never been revealed before.

00:03:22.500 | That's John's understanding of Christmas.

00:03:26.500 | God the Son comes, He is God, He's with God, He reveals God,

00:03:32.500 | and now that revelation is dominant by grace, in grace, full of grace and truth.

00:03:41.500 | "And from His fullness we have all received grace upon grace."

00:03:44.500 | So Christmas is the eternal Word, the eternal Son, clothing Himself with flesh,

00:03:53.500 | in order that grace might come to sinners, truth might come to sinners.

00:03:59.500 | Go a little farther, John chapter 3, verse 16.

00:04:04.500 | "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son," that's Christmas,

00:04:11.500 | and Good Friday, all in one, "that whoever believes," this is the purpose for Christmas,

00:04:17.500 | "that whoever believes in Him might not perish, but have eternal life.

00:04:22.500 | For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world."

00:04:26.500 | So Christmas is not for condemnation.

00:04:28.500 | God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world,

00:04:31.500 | but that the world through Him might be saved.

00:04:33.500 | So Christmas is for salvation.

00:04:37.500 | That's why He came, not to condemn, but to save.

00:04:44.500 | At the end of the book, near the end of the book, in chapter 18,

00:04:47.500 | Jesus is standing before Pilate.

00:04:50.500 | This is a weighty interchange between Jesus and Pilate.

00:04:56.500 | Chapter 18, verse 36 and 37, Pilate, "So you are a king?"

00:05:04.500 | And Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king.

00:05:07.500 | For this purpose I was born."

00:05:10.500 | So here's Christmas.

00:05:12.500 | Why were you born?

00:05:14.500 | "For this purpose I was born, and for this purpose I have come into the world,

00:05:19.500 | to bear witness to the truth.

00:05:22.500 | Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice."

00:05:25.500 | So another way to say it is that the Son of God, the Word of God,

00:05:31.500 | has come into the world, He says here, "to bear witness to the truth."

00:05:36.500 | Now what's the effect in Jesus' life and ministry of bearing witness to the truth?

00:05:44.500 | In chapter 8, verse 31 and 32, He says very plainly what the effect is.

00:05:51.500 | He says in John 8, 31, "If you abide in my Word, you are truly my disciples,

00:05:57.500 | and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

00:06:01.500 | So the meaning of Christmas is the Son of God comes, and He is the truth.

00:06:07.500 | I am the way, the truth, and the life, and He speaks the truth.

00:06:10.500 | I came to bear witness with my person and my words to what is true,

00:06:15.500 | what is ultimately real and true, and its effect is freedom, liberty,

00:06:22.500 | from the guilt of sin, the power of sin, death, Satan, hell, meaningless life.

00:06:31.500 | Oh, the liberty that comes into the life of a person who discovers that Jesus is the truth.

00:06:40.500 | See, He was the way, the truth, and the life.

00:06:43.500 | You will know the truth, the truth will set you free.

00:06:46.500 | Now the question is, how does that happen?

00:06:50.500 | How does He do that?

00:06:52.500 | How is it that the truth, the spoken truth of God and the personal truth of God in Jesus,

00:07:01.500 | set people free from sin and condemnation?

00:07:05.500 | And now we're in chapter 6, okay?

00:07:07.500 | This is all leading to chapter 6.

00:07:09.500 | One more sermon on chapter 6.

00:07:12.500 | You recall, don't you, that in verse 51, we read this, 651,

00:07:22.500 | "I am the living bread that came down from heaven."

00:07:25.500 | That's Christmas.

00:07:26.500 | "I came down from heaven.

00:07:28.500 | If anyone eats this bread, me, he will live forever.

00:07:35.500 | And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."

00:07:41.500 | Now link that with chapter 1, verse 14.

00:07:45.500 | "And the word became flesh."

00:07:47.500 | Why?

00:07:49.500 | So that verse 51 could happen.

00:07:52.500 | He came to give His flesh.

