"Advent: The Divine Son" Matthew 1:18-21 Sunday Morning Worship Service

Matthew eighteen verse Matthew one verses eighteen through twenty-one reads this.

Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.

When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.

And her husband, Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.

But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

She'll bear a son, and you will call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

The virgin birth in Scripture is one of the cardinal doctrines of Christianity.

It is one of those many doctrines which display the convergence of diverse excellencies in our Lord Jesus Christ.

He is the Lord of heaven, but born in a stable.

He's the omnipotent God of the universe and yet makes his dwelling among us.

This is what bridges really the division of world religions here.

You have the kind of Greek pantheon of gods where God and mankind are interchangeable in the Greek world.

So their gods become men, their men's become gods, and back and forth.

You have the eastern religions of the world which don't see a distinction between God and man.

And then you have more of the Western religions or the people of the book, as Muslims would call it, who see a distinction, a hard and fast distinction between creature and creator, where God has nothing in common with mankind at all.

And then you meet Christianity, and then you meet the Bible, and it has a foot in both of those worlds, doesn't it?

Where God is the creator of the universe.

God is not like us in any way.

The scripture says that our error in thinking about God, Psalm 55, is that you thought, speaking of mankind, you thought God was just like you.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

He doesn't have a body, he just exists.

He's not dependent upon anyone.

He doesn't look like us, he is just different than us altogether because he is eternal and omnipotent.

That is the God who created the universe.

And then that God is born and takes on human flesh, takes on a human nature, becomes a person when Jesus Christ is born in a manger.

That rocks all of our theological categories.

Seminary students flunk out and become heretics over this doctrine.

This has been said about the virgin birth that if you understand this doctrine, you will lose your mind, but if you deny this doctrine, you will lose your soul.

That's why it is so important for us to study it this morning.

As we look at the virgin birth, we discover one birth of a person who has no beginning, a pregnancy with no husband, and yet a fundamental cardinal doctrine of our faith.

Because of how complex and transcendent this truth is, the first part of verse 18 makes me laugh every time I read it.

Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.

I chuckle at that.

This is the most, you know, complex, transcendent doctrine where you have these two truths that are irreconcilable, just both presented right there in front of you, that God is eternal and yet he was born as a baby.

And Matthew just says, Let me tell you what happens.

All right, Matthew, you do that.

And Matthew begins his description of the virgin birth with a description of really what I'm going to call the only unplanned pregnancy, the original unplanned pregnancy.

That'll be our outline this morning.

An unplanned pregnancy with, and I'll give you some descriptions of it.

I always laugh every time, and I know I shouldn't, it's rude, but I always laugh when a couple tells me, yeah, we're expecting, and we weren't even trying.

Really?

Who did your premarital?

Because I want to make sure they never do another class again.

We weren't even trying.

It's such a surprise.

Okay.

But this is true in this case.

Mary and Joseph, as Americans are prone to say, were not even trying.

The birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.

When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together.

She was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.

Now, the Jewish world back then did engagements differently than we do it.

With us, we do engagements, and it's, you know, it's pretty serious.

There was a ring involved, but people do break off engagements in our culture.

They do get engaged and then bail on it.

And I mean they they shouldn't unless something drastic comes up, but it happens.

It did not happen in the Jewish world because what an engagement was in the Jewish world was a legally binding form of marriage.

There was this idea that you had the groom's family had to give a bridal price to the bride's family.

And the father of the bride kind of held it in escrow for a year.

The groom went home and worked and got his house ready, and he had to convince the father or the bride that his house was indeed ready to take his daughter away from him and move into here.

And oftentimes the father or the bride would even come investigate the house a year later and make sure it's up to up to snuff.

You call that a living room?

Come on, you're not getting my daughter.

So that happens.

It was also designed to ensure sexual integrity, the rightful passing down of the line.

And so it would last a year usually, and you would make sure that nobody was pregnant during this time.

There are no accusations of sexual immorality brought out against the groom.

