Nativity Archives - Colin Dye

One birth changed everything!

Colin Dye — Tue, 25 Dec 2012 09:00:16 +0000

Around 360,000 new babies are born into this world every day. Can you imagine all the celebrations that are taking place right now over these new born children? Now also consider that the majority of human beings also celebrate their birthdays each year, that’s a huge amount of birthday celebrations going on each day! Births and birthdays are extremely important to us all. But out of the billions of births that have taken place in the history of the world there was one birth that changed everything and that is why we celebrate Christmas – or the birth of Christ. Any proper study of the Christmas story will reveal the most amazing of truths:

The Nativity

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14).
In the Christ child, born of a virgin, was the embodiment of divine glory, grace and truth. Out of that one birth would eventually come many spiritual births for whenever one truly puts their faith in Christ they receive a new spiritual birth – they become born again! Who would have ever thought that the grace and love of Almighty God would be demonstrated in the birth of a tiny vulnerable child? From the cradle to the cross everything Jesus did was for our benefit, he was born for us, he lived for us, he died for us, he rose for us, and he now lives evermore to intercede for us. Jesus is God’s gift to mankind.

What do you want for Christmas?

This is a question that will be asked millions of times in the next few weeks. But everything we could ever want, need or hope for as human beings is already found in Christmas and its message of glad tidings. This season amid all the celebrations, the Christmas services, the shopping, the holidays and the gathering of friends and families – draw close to Jesus and let his grace and truth fill you to overflowing – it’s the surest way to have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New year! God bless you all this Christmas time!

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The true meaning of Christmas

Colin Dye — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 12:29:45 +0000

A painting of the Nativity

The whole Bible is God’s love revelation of himself to a world in pain. Jesus came to complete the message. As the Word of God made flesh, Jesus is the full and final declaration of God. This time he did not send a prophet, he came himself. The highest understanding of who Jesus is, is that he is God manifested in the flesh.

This means we never again need to wonder what God is really like – Jesus has made him known, the invisible has been made visible. Jesus revealed the true character of God. He is the loving, giving and forgiving Heavenly Father.

But in Jesus we also see a revelation of humanity – the true humanity of God’s original intention. The Word made flesh brings us a high definition demonstration of God’s purpose for our lives. He calls us back his original plan – that we should be like Jesus. The whole object of redemption is that we should become sons of God and be changed into the likeness of Christ.

He came to lift us up. He came to set us free. He came to bring us back to our full identity as his children. Jesus took up human nature so that he could reconcile us to God. This plan of salvation was brilliantly conceived in heaven and perfectly executed on earth. Jesus died for sinful humanity and lifted that humanity up with himself in his resurrection and took that glorified humanity back to heaven.

Christmas took place only once – and ever since we have been celebrating the achievements – not just of his birth – but of his whole life and mission. As we officially celebrate it again this Christmas remember that he is no longer the babe of Bethlehem, but he is now the Lord of glory. Happy Christmas from Amanda and me, and all the team at Kensington Temple!

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The Word made flesh

Colin Dye — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 09:12:55 +0000

A scene from the movie "The Nativity"

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. (John 1:1-6)
From the Atheist and Agnostic to the Hindu and the Muslim very few would disagree that Christmas celebrates the birth of a truly historical and human figure named Jesus. But once you make the claim that Jesus was not only fully human but also the eternal and divine Son of the God disagreement begins. The Bible insists that Jesus was more than fully human, that he was more, even, than the perfect, sinless human, for it declares that he was fully divine and fully human, that he was God in human flesh.
John’s Gospel reveals Jesus’ divinity particularly clearly, and it does this essentially by introducing him as ‘the Word of God’, the logos who is a personal self-revelation of God, and by recording a series of ‘I am’ sayings in which Jesus seems to identify himself with Yahweh, with the ultimate ‘I am who I am’. He is presented as ‘the Son of God’ throughout the New Testament; and all twenty seven books ring with the great cry that ‘Jesus is Lord’.
The Logos
The Greek word logos is one of John’s Gospel’s most distinctive words. Although logos sometimes means Jesus’ message and sometimes points to Jesus himself, it always means something more than just the words spoken. John’s Gospel begins with the Son’s ‘heavenly genealogy’ in chapter 1 verses 1-18 which makes it clear that the fully human Jesus is also the eternal Word, the full revelation of the fully divine God. It reveals, for example, that God’s Word: is involved in creating and sustaining the world (Genesis 1; Psalm 33:6-9; 147:15-18); is invested with divine power and authority (Psalm147:15; Isaiah 55:11); and reveals God’s thoughts, concerns and purposes (Psalm 119:9, 105).
By identifying Jesus from the outset as the logos, John’s Gospel implicitly declares that Jesus was involved in creation, that he is invested with divine power, that he is the revelation of God, and that he is closely identified with God’s wisdom. All these ideas are then developed throughout John’s Gospel. John’s ‘prologue’ introduces a whole series of concepts which are expanded in the Gospel (such as light, life, truth, glory and the world), but it contains three basic ideas about Jesus which reveal the main characteristics of the Son as the logos.
John’s introduction also demonstrates the relation the Son has with the Father. John 1:1-2 echoes Genesis 1:1 and declares the Son’s pre-existence. John simply states that the logos was with God and was God: this underlines the Son’s divinity without blurring the distinction between the personal quality of the Son and the personal quality of the Father.
The Word was not created, He creates
John 1:1-2 reveals that the logos has the nature of God, but although the Word is God, God is more than the Word. We should recognise that John does not distinguish between the creative power of the Son and the creative power of God, but that he does distinguish the Son from creation. This means the Word was not created but always existed with God.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14
John 1:14 explains that the divine logos became human flesh and dwelt among men. We see this means that God ‘pitched his tent’ or ‘tabernacled’ in humanity, and that this points directly to the Old Testament tabernacle. This shows that John’s proclamation of the Son as the eternal Word does not dilute Jesus’ humanity; instead, it places the Son firmly in history as a flesh-andblood human being and it reveals him as a divine being who is in constant and eternal communion with God. Yahweh: I am what I am!
John’s Gospel uses the personal pronoun ‘I’ more frequently than any part of the Bible: this adds both dignity and authority to Jesus and to his words. John uses the Greek word ego, ‘I’, 134 times to attract attention to the Son – and to prepare us for the emphatic personal pronoun ego eimi, ‘I am’ which he seems to use to stress the Son’s full divinity.
Jesus’ ‘I am’ sayings are important because the phrase is used in the Old Testament as God’s personal name. God introduced himself to Moses, in Exodus 3:14, as Yahweh, ‘I am what I am’. For Jews, this invested the emphatic personal pronoun ‘I am’ with special divine significance. John records seven sayings in which Jesus uses ego eimi, ‘I am’, to describe himself:
I am the bread of life (6:35) I am the light of the world (8:12) I am the door of the sheep (10:7) I am the good shepherd who gives his life (10:11) I am the resurrection and the life (11:25) I am the way, the truth and the life (14:6) I am the true vine (15:1).
In every case, the ‘I am’ saying reveals a different divine function of Jesus – to sustain, illuminate, admit, care for sacrificially, give new life, guide and make reproductive. These are staggering claims, which are all first introduced in John’s prologue.
Through these seven sayings, Jesus makes personal what is declared in theory in the prologue – he reveals himself to be the divine embodiment of everything that people seek.
Then the Jews said to Him, ?You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?? Jesus said to them, ?Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.? John 8:57-58
In John 8:57?58, Jesus was asked whether he had seen Abraham. Jesus? questioners thought that his reply was blasphemous, and took up stones to kill him ? they understood him to be claiming that he was the divine ?I am? of Exodus 3:14, Deuteronomy 32:39; Isaiah 43:10 & 46:4.
The crowds? reaction in John 18:5?6 further underlines the divine significance of Jesus? repeated claim to be the great ?I am?.

