Regifting

Yes, it’s true. I’m regifting this year. In the current economy, it seems that regifting is more common than ever, but it is by no means new. The Christ of Christmas said, “You received without paying; give without pay.” So with the vast number of friends and family to whom I would like to give a gift, I’ve decided to join trend of regifting. The gift I have received is the gift of God – eternal life. It is the perfect gift for regifting. It is the gift that once you’ve received it you can regift it over and over again and still keep it for yourself. (Of course God, the original giver, continues to be the source of the gift.)

I love Christmas. But celebrating the birth of the Christ child apart from the reality of why He was born is empty and meaningless. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was born in order that He might live as a man the perfect sinless life that no one else could ever live. And having lived that life, He was to die in the place of sinners. God, the universal Lawgiver and Judge, is holy and just. His justice demands that He punish lawbreakers, and all of mankind is guilty before the God to whom we must give account.. Yet He is merciful, and in His mercy he has determined to provide salvation in His Son, Jesus Christ.

When Jesus died on the cross, he died as a substitute for sinners. God, the Judge of all, transferred the penalty for sin to His sinless Son and punished Him. “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” The penalty for sin, if exacted upon sinners, would consign each and every one of us to eternal conscious punishment in hell. Yet the sinless God-Man suffered the full wrath of a holy God in one day on a Roman cross in Jerusalem, just six miles away and 33 years after His birth in Bethlehem. And three days later, as if to say, “I am satisfied with the death of My Son on behalf of sinners,” God raised Jesus from the dead. Now, because God has poured out all of His wrath for sinners on the Savior, all those who receive Christ have their sins forgiven and live forever with God.

This Christmas season receive the gift of eternal life. Stop trusting in your own goodness (you have none). Put your faith in the sinless Son of God instead. Repent and turn from your life of sinning against the Lawgiver and His law. Receive this greatest of gifts. And then you can regift it over and over again and still keep it for yourself.

Now tell me, doth this offend you?

Merry Christmas,

Craig Akin

P.S. Feel free to regift this post.

If Christ Has Not Been Raised

Men are incurably religious. When we reject the true and living God we have to create a god or gods to take His place. The result is a world full of false religions.

Every false religion has its origin in the sinful heart of man under the inspiration of demons.

(First Corinthians 10:18-20 ESV) ¹⁸ Consider the people of Israel: are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? ¹⁹ What do I imply then? That food offered to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything? ²⁰ No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons.

The religions of the world come in many shapes and sizes. Postmodern philosophy would say, it’s up to you to choose which one is true for you, to choose not to participate in any, or to create your own system. And no religion is better or truer than any other.

But Christianity, with its truth claims stands out from all the religions of the world. It can never be subjected to the postmodern idea of relative truth. You cannot say, “Christianity is true for me.” Because Christianity is either absolutely true, or it is not true at all. Either Jesus really did rise from the dead, and therefore, Christianity is the only true ‘religion,’ or Jesus did not rise from the dead and Christianity is to be absolutely rejected.

Those who want to hang on to Christianity, but spiritualize the resurrection of Jesus are really creating another false religion and simply calling it Christianity.

No other doctrine sets Christianity apart from the false religious systems of the world more than the doctrine of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Christians claim that the bodily resurrection of Jesus is a historic fact. No other religion can say that its founder came back from the dead; nor do they need to. But if Christ did not rise, our faith is useless. The validity of our faith is dependent on the absolute truth of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ as a historic fact.

(First Corinthians 10:18-20 ESV) ¹⁷ And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. ¹⁸ Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. ¹⁹ If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

Now tell me, doth this offend you?

The Word Became Flesh

“The Word”

Who was “in the beginning,”

The Word - Who “was with God,”

The Word - Who “was God,”

The Word - through Whom “all things were made,”

The Word - in Whom “was life,”

The Word - Whose “life was the light of men,”

The Word - Whose “light shines in the darkness,”

The Word - Whose light “the darkness has not overcome,”

The Word – Who is “The true light,”

The Word – “which enlightens everyone,”

The Word – Who “was coming into the world,”

The Word - Who “was in the world,”

The Word – Who “the world was made through Him,”

The Word – Who “the world did not know,”

The Word - Who “came to His own,”

The Word – Who “His own people did not receive,”

The Word - Who “to all who did receive him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God,”

"became flesh."

Now tell me, doth this offend you?

The Coming of Christ and the Sovereignty of God

(Galatians 4:4 ESV) 4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,

God’s sovereign control over all things is clearly seen in His orchestration of the timing and detail of the birth of the Messiah.

More than seven hundred years before the birth of Jesus, God declared through the prophet Micah:

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 origin is from of old,
from ancient days. (Micah 5:2 ESV)

The fulfillment of this prophecy was no small thing. For the mother of the Messiah to be in Bethlehem Ephrathah at “the fullness of” her time, or when “the days were accomplished that she should be delivered” (Luke 2:6 KJV) took nothing less than a decree from the Emperor of Rome.