And the wife, if she had been immoral, it would obviously be exposed during that time period.

That was the design of this year-long betrothal period.

That's why the word betrothal is the word translators use here.

It's more extreme than an engagement.

It's not a marriage, though.

They're not intimate together.

That's the whole point of this year-long period, is that they're not intimate.

I'm a pastor, I'm licensed by the Commonwealth of Virginia and the County of Fairfax to do marriages, but you still have to get a marriage license, and I have to file it with the government.

Both boxes have to be checked, religious and legal.

Well, in the Jewish world, the legal box was checked a year before the religious box.

You know, there'd be a year that goes by before you were actually married in God's sight, even though you're legally married.

That was the betrothal period.

And you were not intimate during that time.

That was the point, and that's where they are.

And if immorality was exposed during that time, it left you with two options.

And that's what we see here in this passage: an unplanned pregnancy with two options.

And the first option would be execution.

This is what Deuteronomy describes.

If immorality is discovered with a betrothed person, then she should be put to death.

This is Deuteronomy 22, verses 23 through 24.

Deuteronomy 22:23–24

Describe it.

And it's a very interesting window into Old Testament sexual ethics.

If the betrothed was sexually intimate with a guy out in the country, out in the, you know, away from a city, she would not be put to death.

Only the guy would be.

But if it happened in a city and she did not cry for help, then she should be put to death along with the guy.

They would both be executed.

That's the penalty for this kind of sin.

That's what's described.

And that would have been appropriate.

Now, who knows if the Jews had the authority to do this during the life of Christ?

It seems that the Romans did not let them execute people, but it also seems from extra biblical sources that they often did stone to death adulteresses.

That's even implied in the Gospel of John that they were preparing to do just that.

Hence Jesus' question when they brought out the adulteress to stone her to death, where is the man?

What's going on here?

Aren't you missing somebody?

And it seems that that was an option available to them, and Joseph could have availed himself of that.

The reason that you might do this if you were, if you were engaged to a lady and she turned out to be pregnant, you would likely avail yourself of this option because it vindicated you.

Everything would be done in public.

She would be put on trial, she would be condemned, she'd be executed, and people would know about this.

Even if they didn't execute her, it still vindicated you.

Even if they didn't actually stone her to death, it was still clear that you were not in the wrong.

You're not the culprit.

And if you took that road, you were then free to remarry.

The whole legal system signs off on the fact that you were wronged.

You get your bridal price back.

The father of the bride has to refund your money, and you can then marry somebody else having another bridal price to pay.

Meanwhile, the girl would be, if she wasn't put to death, she would not be allowed to marry again the rest of her life.

Why would somebody do this?

Well, it would vindicate themselves.

It would prove that they were the victim.

The man would be able to demonstrate that he was a victim.

He was not the one who committed sexual immorality.

That's an option to Joseph.

However, there's a second option as well, and that is a divorce, a quiet divorce.

And that's what's described in verse 19.

Her husband Joseph, being a just man, that's the word for righteous, he was a righteous, faithful man, unwilling to put Mary to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.

Had Joseph taken the public route, it would have put Mary to shame and vindicated Joseph.

Instead, Joseph, because he's righteous, is going to divorce her quietly, it said, the way the Mishnah, by the way, is just the written record of the Pharisees' tradition.

So the Pharisees had our own legal system.

It eventually got written down in what's called the Mishnah.

The Mishnah describes this: that the case could be settled just by two elders, two of the religious leaders, and the bride and her parents, and the groom and his parents would get together, the two elders would negotiate something.

It would not be public.

Like in the American system, it'd be like a non-disclosure agreement, a private settlement, maybe.

You settled out of court and the terms are not disclosed publicly, that kind of thing.

You could do that in the Jewish world and you would leave away the maybe the bridal price was refunded, maybe it wasn't.

Nobody would know except those two elders.

Maybe the the what was clear is that the wedding couldn't go forward anymore.

