What do we get for Christmas? (1 Jn. 4:2-3)

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At Christmas, whatever the world may do with it, we Christians are helpfully reminded of, as we joyfully celebrate, the birth of Christ.  It is good for us to celebrate this reality, for it is not just the story of a baby that brings peace on earth and good will toward men, but it is the reality that God became man, that the eternal “Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (Jn. 1:14).  Christmas is about the incarnation of the Son of God, who became man and so was and continues to be God and man in two distinct natures and one person forever (Shorter Catechism).

It is the confession of the incarnation that the apostle John is talking about here in 1 John 4.  You see it in the words “Jesus Christ is come in the flesh” in verse 2.  Actually, the verb that John uses tells us that not only did Jesus come in the flesh in the past, but that he remains so.  The incarnation is not an event that resulted in temporary manhood for the Son of God; Jesus is forever in terms of his person both God and man, the God-man.  He was born as the God-man, he lived as the God-man, he died as the God-man, he rose as the God-man, he sits at the Father’s right hand as the God-man, and he will come again as the God-man.

Now John is dealing with this because there were false teachers in the church at the time who denied the incarnation.  Incarnation is the theological term that speaks to the fact that the eternal Son of God, the second person in the Trinity, took to himself a true human body and soul, and in the one person of the Son, united both human and divine natures, so that he is fully human and fully God.  This great theological truth is states in a context where the apostle is dealing with spiritual discernment, and the necessity of seeing false teaching for what it is, spotting it, and rejecting it.  He begins by saying, “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world” (1). He is warning the believers of false prophets who were spiritually inspired by demons – how else can you describe a spirit that is not of God?  The apostle Paul would tell Timothy about another set of false teachers, and he would describe them in a similar way: “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron” (1 Tim. 4:1-2).  We need to remember that at the back of false teaching from false prophets are demons whose intent is the destruction of souls.  We need to remember that “the time will come when they [people in the church!] will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Tim. 4:3-4).  

We too need to have discernment for “many false prophets are gone out into the world.”  These were not just spirits of other religions – these were spirits who were infiltrating the church and seeking to draw people away from the true faith.  We need to beware of spiritual naivete: just because someone claims to speak for God, or just because someone claims to speak in the name of Christ even, does not mean they are speaking the truth or that they have your eternal and best interests at heart.  Some of these false prophets may be false prophets knowingly but others may be really convinced they are telling you the truth and come across as utterly sincere.  We need to be aware that there people like that: sincere, likeable, professing faith in and love for Jesus, and speaking demonic lies that will bring incalculable harm to your soul.

So the question is, how do we discern who they are?  The answer to this question really comes in verses 2-3 and verses 5-6.  In verses 2-3 we read, “Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God.”   We are supposed to base our knowledge of their truthfulness or falsehood, not on their charisma, not on their spirituality, not on their “anointing,” not on their claims to spiritual experiences, but on the content of their teaching.  Here, John is focused primarily on the doctrine of the incarnation.  Those who teach that Jesus is the Christ and that he has come in the flesh is of God and those who do not are not.  

And then a more general test is given in verses  5-6.  It is the test of Scripture: “They [the false prophets inspired by the false spirits] are of the world: therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them. We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error.”  You know, I’m not one of these who thinks that the smaller a church is, the better it is.  In fact, I’m praying that God will bless our church to grow again!  But at the same time, we need to recognize that according to our Lord those on the strait and narrow way leading to life are few, and those on the wide and broad way leading to destruction are many.  The world is a big audience, and the false prophets usually get a big reception.  The world hears them and follows them.  So don’t follow someone just because their churches are full.  Their success may be an indicator that the realities of verse 5 are working in their favor.

Instead, the way we discern truth is by comparing the claims of any teacher against the claims of God’s word.  This is the point of verse 6.  The “us” here is not anyone claiming to be of God: false prophets do that all the time.  Rather, the “us” in verse 6 are the apostles.  In other words, those who are of God hear, believe, and obey the words of the apostles.  This is the test: “Hereby” – by this standard – “know we the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.”  And that means that we test everything by the standard of the word of God, from Genesis to Revelation, by the words of the Old Testament prophets and by the words of the New Testament apostles.  Of course, that means that we need to be people who know their Bibles!  By this, we will be able to combat all heresy and doctrines of devils, no matter what is it or from whomever it may come.  Truth is always the same, but error is always changing, and presents new challenges in every generation.  But if we know God’s truth, we will be armed and ready to meet the challenge. By the way, can we just appreciate the fact that the devil was at work in the churches of the first century when there were still apostles around?  Can we think he will be less active today?  Can we be less on our guard?

