Did God really become a man and visit our planet? Christians affirm that he did because of what is written in the Bible. In 1 Timothy 3:16 we read, ‘Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of our religion: God was manifested in the flesh.’
The stupendous fact of God becoming man – the Incarnation – takes us to the heart of Christmas. An ancient creed states that Jesus Christ ‘for us and our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary and was made man’.
Consider the wonder of it all: the Son of God became a Son of man, so that the sons of men might become the sons of God. The Bible is clear that ‘by nature’ we are ‘children of wrath’ – that is, not the children of God.
We are sinners, and sin is an affront to a holy God. Our sin alienates us from him. Yet through Jesus Christ we may be reconciled to God – adopted into his family. There could be no higher privilege or status!