If there was sexual morality, they were not allowed to get married.

But if you settled this quietly, you could go your separate ways.

Perhaps you both could remarry in the future, maybe.

You'd be allowed to, maybe, maybe not, depending on who the guilty party was.

But the the key is that it wouldn't be public.

Had Joseph done this, the stigma would have remained on him probably for the rest of his life.

Probably he would have been assumed to be guilty.

Otherwise, he would have done the whole thing in public.

But because he did this in private, people would assume he was the guilty one.

He maybe would have even gotten his bridal price back, but people wouldn't have known that.

Why would anybody take advantage of that option?

Well, it would have been to protect Mary.

It would have protected her.

The other reason, very interesting, this is described, by the way, in Deuteronomy 24.

Right after the description of execution, Deuteronomy describes this option as a certificate of divorce.

It's almost as if it's an act of mercy.

And Jesus says it that way in Matthew 19, verse 5.

Matthew 19:5

He says it was never God's design to allow divorce, it was not his design.

Nevertheless, because of our hardness of heart, there is sin in the world, there is adultery in the world, that God shows us mercy by allowing us to divorce the adulteress.

And that same standard would have applied in the betrothal period.

It's an act of mercy.

And you think, how is divorce an act of mercy?

Well, because the other option is death.

And so Jesus says it's out of the mercy of the Lord he allows this.

And so divorce in that sense, it's so fascinating to me from an ethical perspective.

That here, Matthew 19, Jesus says divorce is allowed in cases of adultery as an act of mercy.

And you think, yeah, but maybe you still shouldn't do it.

But here you get to Matthew 1, and it says Joseph, because he was righteous, was going to do that.

Because he was righteous, he was going to take care of this quietly.

He would have lived with the stigma for the rest of his life.

This is an example of a godly leader.

A godly husband does not put his wife to shame even when she's wrong.

Even when she's wrong.

Pretend that you're hypothetically gonna go out somewhere and you've got friends picking you up at and your wife told you it was five, and they show up at 4.30.

And you're not ready yet.

This is a total hypothetical situation.

And you're not ready yet.

How tempting it is to tell the people that you're not making weight, oh, I'm sorry I'm running late.

My wife told me the wrong time.

Oh, how tempting is that?

It is so tempting.

So tempting, I tell you.

But notice that you would be throwing your wife under the proverbial bus.

That's not okay.

Not okay.

So you have to own it.

You have to be, oh, I'm so sorry, I'm late.

That's something small and trivial about being late.

Here, Joseph is gonna do that about adultery.

He's gonna live with the stigma the rest of his life rather than put Mary to shame, even though it's her fault.

I mean, of course it's her fault.

You think you have a hard time believing the virgin birth?

Pretend you're Joseph.

He doesn't believe this.

Mary turns out pregnant, he's like, the Holy Spirit.

Okay.

All right, I'm gonna go get two elders, you hang out here, find your parents.

But he chooses the righteous option.

Well, the Lord doesn't allow this divorce to happen because verse 20, as he was considering these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream.

This is two layers of supernatural confirmation here.

It's not just an angel, but it's an angel in a dream.

Saying, Joseph, son of David.

The angel here is reminding Joseph that he is in the line of David.

The angel has been reading Matthew chapter 1, apparently.

Matthew 1 · chapter mention

He knows that Joseph descends from David.

Don't fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

The angel reminds Joseph he's in the line of David, and their child now is going to be the Savior.

We'll talk more about that in a minute.

That's connecting him to the line of David.

But notice that the angel here is telling Joseph, there are two parents.

So we go from two options to two parents.

There are two parents involved.

Every baby has two parents.

Mary and God here will be the second parent.

Mary and God.

If a person has 46 chromosomes here, the idea is that 23 of Jesus' chromosomes will be from Mary and 23 from God.

Now I'm not speaking in biological terms as if God actually passes along chromosomes.

That's the point I'm making here.

