Celebrating the Promise

MEMORY VERSE: “He that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is His name.” —Luke 1:49

LUKE 1:39-55; JOHN 1:1-5, 9-18

OUR attention is inevitably drawn during this season of the year to God’s great gift to mankind, the Savior of the world. Although we cannot agree as to the date that is generally set aside to mark the birth of our Lord, it is only proper that we turn our thoughts to a deeper appreciation of that most blessed event.

The above memory text, as recorded by Luke the historian, is a portion of the remarkable song of thanksgiving uttered by Mary, the mother of our Lord Jesus, on the occasion of her visit with Elisabeth, her cousin and mother of John the Baptist.

Luke indicates (1:28,30,42) that Mary was indeed most blessed among women, having found favor with God to have been given such a wonderful privilege. The Scriptures also inform us that Mary was full of faith and joy to be so used as an instrument in the great plan of God for the eventual recovery of the human family from the ravages of sin and death. And Mary said (1:46-48), “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Savior; for he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.” Furthermore Mary, a virgin, did not fear the incriminating reproaches of the world regarding her purity, but instead dedicated her life to serving God in full assurance of faith.

Most of the so-called Christian world celebrates the birth of Jesus in one way or another; and many have a deep sense of devotion concerning the events that surround the humble circumstances of that scene in Bethlehem nearly two thousand years ago; but there are only a few—one here and one there—who understand the full significance and value of our Lord’s life, to say nothing of our Heavenly Father’s great love in providing his Son to be the Redeemer of the world. That promise is indeed something to celebrate!

The scriptural texts in the first chapter of John indicate that our Lord Jesus previously existed as a spirit being with an exalted nature and condition. Using the Emphatic Diaglott interlinear reading in verses 1-3 as a basis for this conclusion we note: “In a beginning was the Word [Logos], and the Word was with the God [ho theos], and a god [theos] was the Word. This was in a beginning with the God [ho theos].” “All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made.” When we examine this text in the light of the Greek article appearing in one place and not in the other, we can see that originally there was but the “one God,” the “self-existing One,” and that the Word (Logos) was the beginning of the Heavenly Father’s creative work.

Through a miracle the Word, Jesus, the Son of God, became flesh, that he might in turn sacrifice that flesh for the life of the world; for by man, Father Adam, had come the death penalty because of disobedience to the divine law as established in the Garden of Eden. Jesus was transformed from the spiritual nature to the human nature, so that in giving his life for the world’s redemption he would provide the exact equivalent, or corresponding price, for that which was lost in Eden—a perfect human life.

This thought is expressed in verse 14 of the first chapter of John, and better understood from the Diaglott rendering, from which we quote: “And the Logos became flesh.” As it was the Logos that became flesh, all thinking people must admit that our Lord’s birth was no ordinary occasion. The thought is that the Son of God, the beginning of the creation of God, the only begotten of the Heavenly Father, gave up that glorious condition that he had enjoyed as a spirit being,

It was when he made his consecration at thirty years of age and symbolized it with water baptism that Jesus received his begetting of the Holy Spirit to a new nature, a spiritual nature. From that moment on he became the Anointed One, and in death, while exclaiming on the cruel cross “It is finished,” our Lord completed the work that the Father had given him to do, and he became the Savior of promise.

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