(Luke 2:1-7 ESV) 1 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 And all went to be registered, each to his own town. 4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, 5 to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. 6 And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

How is it that Caesar Augustus would issue that decree just at the right moment in history; “when the fullness of time had come?” Further, how is it that Caesar Augustus came to be Emperor so as to be in a position to issue that decree?

(Daniel 4:17 ESV) 17 ...the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will and sets over it the lowliest of men.’

Caesar Augustus was Emperor of Rome because the Most High made him Emperor of Rome.

(Proverbs 21:1 ESV) 1 The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will.

Caesar Augustus issued his decree “that all the world should be registered” at that very moment in history because God decreed it. The Most High turned his heart as if it were a few drops of water in the palm of His hand.

Truly the coming of the Messiah was right on time. The Incarnation happened “when the fullness of time had come.” The coming of Christ perfectly fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies, because our sovereign God rules in the affairs of men.

(Daniel 6 34-35 ESV) 34 ...blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation; 35 all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?”

Absolutely nothing occurs outside of His sovereign control. This means he will bring to pass all He has promised and all He has threatened. It also means that He has purpose in all the things believers experience in this life no matter how good or bad they are.

(Genesis 50:18-20 ESV) 18 His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, “Behold, we are your servants.” 19 But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? 20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.

Now tell me, doth this offend you?

Incarnate Mediator

Christianity is nothing if it is not historical. Christianity is all about a Person; a real Person. A man! He was a man who lived in history. He lived at a particular place. He lived at a particular time; “when the fullness of time had come” (Galatians 4:4 ESV). He lived in a particular way. A man! He was an utterly unique man - a man like no other man, yet a man.

God the Son became a Man. Jesus possesses from all eternity the nature of God. He is equal to the Father in power, knowledge, self-existence, and holiness. In every way the Son is equal to the Father; “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation” (Colossians 1:15 ESV). God the Son in His Deity is spirit. He is eternally the WORD of God. He never ceased to be all that the Father is. But in the course of human history - at a particular place and time - He assumed a second nature. He became a Man. He did not become half Man and half God. He never lost a single attribute of Deity. While He never ceased to be 100% God, He became a real Man. He became a Man in every sense, only without sin. From eternity He was one Person with one nature. At a particular moment in history He became one Person with two natures. He is the God-Man. He is not a mixture of the divine and the human. He is 100% God and 100% Man. He is the WORD become flesh.

Christ, by highest Heav’n adored;
Christ the everlasting Lord;
Late in time, behold Him come,
Offspring of a virgin’s womb.
Veiled in flesh the Godhead see;
Hail th’incarnate Deity,
Pleased with us in flesh to dwell,
Jesus our Emmanuel.

All of eternity past looked forward to the events that began when God became Man. And all of eternity future will look back on the Incarnation of the Son of God as the greatest event in the history of mankind. The events that began with the conception and birth of Jesus Christ stand as the ultimate demonstration of both the justice and the mercy of our great God.

Jesus remains the God-Man. In His glorified state He forever retains His Humanity. This qualifies Him to be our Mediator.

(First Timothy 2:5 ESV) 5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

As Mediator, Jesus can represent men to God because He possesses our human nature. Jesus can represent God to men because He possesses God’s nature.

“God sent forth his Son” (Galatians 4:4 ESV). “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14 ESV). God became a Man. The importance of this doctrine cannot be overstated. All Christian doctrine hangs on the fact that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh. It is because of the Incarnation that we can know God. Had God not pitched His tent among us we could not know Him.

What an amazing thing that the God of creation would condescend to live among His creatures. Jesus lived the life of a man on earth for nearly three and a half decades. Think about it. He played. He laughed. He “increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man” (Luke 2:52 ESV). He worked. He taught. He loved. He healed. He prayed. He wept. He died. He rose again! His life has had a greater impact on the world than any other person or event. The events of one Passover weekend at the end of His life changed the world forever.

Now tell me, doth this offend you?

Spurgeon on the Love of God for the Justified Sinner

The doctrine of justification by faith alone in Christ alone is essential to the Gospel. Lately, I've been reading a number of thing on the doctrine. The following is a quote from a sermon by C.H. Spurgeon.

The moment the man believes in Christ, he ceases to be guilty in God’s esteem, but what is more, he becomes righteous, he becomes meritorious, for, in the moment when Christ takes his sins he takes Christ’s righteousness, so that, when God looks upon the sinner who but an hour ago was dead in sins, he looks upon him with as much love and affection as he ever looked upon his Son. He himself has said it — “As the Father loved me, so have I loved you.” He loves us as much as his Father loved him. Can you believe such a doctrine as that? Does it not pass all thought? Well, it is a doctrine of the Holy Spirit, the doctrine whereby we must hope to be saved. (Justification By Grace, A Sermon [#126] Delivered on April 5, 1857)

Now tell me, doth this offend you?