Do you have difficulty believing in miracles? Jesus’ miracles? How about the virgin birth? The resurrection? These certainly require faith. However, I suggest that the most ‘unbelievable’ thing about the Christian faith is not the miracles, nor the virgin birth, nor the resurrection, but the incarnation. This is the teaching that God came to earth in bodily form (1 Timothy 3:16).
When you see a nativity scene, what impresses you the most? The sweetness? The humility of Jesus? Surely it should be the staggering fact that this baby was God in human form. That is the truth expressed in Matthew 1:23: ‘…call his name Emmanuel, which means, God with us.’
This baby was God
When we speak of God, what do we think of? The Creator, the all-powerful One, the One who is everywhere? All these are realities, but Jesus came into this world not demonstrating these divine attributes. He came as a baby. Can this baby really be God? We might be forgiven for questioning this but for several facts.
Foretold
To begin with, his birth was foretold. Now, several other births were foretold in the Bible (Isaac, Samson, John the Baptist, for example), but when Jesus’ birth was foretold, his deity was announced: ‘Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Immanuel’ (Isaiah 7:14).