What was the overall shape of the error in John’s day?  Where did this denial that Jesus is come in the flesh come from?  Well the answer is that can’t be completely sure exactly where it came from.  Some identify it with the teaching of Cerinthus, a first century heretic, who, according to Irenaeus, taught that the God of the Bible didn’t create the physical universe, that Jesus was just an ordinary man who was taken over in some sense by Christ at his baptism, and that before Jesus died Christ left him.  Incidentally, according to Irenaeus, the apostle “John was an opponent of Cerinthus, and would not even bathe in the same bathhouse at Ephesus with that ‘enemy of the truth.’”   Others identify the false teachers with the ancient Docetists of whom Ignatius would later warn against in his letter to the church at Smyrna.  They believed that Christ only seemed to have a physical body, but really didn’t (the Greek word dokeo from which we get Docetist means “to seem”).  Both these views were probably similar in many ways and together informed the theology of the false prophets of John’s day.  They were probably also among those sects which provided the conceptual and theological foundation for the full-blown Gnosticism that plagued the church in the Second Century.  

Whatever the full shape of the false teaching was, one thing we do know: they denied that Jesus Christ had come in the flesh.  They denied the incarnation.  They denied the theological realities behind Christmas.  They claimed to be Christians, I’m sure.  They probably claimed to love Jesus.  They probably said, “Why does it matter if we believe that Jesus came in the flesh, as long as we love him and want to follow him?”  But John would have nothing of it.  For him, I think he would put these heretics in the same category of Lewis’ white witch who made Narnia always winter but never Christmas.  Though false teachers never can see the danger in their teaching – in fact, they are always convinced it’s better than the truth – we need to see through its claims and see it for the danger that it is.  Anytime we reject any part of God’s truth, it’s not to our advantage.  We need to be stingy when it comes to the truth of God.  Not in the sense of keeping it all to ourselves, but in the sense of holding onto all of it and not letting even a little bit of it go.

By taking away the incarnation, these Grinch-like false prophets were stealing the good things that the incarnation gives us, and the apostle understood that, and he wanted the church to see that in no uncertain terms.  Listen to the way he defines the seriousness of the problem here: “Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world” (4:2-4).  He is telling us that the confession that Christ is come in the flesh is necessary and essential because this is what the Spirit of God confesses (2), because those who make this confession are of God (2), whereas those who do not make this confession are not of God (3), and that the non-confession of this truth comes from the spirit of antichrist (3).  Finally, he tells us that those who are of God will overcome this false teaching and the spirit of error (4).

Now why is this so important so that those who do not believe it are not of God and those who do are?  Why is it necessary for us to confess this truth?  The answer is that the denial of it really is the denial of our faith, and the denial of every good thing that salvation in Christ brings us.  We must not forget what these good things are, and how they are related to the truth of verse 2: Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.  What does this give us?  Or to put it in another way: What do we get for Christmas?  We need to know this, we too need to confess this truth, lest we also fall prey to pseudo-Christian gospels.  

So what I want to do this morning is to meditate with you on the reasons why the incarnation is so important to our faith in terms of the good things it gives us.  Let me suggest three of the greatest gifts we receive because of the birth of the Jesus Christ our Lord.  I put it to you in terms of three words: sympathy, substitution, and (successful) salvation.

Sympathy

On several occasions, especially in the book of Hebrews, the NT connects the necessity of the incarnation with his ability to sympathize with us.  For example, in Heb. 2:17-18, we read, “Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.”  And then of course we have those great words in chapter 4: “Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (4:14-16).  Because as a man he suffered and he was tried, he is able to help us when we are suffering and tempted.  Because he is a man, he can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities.  He knows our pain and our suffering and heartbreak and discouragement.  He knows it, not just in the sense of omniscience but in the sense of experience.  And he cares.  He knows and he cares.  He sympathizes with us in a way that would have been impossible apart from the incarnation.

Now we are to sympathize with others, aren’t we?  Romans 12:15 commands us to: “Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.”  The apostle Peter agrees: “Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion [Gk: sympathes] one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous” (1 Pet. 3:8).  So we should be sympathetic people.  But the point I want to make is that, as the old spiritual put it,

Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen,

Nobody knows but Jesus.

In other words, the sympathy that Jesus has for his elect is unique and unlike anything that we, or anyone else for that matter, can offer.  Here’s why.