The empty tomb speaks of the resurrection of our Lord, who came in the flesh, died in the flesh and was risen for evermore

Jesus therefore, knowing all things that would come upon Him, went forward and said to them, ?Whom are you seeking?? They answered Him, ?Jesus of Nazareth.? Jesus said to them, ?I am He.? And Judas, who betrayed Him, also stood with them. Now when He said to them, ?I am He,? they drew back and fell to the ground. John 18:4-6
The force of Jesus? absolute use of ego eimi in John 8:24, 58 & 13:19 must shape our understanding of his seven ?I am? sayings. We can say that they convey exclusively divine qualities. This Christmas let us be clear that the most accurate body of ancient literature available to mankind, the Bible, declares that a man named Jesus was born in into history, That he was the Word made flesh. He is not just fully man but also fully God, He is truly the only begotten Son of God!

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Heaven on earth

Colin Dye — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 10:26:59 +0000

The Gospels begin with the miraculous birth of Jesus, the Son of God. He did not become the Son of God by natural conception, but the Son was given to the world through the womb of Mary. Have you ever wondered why God did it this way? Why not achieve the Father?s purpose from the safe distance of heaven? What we call the Incarnation (the Word becoming flesh) was necessary for a number of reasons.

When Heaven touches earth

Revelation
Jesus came to show us what the Father is like. His famous saying, ?He who has seen me has seen the Father? makes this clear. He came to set the record straight for the countless millions of confused humanity. He wanted us to be absolutely clear. God is not what we might think him to be, he is who he is and he has revealed himself finally and definitively in Christ. If we want to know what God is like, we simply have to look at Jesus. God is the living, giving and forgiving God ? just as Jesus has shown him to be.
Alongside this, Jesus also came to reveal something about us. Jesus became human (while holding onto his divinity) to show us what God intends us to become. Jesus showed us that it is possible to be holy and human at the same time. When you see Jesus, you see God?s plan for you fulfilled. Becoming like Jesus is the ultimate definition of what it means to be a Christian. The One who was incarnated on this earth also lives in us. We can now live life as God intended and allow him to shine his presence through us to heal a world in pain.
Identification
One of the hardest problems to grapple with as believers is the problem of evil. How can a good God who is all powerful allow sin and suffering to come into the world? It is an important question and one that often stumbles many thinking people. We can talk about free will and God?s overall control of everything. We know that ?all things work together for good?. But, in the final analysis, the Bible never fully answers the question of suffering. Why do millions die every year from natural disasters, war and famine? Why do bad things happen to good people?
God does not satisfy our intellectual curiosity, at least not to the extent that some philosophers and atheists demand that he should. Why not? Honestly, I don?t know. But I do know that God has done something infinitely more wonderful. His response to the problem of evil is to come himself. Not just to observe it, but to experience it. The rejection, sufferings and death of Jesus on the cross should put an end to all our fruitless debating and theorizing. God in Christ has fully indentified with our life on earth. He has experienced what we experience because he has lived what we live ? in every way apart from sin.
Salvation
In his coming to this earth, Jesus lived life as it should be lived and fully obeyed God in every way possible. That is what qualified him to be the substitute sacrifice for our sins ? to become our Saviour. This is the ultimate reason why Jesus came. The Bible says that ?God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.? If he had not come himself, we would be still dead in our sins, struggling in our confusion and lost in our suffering. But he did come! And that is what we are celebrating this Christmas.
Happy Christmas to you all!

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