that begins with “Why?” can be answered scientifically. Such questions can be answered only theologically, and that means they can only be truly answered from the written Word of God, the Bible. And this greatest of all questions has the most wonderful of all answers!
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved (John 3:17).
When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law (Gal. 4:4–5).
This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners (1 Tim. 1:15).
But that is not all, of course. His first coming, followed by His sacrificial death, bodily resurrection, and glorious ascension, is a prophetic promise of His second coming.
At His first coming, He “tabernacled” among us for a little while; at His second coming, there will be “a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: For the former things are passed away” (Rev. 21:3–4). “And there shall be no night there . . . for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever” (Rev. 22:5).
How infinitely sad it is that so many today reject or ignore such a gracious, loving, holy, powerful Creator/Redeemer. Not only do they miss all the true meaning and blessing of Christmas now, but, unless they respond to Him in repentance and faith, they will be everlastingly separated from Him in the glorious eternal ages to come.
Creation and the Cross
Thus, the Creator who has become Savior will also be consummator and eternal sovereign. The coming of the Creator into the world — both for His human incarnation and for His final, everlasting reign — comprises all the motivation and power for Christian faith and life. But to understand the meaning of His coming, one must first understand and believe the record of His primeval work of creation and man’s terrible rebellion against Him, followed by the curse.
At creation, the Lord looked forward to the Incarnation. At the Incarnation, He had to anticipate the Cross. Then, on the Cross, He looked beyond to the crown! The eternal Word, by whom all things were made, was himself made flesh (John 1:1–3, 14), when He came into the world that He had made. Thus did creation foretell Christmas, and Christmas fulfill creation!
The word “Christmas,” in its primary sense, means “Christ-sent,” or “Christ’s Mission” (the suffix mas is derived ultimately from the Latin mittere, “to send”). He came as God’s greatest missionary, manifesting the love of God toward us, “because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him” (1 John 4:9).
But this required the Cross, and so He “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Phil. 2:8). Nevertheless, He, “for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame” (Heb. 12:2), and, therefore, He will some day be crowned King of kings and Lord of lords.
One of the most poignantly sad verses in all the Bible is John 1:10. “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.” How could it possibly be that men and women, lovingly formed and commissioned by their maker to enjoy productive and happy lives in a world of beauty and fullness, could then turn on Him and refuse His loving care and guidance?
Yet that is what Adam and Eve did even though they had walked with Him and talked with Him in the beautiful garden that He had planted for them. Worse, that is what the whole of humanity did when God the Creator eventually came into the world again, this time only to be despised and crucified by the ones He loved. But, of course, those were cruel days, when people were still brutish, and ignorant, caring little for the grace of life, steeped in the carnality of pagan religion and unaware of their long-forgotten maker. If only He had waited until our 20th century to come into the world, when the marvels of modern science and communication, culture and education, would have spread the joyful news quickly all over the world!
But, then, as one takes a closer look at the pseudo-intellectual arrogance of the establishment scientists, the skeptical bias of the communications media, the depravity of modern pseudo-intellectual humanistic culture, and the anti-creationist mindset of the educators, it becomes obvious that Christ would be even more vehemently and viciously repudiated in the modern world than He was in the ancient world.
As a matter of fact, He will be coming again one day into the world that was made by Him, and the world will indeed know Him this time — not as a loving Savior, but as an offended and wrathful Creator and judge! “God that made the world and all things therein . . . hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead” (Acts 17:24, 31).
Until He comes again, however, this is still the age of grace and there is still the wonderful Christmas message of salvation to all who will hear. The great Creator has become the incarnate Word, and the Savior of men. “He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name” (John 1:11–12).
Christmas is thus only one stage, a preparatory stage, in God’s great plan of the ages. Yet it is the only one which the world as a whole acknowledges. Creation is denied, the Cross is ignored, and the coronation is ridiculed; but Christmas is eulogized, commercialized, and scandalized. It often seems as though human activities for the first 51 weeks of each year are designed merely to support a year-end madness of covetousness and carnality in its final week.
But there is much beyond Christmas! For the Lord Jesus, there was a lifetime of service and sacrifice, consummated by eternal joy. “As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you,” He said. For us also, as His servants, there must be service and sacrifice and, then, ultimately thankful satisfaction and joy everlasting.
Before Jesus actually went to the cross, He lived the greatest human life, performed the mightiest works, and left the finest teachings that the world has ever known. God had become man, in Jesus Christ, and He not only revealed God, but He also revealed man as God had intended man to be.
In addition to showing us how to live, He also taught us what to believe. Among many other things, He taught us what we should believe about creation.
Jesus the Creationist
When God became man, He became man as God intended man to be. He lived as God wanted man to live (1 Pet. 2:21), and He thought as God intended man to think (Phil. 2:5). What the Lord Jesus Christ believed, His disciples must believe, if they are truly His disciples. Thus, so-called “Christian evolutionists” in effect are denying His lordship. It may indeed be possible for a Christian to be an evolutionist (either through ignorance or deliberate disobedience), but evolution itself cannot be Christian, for the obvious reason that Christ was not an evolutionist. Consequently, there is no such thing as Christian evolution!
True Christians, of course, accept the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, so they certainly should no longer accept evolution — once they realize that He believed and taught the historicity and accuracy of the literal Genesis record of special creation. The following quotations from His own words indicate how clear and comprehensive was this teaching of Jesus.
1 He accepted the compatibility of the two supposedly contradictory accounts of creation in Genesis 1 and Genesis
