Merry Christmas! Celebrate the Incarnation! Matthew 2:1-12

The picture is of the Tomb of the prophet Daniel in Shoosh, Southern Iran. ("Susa" in Nehemiah 1:1) Shoosh is a small city in the province of Khuzistan, which includes Ahwaz and Abadan, near the Gulf point where Iran and Iraq meet. Daniel prophesied of the coming Messiah while in Persia/Iran around 539 BC. The ancient Persians read and studied Daniel's book, especially 9:24-27 which speaks of the Messiah to come, who would bring an end of sin and bring atonement for iniquity. The Magi, the priestly wise men of the Zoroastrian religion of Persia, also watched the stars and counted the years as it got closer to the time that Messiah the Prince would come. God apparently spoke to them somehow through this miracle star that moved and guided them.

Iranians have not always been Muslims, they were Zoroastrians before Islam came around 634-750 AD, and beyond into the 900s. The Arab Muslims aggressively attacked Persia and forced them to become Muslims through their aggressive Jihads/ Qatal (fighting/killing) and Harb (war). Even to this day, there is deep ethnic hatred and resentment against the Arabs for their aggressions against the Persians for centuries.

The Magi who came to worship Jesus were Zoroastrian priests. They were probably from Persia, the superpower Empire to the east of Israel at the time of Jesus’ birth. The Persian Empire included many peoples, Pars (Persians), Medes (Kurds), Arabs, Babylonians, and Assyrians. The Magi were probably made of some people from all of these ethnic groups.

What better way to celebrate Christmas than doing what the Magi did, in seeking after Christ, and worshiping Him?

1. They sought out the Messiah, they traveled a long way, from the east in Persia, and put forth effort into seeking Him. (Matthew 2:1-2)

Are you seeking to know Him deeper?

2. They wanted to worship Christ, which means they recognized Him as God and King of Kings. (Matthew 2:2) Not only “king of the Jews”, but “king of the nations” (Revelation 15:3-4) Only God is deserving of worship ( Revelation 19:10; 22:8-9; Matthew 4:10, Deuteronomy 6:13; 10:20), so this passage is teaching that Jesus is the incarnate God. (see also Matthew 14:33; 22:41-46; 26:63-64)

Do you desire to worship Jesus as God?

3. They believed the Scriptures when it was quoted for them that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem. (Matthew 2:4-9, verses 5 and 6 quoting Micah 5:2)

Do you believe the prophesies about the Messiah? (see also Matthew 1:21-23 (Isaiah 7:14; 9:6) (others: Psalm 2, 16, 22, 110; Isaiah 53; Genesis 3:15; 12:3; 22:18; 49:10)
The context is also important in Matthew chapter 1:18-25 - the virgin conception and birth of Christ. See Luke chapters 1 and 2 also.
4. They actually did worship Christ when they found Him. (Matthew 2:11-12)

Do you really worship Him?

5. They gave gifts to the child, which shows that giving for the cause of the kingdom of God is a form of worship. (Matthew 2:11)

Do you give gifts to your church and missions and ministries that are spreading the gospel and working for the sake of the kingdom of God?

6. Since they worshiped Christ, and only God is deserving of worship, they had repented of their false religion and turned to trust in Christ.

Is there genuine repentance in your life?

7. Their faith and worship of Christ resulted in persecution, and so God spoke to them in a dream not to return to Herod. They were changed and returned to their own country by a different way. (Matthew 2:12)

Do you ever suffer any kind of misunderstanding or mockery or insults or persecution for your faith in Christ?

How did the Magi know about the Messiah being Promised? The Magi were priests of the Zoroastrian religion, the religion of Persia at the time of Christ; they were according to John McArthur, “king-makers” – that is, they had to perform religious ceremonies for Persian kings to be crowned. Herodotus, the Greek historian, tells us the Magi were among the Medes ( today the Kurds are the modern descendants of the Medes) and Persians ( Iranians), and wise men/astrologers/astronomers among the Babylonians. Daniel chapters 2, 4, and 5 show that the Babylonians also had Magi, “wise men”. Persia later conquered Babylon and had a vast empire that included many peoples. (see Esther 1:1)

Daniel, the prophet, was in Iran (Persia) when he prophesied of the Messiah to come. (around 539-536 BC) (Daniel chapter 9:1-2; 24-27; see also 6:28). Daniel’s grave is there today in the city of Shoosh, (“Susa” in Nehemiah 1:1) southern Iran. Apparently, the Magi heard, read, and studied the prophesy of Daniel 9:24-27; and had other Hebrew Scriptures such as Numbers 24:17 ( “A star will come out of Jacob”) The Magi had been passing down this knowledge and prophecy for more than 500 years!