First, the sympathy of Christ is great.  By that, I mean that it is exhaustive, based on a true and complete understanding of our weakness and suffering.  There are things that people will never know about us because we just can’t put it into words or because they’ve not been through it.  They haven’t experienced what we’ve experienced, and so their ability to sympathize with us is limited.  There are many things of which it would be wrong of me to tell someone, “I know how you feel and what you’re going through” because the reality is that I haven’t experienced it.  Now I’m not claiming that Jesus has suffered every particular trial that each of us has gone through.  Of course not.  But the fact that he came down from heaven to earth, laid aside the insignia of Deity, so to speak, and took on himself human nature in a fallen world, who made himself poor that we might be made rich, who in his suffering experienced pain to the extent that no other human will ever even begin to imagine, and that he did all this as the God-man – all this together I think puts him in a unique position to understand completely our pain and our suffering whatever it is.  He is God, so he knows all things, and he is also man and so he has personally entered into our world of suffering and suffered in it. Those two things, deity and humanity, make him uniquely qualified to sympathize with us in our trials, no matter what they are.  Even if I cannot describe my suffering to another person, even if I cannot verbalize it even in prayer to God, God knows and the Spirit of Christ takes my groaning and he hears it and understands.

Second, the sympathy of Christ is always for our good.  Another thing that makes the sympathy of Jesus different is that he never deploys it to affirm what is bad in us.  That’s the way a lot of sympathy and empathy works today.  Some are led to believe that even if someone has embraced a lifestyle that is harmful for them, we are supposed to sympathize with them by affirming them in it.  But that is not what Jesus does.  Yes, a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoking flax he will not quench, he is gentle and lowly, and longsuffering, but his sympathy does not extend to telling us our sinful choices are okay.  In fact, he will discipline us if necessary (and let’s be honest, a lot of times it’s necessary!).  And that’s good for us.

Third, our Lord’s sympathy is always based in his unconditional grace and everlasting love for his people.  Our Lord’s sympathy is unique in the sense that he sympathizes with us even though he already knows everything about us.  Most people wouldn’t do that.  We might feel that we have to hide things from people to keep them on our side.  We’re glad that they can’t know everything about us!  But we need not pretend with our Savior in order to retain his compassion and care.  For our relationship to him is not based on merit and works but on free and sovereign grace, and on grace alone.  He died for us when we were enemies, so his sympathy and compassion and kindness are not based on the fact that we befriended him or made ourselves worthy, but because he makes friends out of enemies.  As John will say later in this chapter, we love him because he first loved us (1 Jn. 4:19).

We live in a broken world that causes a lot of pain, grief, and disappointment.  But our Lord sympathizes with us because he is one of us.  He does not merely call us to persevere through a broken world but calls us to follow him.  He takes the cross before we do, and he carries it in a way that he will never have to.  It means that in this world we are never alone.  Christ stands with us and through the Holy Spirit is in us, not in a merely metaphorical way but really and truly.  We have the promise of his presence to the end of the age.  This is what the incarnation gives us.  It is because Christ Jesus has come in the flesh that we can know that our Savior sympathizes with us and is for us.  He knows our needs and he cares about it.  He is the very best Shepherd, the Good Shepherd, the Chief Shepherd, who gives his life for his sheep in order to give us life and to give it more abundantly.

Substitution

Looking back at the passage we quoted previously in Hebrews 2, note the argument that it was necessary for Christ to become incarnate, not only to sympathize with us, but more fundamentally to be a high priest for us.  And in fact, to be both the offering and the one who makes the offering.  He is the Lamb slain to take away our sins, and he is the Priest who takes his blood into the Most Holy Place to represent us in his Father’s presence and make atonement.  In other words, Christ saves us by substituting himself for us.  He substituted himself for us in the path of obedience, fulfilling all the requirements of God’s law in our place.  And his substituted himself for us in the place of judgment, by satisfying all the demands of God’s justice against those who had broken his law, by taking our punishment upon the cross.

This is the way both the NT and the OT characterize the work of the God who redeems.  For example, the prophet Isaiah wrote that, “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:4-6).  Here is the unmistakable language of substitution.  This language is taken up in NT in multiple places.  Our Lord Jesus himself put it this way: “Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many” (Mt. 20:28).  And then the apostle Paul wrote, “Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Cor. 5:20-21).  And the apostle Peter: “Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed” (1 Pet. 2:24).  And then further: “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit” (3:18).

All this would just be impossible if Christ was not truly man as well as truly God.  He could not bear our punishment, bear our sins, and die in our place if he had not taken on the nature, not of angels but of the seed of Abraham.  

What this means is that Jesus did what we have not done and what we cannot do.  Through his obedience we are made righteous and by his death our sins are forgiven.  When Christ becomes our substitute before God, our failures become our successes in Christ.  His sympathy goes beyond what normal human sympathy can accomplish for he redeems us from our sins.  He redeems the years that the locust has eaten.  He turns the Valley of Achor into a door of hope.  In him we please God, are accepted with God, and are invited into his presence, and can have real and genuine fellowship with the living God of heaven and earth.

