back to indexWhy Did Christ Need a Body?
Chapters
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4:47 Jesus Is Standing before Pilate
6:1 Meaning of Christmas
7:21 I Am the Living Bread That Came Down from Heaven
9:9 Meaning of Christmas in the Gospel
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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 00:01:03.500 |
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? 00:02:02.500 |
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, 00:02:46.500 |
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. 00:03:26.500 |
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." 00:04:28.500 |
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. 00:04:37.500 |
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, 00:04:50.500 |
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. 00:05:14.500 |
"For this purpose I was born, and for this purpose I have come into the world, 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. 00:06:52.500 |
How is it that the truth, the spoken truth of God and the personal truth of God in Jesus, 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." 00:07:28.500 |
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." 00:07:53.500 |
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. 00:08:25.500 |
That's why He needed flesh, so that He would have something with which to die, 00:08:33.500 |
That's the only way grace can come to sinners. 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. 00:08:56.500 |
And therefore, Christmas is massively and mainly preparation for Good Friday. 00:09:09.500 |
So the meaning of Christmas in the Gospel of John is that there was an eternal God 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. 00:09:51.500 |
Our sins are covered, and we have eternal joy with Him. 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. 00:10:21.500 |
We've addressed Santa in the podcast twice already, back in 2016 and in 2018, in episodes 978 and episode number 1288. 00:10:30.500 |
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? 00:11:05.500 |
Maybe Christmas Day is the exact wrong day to address it. 00:11:09.500 |
I guess it all depends on Pastor John and where his answer goes. 00:11:14.500 |
Up next time on Friday, I'm Tony Reinke. We'll see you then.