The Magi were experts in astronomy and astrology, (and natural medicine and other sciences) so they watched the stars for the right timing. They counted the years of the “70 periods of sevens of years” ( Daniel 9:24-27) prophesy and passed the prophesy down to each generation. God took a practice in their religion ( watching the stars) and communicated His truth by using His creation, the stars, by moving a star, performing a miracle to confound their false belief and turn them to the Creator of the stars. They followed the miracle-moving-star to Israel. (Matthew 2:1-12) The Hebrew words, Messiah and Prince speak of royalty and Lordship, a leader, and an anointed King, so they asked when they arrived, “Where is the King of the Jews?”

This passage shows us that part of Matthew’s purpose for writing his gospel was not only to prove to the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah for them, but for all nations, all peoples. Matthew, the most Jewish of the gospels, and the one that contains the most quotes and allusions to OT prophesies, and the repeated or like phrase, “in order to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet”; also has another prominent theme of God’s purpose to bless other nations. It is very interesting that Matthew begins with Jesus as the Son of David and Son of Abraham (1:1), that He is the fulfillment of all the covenants and promises to David and Abraham, but also that Matthew 2 emphasized the worship of Jesus the Messiah, (2:1-2, 11-12) and Matthew’s gospel also ends with the disciples worshiping Jesus (28:16) and the great commission to go and disciple all the nations. (28:19)

I will never forget giving a Farsi NT and a full Bible to a 60 year old Iranian man around 1998. He hugged the Scriptures and starting crying and said he wanted to understand the Gospel for about 3 years, but didn't have the gospel in his own language. He didn't know it existed in Farsi! Many Iranian Muslims think the Gospel is only in the Armenian, Assyrian, and western languages like English, French, and German. Then he recounted of how he grew up there near Daniel's tomb, and he was never told that the prophet Daniel wrote a book, and had ancient Persian history and kings in it and prophesies and told about the Messiah to come. He was exceedingly glad and joyful! He turned from Islam to faith in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.

Celebrate the incarnation by worshiping the Lord Jesus Christ and witnessing to others for His glory; even Muslims. Reach out to Muslims and pray for them and give them the gospel.

Incarnation, Atonement, and Trinity

Phil Keaggy: The Maker of the Universe (Words by F. W. Pitt)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27GUZsrhxJ8&feature=related

“The Maker of the universe,
As Man for man was made a curse.
The claims of Law which He had made,
Unto the uttermost He paid.
His holy fingers made the bough,
Which grew the thorns that crowned His brow.
The nails that pierced His hands were mined
In secret places He designed.
He made the forest whence there sprung
The tree on which His body hung.
He died upon a cross of wood,
Yet made the hill on which it stood.
The sky that darkened o’er His head,
By Him above the earth was spread.
The sun that hid from Him it’s face
By His decree was poised in space.
The spear which spilled His precious blood
Was tempered in the fires of God.
The grave in which His form was laid
Was hewn in rocks His hands had made.
The throne on which He now appears
Was His from everlasting years.
But a new glory crowns His brow
And every knee to Him shall bow.
The Maker of the Universe”
____________________
I love this song! I love the doctrine and affections and emotion of this song! As Jonathan Edwards would say, "I love the sound doctrine that produces right affections and emotions." It captures the truths of the incarnation, the Deity of Christ, His humility and love and willingness to suffer for us. The incarnation and suffering of the eternal Son of God points to the Trinity, “trinitas in unitas”, “three in one”, as Tertullian wrote. In Against Praxeas, chapter 3.

James White has written, “I love the Trinity! . . . upon reflection, we discover that the Trinity is the highest revelation God has made of Himself to His people. It is the capstone, the summit, the brightest star in the firmament of divine truths. . . God revealed this truth about Himself most clearly, and most irrefutably, in the incarnation itself, when Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, took on human flesh and walked among us.” (The Forgotten Trinity, pp. 13-14)

I agree; I love the song, because I love the Trinity, and I love the incarnation and atonement, and how these truths point us to the God of the Bible, that Christians know; the only God. These truths are beautiful because Truth is beautiful. God is beautiful because He is true. I love God because He first loved me! ( I John 4:10; 19)