That Mary is going to give her nature, her genetics to Jesus, not Joseph.

The other part, the other parent involved in this is, it says the Holy Spirit, the divine nature, will be giving life to Jesus as well.

Jesus is going to grow up, and he's going to look like Mary.

He's not going to look like Joseph.

He's not a parent here.

Joseph is a guardian.

He's a stepdad.

He's a caretaker, but he is not the father.

And the Bible makes that clear.

As Jesus grows up, he will look like Mary.

And you know this with kids.

You know, sometimes you see my kids around me, and you might say, Oh, they look just like Deedra.

That's so kind of you.

Or when my kids are with Deedra, oftentimes she'll tell me, Oh, so-and-so came up to me and said, Our kids look just like you.

Savannah, my middle daughter looks just like the baby pictures of my mom.

It's incredible.

I see my mom's baby pictures and my middle daughter's baby pictures.

You cannot tell them apart except one's black and white.

It's the only difference.

And that's the nature of children.

They look like their parents.

Well, Jesus will grow up and he will not look like Joseph.

He will never look like Joseph.

He takes on certainly some of Joseph's mannerisms being raised with him.

He takes on Joseph's occupation.

Joseph was a carpenter, Matthew says.

Mark says that Jesus grows up to be a carpenter.

And carpenter, I think, is more of what we call a mason.

There's not a lot of not a lot of trees in Nazareth.

They make things, they make buildings and they make wells and farming implements.

That's what Jesus will do.

Because his dad did it.

He's going to refer to Joseph in that sense.

You know, you might refer to your stepparents as mom and dad.

And Jesus certainly, if that was culturally appropriate, would have done the same thing.

But the Bible never refers to Joseph as Jesus' dad.

And refers to Joseph as chapter 1, verse 16 of Matthew, the husband of Mary.

The angel in chapter 2 is going to come to Joseph in a dream and say, Arise, take the child and his mother to Egypt.

Notice that kind of language.

If you were to tell me, you know, Geneva is crying in the nursery or whatever, go get the child and her mother.

Hey, I'm the father, okay?

What is the fighting words?

Go get the child and her mother?

We know, because we know you're not the dad.

That's the implication of that.

Well, that's how the angel talks to Jesus, or talks to Joseph.

Take the child that you're raising and the child's mother and get them to Egypt.

Luke 2, verse 23 is one of the clearest understandings of this.

Luke 2:23

It says, Joseph, who was supposed to be the father of Jesus.

That's how people supposed it.

It's the only time that phrase is used in the whole line of Joseph is when it gets to his son.

Oh, it's supposed there, but everybody else is the actual father-son relationship.

And that's it.

Those are the only references to Joseph in the Bible.

Matthew 13, 55, the crowd says, wait, Jesus, isn't he the carpenter's son and his mother is called Mary?

So that implies that Joseph has already died.

Mark 6 drops any reference to Joseph at all and says, Isn't Jesus the carpenter and his mother is Mary?

In other words, Joseph dies, and it's not even recorded in Scripture.

He exits stage left.

We don't even get an epitaph for him.

All we know about him is what the verse says here, that he was righteous.

He was a real believer in the Lord.

They had other children, we know that.

Mary and Joseph were the father of James, Joseph, Judas, Simon, as well as several sisters, Matthew and Mark both tell us.

But Joseph is never put on display in the Bible.

But that doesn't mean that Jesus only had one parent.

It says that what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit, it says in verse 20.

The Holy Spirit, in the sense that God's nature is the second parent.

Now every human life, I mean life really, the definition, biological definition of life is the division of cells with a unique molecular or cellular identity, unique DNA identity.

That of course happens at conception where the zygote begins dividing the cells in it, begin dividing.

The zygote is a unique life from the mother because the zygote has a different DNA makeup.

You know, if it's a male baby, the zygote has a male DNA, the mother does not.

So it's very clearly not just a different subset of life in the mother.