00:07:53.500 | He came to give His flesh for the life of the world.

00:07:56.500 | He came to have flesh that could be pierced by nails.

00:08:01.500 | He came to have flesh that could be pierced with a sword and lacerated on His back

00:08:06.500 | and a crown of thorns pressed somewhere in the universe, namely on the fleshy head of the Son of God,

00:08:14.500 | and cheeks that could be slapped around and beard that could be pulled

00:08:18.500 | and eyes that could be spit upon so that the saliva would drip down.

00:08:23.500 | That's why He came.

00:08:25.500 | That's why He needed flesh, so that He would have something with which to die,

00:08:31.500 | something with which to suffer.

00:08:33.500 | That's the only way grace can come to sinners.

00:08:36.500 | And He came full of grace.

00:08:38.500 | And from His fullness we have all received grace upon grace.

00:08:41.500 | And the reason we have received grace upon grace from the fullness of the incarnate Word

00:08:46.500 | is that the incarnate Word came to have flesh so that He could die for sinners.

00:08:51.500 | Had He not died for sinners, we wouldn't have grace.

00:08:54.500 | We would have only judgment.

00:08:56.500 | And therefore, Christmas is massively and mainly preparation for Good Friday.

00:09:03.500 | Don't isolate this holiday.

00:09:05.500 | It's all of a piece with what He came to do.

00:09:09.500 | So the meaning of Christmas in the Gospel of John is that there was an eternal God

00:09:15.500 | in more than one person.

00:09:17.500 | We know three when we take all the Bible into account--Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

00:09:23.500 | The Son, the Word, takes on flesh that He might have flesh with which to die.

00:09:30.500 | And in giving His flesh for the world, the world can have life because now sins can be forgiven,

00:09:36.500 | righteousness can be provided, and a substitute is there.

00:09:40.500 | And by faith in Him, that is by eating Him, symbolically we consume Him.

00:09:46.500 | He becomes our treasure, our food, our life.

00:09:49.500 | His life is now in us.

00:09:51.500 | Our sins are covered, and we have eternal joy with Him.

00:09:55.500 | That's moving, very moving.

00:09:57.500 | All of that is for our eternal joy in God.

00:10:01.500 | That was from John Piper's sermon preached almost exactly 11 years ago today.

00:10:05.500 | The sermon is titled, "You Have the Words of Eternal Life," on John 6, verses 60-71.

00:10:10.500 | You can download the entire message right now at DesiringGod.org.

00:10:14.500 | Well, speaking of Christmas, our most asked about Christmas question of all time is about Santa.

00:10:19.500 | Yes, Santa. No surprise there.

00:10:21.500 | We've addressed Santa in the podcast twice already, back in 2016 and in 2018, in episodes 978 and episode number 1288.

00:10:29.500 | You can check those out.

00:10:30.500 | And that episode 978 ends with a mic drop paragraph you don't want to miss. 978, check that out.

00:10:36.500 | But here's the second most common Christmas question, and it's represented by at least 35 emails in the inbox that I could find.

00:10:43.500 | The question is over how the church got to celebrating the birth of Christ on December 25th.

00:10:49.500 | Is this because our Christmas Day date emerged from a pagan Germanic holiday, the holiday of Yule or Yule Tide?

00:10:58.500 | If that's the case, doesn't the Bible condemn the accommodation of the feasts of the world for the people of God?

00:11:03.500 | We actually get this question all the time.

00:11:05.500 | Maybe Christmas Day is the exact wrong day to address it.

00:11:08.500 | I don't know. Maybe not.

00:11:09.500 | I guess it all depends on Pastor John and where his answer goes.

00:11:12.500 | Wise or not, that's the question.

00:11:14.500 | Up next time on Friday, I'm Tony Reinke. We'll see you then.

00:11:17.500 | [END]

00:11:19.500 | [END]

00:11:21.500 | [END]

00:11:23.500 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Why Did Christ Need a Body?

Chapters