God Himself is beautiful because of the perfection of His character and attributes and nature; and the David spoke of "mediating on and beholding the beauty of the Lord" (Psalm 27:4). The Trinity is beautiful because it proclaims that God is one and shows God as loving relationship from all eternity; uncreated, eternal, Sovereign.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God” (John 1:1)

“For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form,” (Colossians 2:9)

“. . . Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. “For although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped.” (Philippians 2:5-8)

“God, . . .
in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world. And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
. . .
And when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says,
“AND LET ALL THE ANGELS OF GOD WORSHIP HIM.”
. . .
But of the Son He says,
“YOUR THRONE, O GOD, IS FOREVER AND EVER,
AND THE RIGHTEOUS SCEPTER IS THE SCEPTER OF HIS KINGDOM.”
(Hebrews 1:1- 3, 6, 8.)

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. ( John 1:1-5)

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the one and only Son, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14)

In dealing with evangelism with Muslims, one must be prepared in the deep truths of the doctrines of the Deity of Christ, the incarnation, and the Trinity.

Some good books on the Trinity:
1. James White. The Forgotten Trinity. Bethany House Publishers, 1998.

2. Robert Bowman. Why You Should Believe in the Trinity: An Answer to Jehovah’s Witnesses. Baker Books, 1989.

3. Timothy George. Is the Father of Jesus the God of Muhammad? Zondervan, 2002. (While I disagree with Timothy George’s recent ecumenism with Roman Catholicism, this book is very good for the theological issues in dealing with Islam.)

4. John Piper. “Contending for Christ Contra Mundum: Exile and Incarnation in the Life of Athanasius”, in Contending For Our All. Crossway Books, 2006. Piper’s chapter on Athanasius speaks to sound doctrine, church history, apologetics, contextualization, hermeneutics, and he addresses the emerging church issue. Highly recommended.

The "Trinitas -Unitas God", “three in One” God is the Sovereign Creator God who is and was relationship from all eternity past. Amazing! Awesome!

The Trinity answers the issue of longing for that connection of relationship with the living God; He is relationship; love from all eternity; Lover, Beloved, and Love in relationship; Father, Son, and Spirit.

The Trinity and incarnation also enters us into answering the issue of suffering and why God has ordained that suffering and evil happen.

Dorothy Sayers, the Anglican writer, wrote an interesting piece, seeking to answer the issue of why God allowed evil to come into the world. Reformed theology speaks of “God ordaining all things” – and when it comes to evil entering the world, we understand “ordaining” as “deciding that it would happen” (Acts 2:22-23; 4:27-28; Ephesians 1:11; Romans 9:22-23, Isaiah 45:7; Amos 3:6; Lam. 3:37-38; Genesis 50:20; Romans 8:28-29) while at the same time not being the one who does the evil. (I John 1:5; Hab. 1:13; Isaiah 6; Titus 1:2) As John Piper has written, "God is not a sinner." While some of Sayer’s statement is not theologically precise, and some is not the best wording; I still think it captures a good apologetic truth for the skeptic and a strength for a young believer growing in theology:

“For whatever reason God chose to make man as he is – limited and suffering and subject to sorrows and death – He had the honesty and the courage to take His own medicine. Whatever game He is playing with His creation, He has kept His own rules and played fair. He can exact nothing from man that He has not exacted from Himself. He has Himself gone through the whole of human experience, from the trivial irritations of family life and the cramping restrictions of hard work and lack of money to the worst horrors of pain and humiliation and defeat, despair and death. When He was a man, He played the man. He was born in poverty and died in disgrace and thought it well worth while.” (Dorothy Sayers, Creed or Chaos? New York: Harcourt, Brace and Col, 149, p. 4; cited in Josh McDowell and Don Stewart, Answers to Tough Questions. Here’s Life Publishers, 1980, p. 153-154.

My Iranian friend Kamyar, who was my second Farsi teacher in 1994, said this to me:

“The two most amazing things about Christianity are:
1. That God, who we were taught in Islam, was far off and aloof, became a man like us, clothed Himself in flesh.”
and
2. That there is a way to be saved from sin and know it and have assurance of it.
“دو چیز خیلی عالی است در مسیحیت
1. که خدا، که ما در اسلام تعلیم یافتیم که خیلی دور از ما می ماند، انسان شد مثل ما شد، و خود را جسم پوشید،
و 2. که یک راهی را وجود دارد برای نجات از گناه و می توانیم آن راه را بدانیم، و اطمینان داشته باشیم
.