It has its own identity, its own molecular DNA identity.

And the cells are dividing, it's very much alive.

By any biological definition of life, a zygote is alive.

Becoming into a fetus, becoming into a baby and birth.

But the whole point, cell division is life.

Here you have the language of conception here, that which is conceived of her, and you have this idea that it takes two parents for life.

You have the Mary giving life to the zygote, and you have the Holy Spirit.

You have God Himself giving life.

God is the second parent.

Now you see all of the Trinity involved in this, that the very life of God is coming into the zygote.

With all of us, our life began as zygotes.

I don't know what the plural is.

Zygote.

Who knows?

All of us, our life began there.

We weren't alive before that.

We had life at that point.

But here, this pregnancy is unlike any other one because God's life does not begin with conception.

God's life has no beginning.

That's the point of Genesis 1:1.

Genesis 1:1

In the beginning, God was alive.

In the beginning, God is life.

He has no start.

So here inside of Mary, this zygote, this baby, he has life that begins here when Mary's DNA is added here.

It begins here when Mary's life is connected to it, but it has no actual beginning of life because it is eternal.

You see the language of the Father sending, the Son coming, and the Spirit here.

It says twice the Holy Spirit.

Verse 18, verse 20 the Holy Spirit is repeated two times here.

Clearly, the Holy Spirit is the divine agent active inside of Mary.

So you need a brief Trinity refresher here to be in kind of let the weight of this impress upon you.

The three persons of the Trinity are not interchangeable.

They are identical, except for what theologians call their order.

They are identical, except the Father is not the Son.

The Son, in a sense, comes from the Father.

The Son is the image of the Father.

The Father is not the image of the Son, but the Son is the image of the Father.

The Father is the source, is the language the Bible uses.

The Father gives life.

The Father eternally generates it.

The Son is eternally begotten, the creed says.

The Son has eternal life from the Father.

The Son looks like the Father in every way, shape, and form.

If the two of them were next to each other, you could not tell them apart, except that one is the Father and the other is the Son.

One gives life to the other, Jesus says.

The Son has life because it's given to him by the Father.

Without beginning, the Son has always been alive, but his life is always from the Father.

That's why, by the way, the Bible describes the first person of the Trinity as Father, because that is the essential element of being a father.

He's giving life.

The second person of the Trinity is called the Son.

Why is the second person of the Trinity called the Son of God?

Because he is the image of the Father.

He's eternally begotten.

That's what Son means.

The Holy Spirit, the Father and the Son have some kind of relationship to each other.

The Son is the image of God personified with personal life.

The Holy Spirit is the relationship between the Father and the Son, the love they have for each other, their thoughts of each other, how they relate, connect, whatever word you want to use, that is also personified, also has life and looks identical to the Father and the Son, except the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.

The Spirit is not the Father, the Spirit is not the Son, but the Spirit proceeds from both of them.

As the Son looks at the Father, his thoughts of the Father are exactly like the Father.

And exactly like the Son, because the Son's the image of the Father.

So all three persons of the Trinity are identical.

Their only difference is their order: the Father, Son, Spirit.

And they're all eternal.

Now that sounds complex and theological.

I want you to think about that more in your life because I think it will impress upon you the uniqueness of Christianity.

But I want, I give you that background just to I want you to see how the Father, Son, and Spirit relate differently in creation.

They're all identical, but look at how they relate in creation.

Who speaks the universe into existence?

The Father.

He speaks because he is the Father.

He's the one that gives life.

Who is the word?

The Son is the Word.

He is the very Word of God because He is the Son.

And so the Father speaks creation into existence.

The Son is the Word that brings life to the world.

And the Holy Spirit, Genesis 1 says, hovers upon the water.

The Holy Spirit is brooding over creation.

The Holy Spirit is animating it.

The Holy Spirit is doing spiritual things.

The Father is doing fatherly things.

The Son is doing sonly things.

And the Spirit is doing spiritual things in creation.

