What does Christmas really mean?
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2010 · 19 December 2010
For many, Christmas is the time to think of Jesus Christ as a baby in a manger. While the birth of Christ is a special and miraculous event, that isn't the primary focus. The central truth of the Christmas story is this: the Child of Christmas is God.
Christmas is not about the Savior's infancy; it is about His deity. The humble birth of Jesus Christ was never intended to conceal the reality that God was being born into the world. But the modern world's version of Christmas does just that. And consequently for most people, Christmas has no legitimate meaning at all.
No one can ever fathom what it means for God to be born in a manger. How does one explain the Almighty stooping down to become a tiny infant? Our minds cannot begin to understand what was involved in God becoming a man.
Nor can anyone explain how God could become a baby. Yet He did. Without forsaking His divine nature or diminishing His deity, He was born into our world as a tiny infant. He was fully human, with all the needs and emotions that are common to us all. And yet He was also fully God, all wise and all powerful.
For over 2,000 years, debate has been raging about who Jesus really is. Cults and skeptics have offered various explanations. They'll say He is one of many gods, a created being, a high angel, a good teacher, a prophet and so on.
The common thread of all such theories is that they make Jesus less than God. But the evidence is overwhelming that this child in the manger is the God that became a man. One passage in particular, written by the apostle Paul, describes the essence of Jesus' divine nature and supports the truths that make Christmas truly wonderful.
Colossians 1:15-16 says, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.”
Paul was writing to the Christians at Colossae. The city was under the influence of what came to be known as gnosticism. Its followers were of the opinion that they were the only ones who had access to the truth, which they believed was so complex that common people couldn't know it.
In addition they taught philosophical dualism, which is the idea that matter is evil and spirit is good. They believed that because God is spirit, He is good, but He could never be involved in matter, which is evil.
Therefore they also concluded that God couldn't be the creator of the physical universe, because if God made matter, He would be responsible for evil. And they taught that God could never become a man, because as a man He would have to dwell in a body made of evil matter.
Those people explained away the incarnation by saying that Jesus was a good angel whose body was only an illusion. That teaching and others like it filled the early church; but many of the New Testament epistles specifically contradict these ideas.
In fact, the apostle John invalidates the foundation of gnostic teaching when he wrote "By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God" (1 John 4:2-3).
The apostle Paul refuted that same heresy when he wrote in our key verse tonight, Colossians 1:16, "By Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created by Him and for Him". He specifically affirmed that Jesus is God in the flesh, the Creator of everything.
Ironically, some of the cults that deny Jesus' deity try to use Colossians 1:15-16 to support their view. They suggest, for example, that the phrase "the image of the invisible God" (v. 15) hints that Jesus was merely a created being who bore the image of God in the same sense as all humanity.
But the truth is though we were created in God's likeness, we only resemble Him. Jesus, on the other hand, is God's exact image. The Greek word translated "image" means a perfect replica, a precise copy, a duplicate. Paul was saying that God Himself is fully manifest in the Person of His Son, who is none other than Jesus Christ.
He is the exact image of God. Jesus Himself said, "He who has seen Me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). He brings God from a cosmic location to the very hearts of men and women. He gives us light and life. He reveals God's very essence. They cannot be divided, and neither has ever existed without the other, they are one (John 10:30).
Scripture repeatedly says that God is invisible (John 1:18; 5:37; 1 Timothy 1:17; and Colossians 1:15). But through Christ the invisible God has been made visible. God's full likeness is revealed in Him.
Colossians 1:19 says, "It was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him." He is not just an outline of God; He is fully God. Colossians 2:9 is even more explicit: "In Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form." No attribute is absent. He is God in the fullest possible sense, the perfect image.
In Colossians 1:15 Paul says Jesus is "the first born of all creation." Those who reject the deity of Christ have made much of that phrase, assuming it means Jesus was a created being. But the word translated "first born" describes Jesus' rank, not His origin.
The first-born in a Hebrew family was the heir, the ranking one, the one who had the right of inheritance. And in a royal family, he had the right to rule. So Christ is the One who inherits all creation and the right to rule over it. It doesn't mean He was born first in order, for He wasn't.
In Psalm 89:27 God says of David, "I also shall make him My first born, the highest of the kings of the earth." There the meaning of "first born" is given in plain language: "the highest of the kings of the earth." That's what first-born means, Christ is "King of kings and Lord of lords" (Revelation 17:14).
Creator and King. Christ is not part of creation; He is the Creator, active from the beginning in calling the universe and all creatures into existence. John 1:3 says, "All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being."
That could not be true if He were Himself a created being. Christ was the Person of the Trinity through whom the world was made and for whom it was fashioned. The size of the universe is incomprehensible.
Who made all that? Some scientists say there was this big explosion that eventually formed a primordial swamp, and ... Science cannot explain it. God created it all. Who? The babe born in Bethlehem, He made everything. Amen?