Do we look back on pasts that feel utterly overwhelming and crushing because we can’t go and fix the mistakes we made, and undo the sins we committed?  Well, we can’t do that.  But the good news of the Gospel of God is that God can do that and does it through Christ.  When we are united to Christ, it’s not the terrible choices and words and acts that God sees – it’s not the mess we’ve made, but the perfect righteousness of Christ.  Again, we can go to OT to see a wonderful picture of this.  In Zechariah 3, we have this picture of the high priest Joshua “standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him” (1).  Not only is Satan there to oppose and accuse Joshua, but there is Joshua, “clothed with filthy garments” (3).  Everything is going against him!  But what does God do?   He rebukes the devil (2), and “answered and spake unto those that stood before him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him. And unto him he said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment. And I said, Let them set a fair mitre upon his head. So they set a fair mitre upon his head, and clothed him with garments. And the angel of the Lord stood by” (4-5).  God rebukes the devil, takes away the filthy clothing, and replaces it with clean clothing, and takes away his sin.  This is what God does for everyone who is united to Christ by grace through faith.  Isaiah puts it this way: “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels” (Isa. 61:10). 

When we talk about justification by faith, this is what we are talking about.  God takes the sinner who puts his faith in Christ, no matter what his past has been like, and imputes the righteousness of Christ to him, and on that basis declares the sinner to be righteous, clothed with garments of salvation.  All this is possible because of what God has done in Christ, because the eternal Son became a man to stand in our place, to take our sin and give us his righteousness.  Can anything be better than that?

Is there someone here this morning who feels broken and dirty and guilty and utterly unworthy of God and his blessing?  I have good news for you: the gospel is the good news given to you that you can have all your sins washed away, can be clothed with righteousness – not an imperfect righteousness but with a perfect righteousness, the righteousness of God in Christ.  And with that comes every good thing: “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” (Rom. 8:32).  If you ask, “How do I come to receive this righteousness?”  The answer is that it is received by faith alone in Christ alone.  You trust, not in yourself, not in your good deeds, but in Christ alone and the promise of the Bible is that all who trust in him will have all their sins forgiven.  That’s the promise of God, so you can bank on that!

Successful Salvation

What do I mean by successful salvation?  I mean that the salvation we receive when we come to Christ by faith, drawn to him by the effectual working of the Holy Spirit in us, is not a salvation that can be taken away from us.  It is a salvation that takes us all the way to heaven.  It is a salvation “which [God] according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time” (1 Pet. 1:3-5).  He not only provides salvation through the incarnate Christ, but Christ himself has accomplished redemption on the cross so that “all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day” (Jn. 6:39-40).  

In other words, this salvation comes with assurance.  This again is one of the great blessings of the Protestant Reformation, in that the Reformers recovered the great doctrine of the assurance of the believer.  Great theologians though they were, Augustine and Acquinas argued that although God gives persevering grace to his elect, yet we can never know in this life whether we have it or not.  But that is certainly not the impression you get from the Bible itself.  It is certainly not the teaching of this great eighth chapter of Romans.  Because of what God has done in Christ, because on the cross he was able to say, “It is finished,” all who come to him for eternal life in repentance and faith are given the gift of the Holy Spirit who enables us to say, “Abba, Father,” and to know that we are heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:16-18).  There is no obstacle in the way of our final salvation that Jesus has not already overcome on the cross.  However obscure the end seems to us now, the end is secure and sure.   

All this is given to us because “Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.”  Because he came in the flesh, we can say, “In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 Jn. 4:9-10).  Because he is come in the flesh, we can say, “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son” (5:11).  Because he is come in the flesh we can know that we have eternal life (5:13).

He shows it to us by not only being born, and not only by dying, but by rising again in the flesh.  His resurrection is our resurrection.  The Spirit that raised Christ from the dead will also raise our mortal bodies from the dead (Rom. 8:9-11).  The promise is that we will be conformed to the image of Christ, not only in terms of our spiritual being, but also in terms of our physical bodies: “the Lord Jesus Christ . . . shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself” (Phil. 3:20-21).  So we see at every level of our salvation, the incarnation is absolutely crucial. 

And so the gift of Christmas is the good news that in the incarnate Christ we have a sympathizing Savior who became our substitute before God’s law, so that we can be saved and brought to heaven.  Let us therefore rejoice in the gospel of the God-man, and confess with full assurance that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.  As our Lord put it to the Samaritan woman in John 4, everything else will leave you wanting more.  The water of this world will not quench your thirst forever.  Only Christ can give us that which will satisfy forever.  Only he can give eternal life.  And that is the gift that is promised to us in the Christmas Story.  May God help us to cherish it as we ought.