Do you see the same thing in redemption?

Who elects?

Who chooses whom you will save?

The Father.

Who sends the Son?

The Father.

Who comes to be the agent of salvation, to be the word incarnate?

Well, of course, the Son.

And then who regenerates?

Who causes your spirit to come alive?

The Holy Spirit.

Do you see how it's the same order?

The Father is always speaking and giving life.

The Son is always acting.

He's the very word, and the Spirit is always doing spiritual things, causing you to become alive and brooding like a mother would over the waters of the earth.

It's always the same order.

I've heard somebody ask, why couldn't the father be born, or why couldn't the Holy Spirit be born?

As if the three are interchangeable.

They are identical, but they are not interchangeable.

It is the Father who plans and speaks.

It is the Son who is the Son, who is the image of what the Father designs.

It is the Son who's acting it out.

And it is the Spirit who is doing spiritual things, drawing your heart to him.

Now, do you see the exact same order in the virgin birth?

The Father sends the Son.

Which member of the Trinity is going to be, which person of the Trinity is going to be born as a human son?

Well, obviously it's a son.

It's in his nature to be the son.

And then which person of the Trinity is going to be at work inside of Mary and uniting the life of God to this egg and making a person.

Which person of the Trinity would do that?

Well, obviously the Holy Spirit.

And you see all three of them at work in keeping with their divine nature.

It's an incredible picture of the Trinity.

What does this mean?

It means that Jesus was the earthly son of a heavenly father, and he was the heavenly son of an earthly mother.

That's what it means.

And Joseph has his mind blown.

Well, you see, two parents, this leads thirdly to two natures.

Two natures.

Behold, verse 23.

I mean, sorry, verse 21, you shall bear, she will bear a son, and you will call his name Jesus.

You have these two natures here.

That this is God and this is man and it is one person with two natures.

And when I say that Jesus has two natures, I mean more than simply he doesn't look like Joseph, he looks like God.

I mean more than just he's gonna take on the attributes of Mary.

I mean he really does have two distinct natures in him.

He has the substance of Mary.

Everything about Mary that is human comes to Jesus.

Jesus isn't half human and half God.

Oh no, he is fully from his mother.

Any more than one of your children, you could say, is half you and half your husband, or half me and half my wife.

No, it's your child is all of you.

Well, Jesus is that.

He's in that sense, all of Mary.

Everything about Mary's humanity is seen in Jesus Christ.

There is nothing about being a human that Jesus doesn't have.

He really is a human being.

He really is.

Is it part of human nature to be in the image of God?

Then Jesus is in the image of God.

Is it part of human nature to have dominion on the earth?

Then Jesus will have dominion on the earth.

Is a part of human nature to worship God, then Jesus will worship God.

Is it part of human nature to have to learn?

Then Jesus will learn.

Was there food in the garden?

Amen.

Better food than you think, too.

Then Jesus will eat.

He will crawl, he will learn to talk, he will learn things at school, he will have to grow up.

Because that's what being a human is.

Everything essential to human nature is real in its full sense in Jesus Christ.

Is it part of human nature to be a sinner?

Well, no.

Because Adam and Eve had a full human nature before they sinned.

Now, Jesus is born of Mary.

We're going to look at in a few minutes if we have enough time.

This is one of those things you'll just pick up next week, and that's the way it is.

There's always another Sunday.

Amen?

Unless the Lord comes back.

But if the Lord comes back, you won't need a sermon from me on the Trinity.

So it works out, works out great for all of us.

This is the Latin phrase, veri deus, veri homo, that Jesus is truly God and truly man.

Everything about the nature of mankind is true in Jesus.

But also, because he is the second person of the Trinity, incarnate, in flesh, everything true about the divine nature is true about Jesus.

In the same way he's truly human, he's also truly God.

Is it part of God's nature to be omnipotent, to be able to do everything?

Yes.

Then Jesus is omnipotent.

Is it part of divine nature to be omniscient, to know everything?

