Botticelli, The Annunciation; Everett Collection at Shutterstock.com.
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Try to imagine God taking on a human body. With God all things are possible of course—the incarnation is not too difficult for God, even though our thinking about it might make our finite heads swirl. Yet, should we be surprised that God came in the form of a suffering servant—the man Jesus Christ, who would save his people from their sins? Let's go back to the biblical writings a number of centuries before the incarnation.
“‘The virgin shall conceive and bear a son’” (Isa. 7:14).
About 700 years before Jesus was born in the flesh, the prophet Isaiah proclaimed,
“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” [which means "God with us"]. (Isa. 7:14; see also Matt. 1:23)
A child would be born who would rule on the throne of David forever:
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" (Isa. 9:6).
Isaiah wrote that "the zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this" (Isa. 9:7). In other words, God would bring a child into the world to save and rule his people forever.
“You are my Son; today I have begotten you” (Ps. 2:7).
The prophet Micah, also writing about 700 years before Jesus' birth, said the king would come from Bethlehem:
But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days. (Mic. 5:2)
Even the second Psalm points to God's Son when David writes,
I will tell of the decree: The LORD said to me, "You are my Son; today I have begotten you." (Ps. 2:7)
But what did the prophets say would become of the Son of God?
“He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isa. 53:3).
Isaiah revealed what God's Son would look like, how he would live, and how he would die to heal us:
For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” (Isa. 53:2-5)
The child born in Bethlehem would not be handsome and attractive—he would be afflicted, suffer, be wounded, and ultimately put to death. "It was the will of the LORD to crush him" (Isa. 53:10) until “he poured out his soul to death,” while bearing the sins of many (Isa. 53:12).
“‘You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins’” (Matt. 1:21).
Christ Jesus, the eternal Son of God who is "God with us" took on human flesh to suffer and die as a man since it was mankind who owed the debt of death for sinning against God. God sent his Son into this world to satisfy the justice of God by bearing our penalty for us. And it was a penalty so great that only God himself could bear the just and righteous wrath of God.
Many centuries before he was born in Bethlehem, God revealed his Son to his people, the man who would be called Jesus, because he would save his people from their sins (Matt. 1:21). God fulfilled his promise to send his one and only Son so that all who believe in him may have eternal life (John 3:16).
Daniel Rowlands is content editor for Beautiful Christian Life.
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