Yes.

Then Jesus is omniscient.

Is it part of divine nature to be omnibenevolent?

Yes.

And so Jesus is omnibenevolent.

Have you ever met a baby who is omnibenevolent?

No.

But Jesus was.

Now, how can these two things both be true?

How can I stand here and say that Jesus would have to learn to speak and that he is omniscient?

That Jesus would be omnibenevolent and yet cry because he was hungry and needed to nurse.

How can they both be true?

And this has led theologians to say something that I think is absolutely essential to our understanding of Christ, that he had two natures and that he could operate freely between both of them.

Picture a two-story townhome, and you can live on the ground floor, and you can live on the second floor, and you can go up and down between the two as you see fit.

That's how Jesus is with both of his natures.

They're both in him.

These natures don't mix.

If you tried to mix divinity and humanity, the humanity would be diluted.

They don't mix, they don't cancel each other out.

They're both there in their true form, and he can live freely between both of them.

And this is the key part of that understanding.

He will live freely between both of them in a way that does not nullify either of them.

Let me tell you what I mean by that.

When he's taking a spelling test in school, he will actually learn how to spell naptally.

He won't just access his divine omniscience to get a good grade on the test.

When he is a baby, he will actually be dependent upon his parents.

He won't just create manna to eat.

When he's tempted in the wilderness, he will actually resist the devil with a human obedience and a human righteousness that Adam and Eve had.

He will actually resist the devil in that way and not call the angels to come minister to him.

That will happen when the temptation is over.

That is what he does.

He can see the Nathaniel sitting under the tree.

He knows where the fish are in the pond.

He knows which one has the coin in its mouth.

He can do all of those things.

He can curse the fig tree and it withers.

He can raise the dead.

He can give life to the little girl.

He can do all of those things.

Because he is God, of course he can do those things.

But he will do those things in a way that doesn't nullify his humanity.

And he will sleep.

And he will resist the devil and he will resist temptation.

And he will be born as a little baby because of very Deus, Veri Homo, truly God and truly man.

Two natures perfectly united in one single person.

He was not two persons.

He was the second person in the Trinity who added a human nature to himself.

Well, this leads to our fourth point.

We saw the two options, the two parents, the two natures.

And let's end here with the two atoms.

The two atoms, the angel speaks to Jesus and says this.

I mean, speaks to Joseph and says, Name him Jesus, he will save his people from their sins.

His people.

His people.

Adam, the first person in the human race.

Every human being descends from Adam.

Every human being, because of Adam and Eve's sin, is born in sin and transgression.

We have a sinful nature because Adam is the head of our race and he sinned.

And so his sin is imputed to us.

We born, we are born sinners because we are underneath Adam.

Every human being ever born is underneath Adam.

We are part of his race, except for Jesus, who is the Lord of Adam.

Jesus is a second Adam, the Bible tells us.

Romans 5 refers to the first Adam as a type of the Savior.

What does that mean?

Well, the Adam is the head of the human race, and Jesus will create a new race.

A new race of people who are redeemed, righteous, holy, a royal priesthood, a royal race, Peter calls us.

1 Corinthians 15, verse 22 says, In Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

1 Corinthians 15:22

Everybody who is under Adam is born spiritually dead.

Jesus has Adam's human nature, but not Adam's fallen nature, because remember, sinfulness is not an inherent part of humanity.

This is why the Bible refers to Jesus as the second Adam.

He came to save his people from their sins, which he can do because he is not fallen like Adam and Eve fell into sin.

He never sinned.

He was truly a human and truly never sinned.

He did not have Adam's sin imputed to him because he is the Lord of Adam.

He is a second Adam.

One of my favorite Christmas songs, Come Behold the Wondrous Mystery.

In it says of Jesus, see the true and better Adam come to save the hellbound man.

Christ the great and sure fulfillment of the law in him we stand.

Do you understand that if you were under the first Adam, you are spiritually dead and you have no means to save yourself.

But Christ comes to inaugurate a new race, and he is the savior for those people who are under him.

Notice what the angel says.

It does not say, the angel does not say that Jesus will save the world from their sins.

He does not say he will save Adam's race from their sins.

He does not say he will be the savior of all people equally and in the same way.

It does not say that.

He says the angel says he will be the savior of his people.

Who are his people?

Those who are under him.

We're all born under Adam.

We all belong to Adam, which means we belong to the devil.

But now we have a second Adam.

Christ.

This is what God means back in Genesis 3.

Did it ever strike you before?

In Genesis 3, God rebukes the serpent.

Genesis 3.15 tells the serpent, by the way, your head's gonna get crushed.

By, do you remember who?

The seed of the woman?

That's not how biology works.

There's never been the seed of a woman.

The man has the seed.

Do you remember the whole thing about the unplanned pregnancy earlier?

The man has the seed.

And yet in the prophecy to Eve, to the devil about Eve, it will be a second, a person who's not from Adam.

He has the nature of Adam, he is a human being, but he is from the seed of Eve.

He will be a virgin, born of a virgin, with a human, a new race of people.

And all those who are in him will be saved from their sin.

What does it take to be in Adam?

Being a human being.

What does it take to be in our second Adam in Christ?

Faith in him.

So this is what happens to our second Adam.

He is born with a human nature.

He's born as a human being.

He is a human.

And he leads a sinless life.

And then our sin, and Adam's sin, by the way, are given to him.

You could even say imputed to him, reckoned to him, transferred to him.

He becomes a real substitute.

Even though when he dies, it's not because the sin was his.

So he resurrects from the grave.

Because you can't kill God, of course.

He resurrects from the grave.

Still the God man, still with humanity.

Still the second Adam.

Offering forgiveness of sins to all who put their faith in him.

That's the plea here that the angel makes.

How will he do that?

By dying and resurrecting and offering salvation to those who believe in him.

Another one of my favorite Christmas songs.

Co-written by George Whitfield and Charles Wesley.

If you can imagine that combination.

Hark the Herald Angel sing.

Christ by highest heaven adored.

Christ the everlasting Lord.

Late in time, behold him come, offspring of the virgin womb.

That's the part we all know.

We sing that.

We always skip the second stanza that they wrote.

Let me read it for you.

Come, desire of nations, come, fix in us thy humble home.

Rise, the woman's conquering seed.

A reference to Genesis 3.15.

Bruce in us the serpent's head.

Adam's likeness, Lord efface.

You know the word efface means scratch it out, chip it out.

If the name is written in granite, chip it away.

That's what it means to efface something.

Adam's likeness, Lord efface, stamp your image in its place.

Second Adam from above, reinstate in us thy love.

Second Adam from above.

Give us the love of Christ, who is our true and better Adam.

Lord, we're thankful that you are the Savior of those who believe.

You take their sins away, you nail them to the cross.

The record of wrongs is put on the cross.

Killed with you, buried, never to be seen again.

Whereas you resurrect, having made perfect work of our sin.

What a mystery.

What a mystery that God could become a man.

The Son of God would become the Son of Man.

Two natures.

One person.

One life.

The essence of God, the very substance of God.

Robed in humanity.

Living a life of poverty so that we might have riches from heaven.

We're thankful for the offer of salvation that comes to us today.

I pray for anyone here who has never given their life to you, that has lived their life entirely under the legacy of Adam, a sinner who rebels against God, who refuses to accept God's plan for the world.

We're grateful for Jesus Christ that he never rebelled.

He always accepted your plan for the world, your plan for mankind.

He accepted it.

Born into a family, born as a savior, born as a second Adam.

Lord, we give him our hearts and we give him our life.

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Thank you for being with us today.

And now a parting word from Pastor Jesse.

If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, emmanuelbible.church.

If you're not a member of the local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.

area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel.

I'd love to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.

But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.

Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.