Advent means “arrival.” Advent season concerns the coming of Christ. Whether you focus on the four Sundays before Christmas or you make the first 24 days of December a little special, this is a time to remember Jesus’ comings. He came as the prophets foretold as a baby, born in Bethlehem, and He will come again as the prophets foretold as the King, to rule all the nations.

There are no inspired requirements to put advent on the calendar and no biblical demands to preach advent sermons. That said, meditating on Christ is never out of season. Last year we considered four advent activities. They seemed appropriate. For that matter, sermons should move the will to move; Christians are to obey all Christ commanded.

But a couple things. First, Christmas itself is a story, not a command. Christmas has no behavior imperatives, though it does have significant and exhaustive (and exhausting) implications. Second, if there was any Christmas requirement, it would be to believe. And of all the stories in the world, it is the most impossible to believe. Just believing it is quite a leap of faith.

we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. (1 John 4:14–15 ESV)

The battles in the early generations of the church bear witness to the difficulty of confessing that Jesus is the Son of God. They convened councils and wrote creeds and clarified definitions to deal with the nature of Jesus.

Let us then, consider some Advent Amens. Amen is an acceptance, an agreement. Let us look at God’s inspired Word to learn about the incarnate Word and then, whatever we find, say, Amen! These are Incarnation Trues. It’s not normal to use an adjective like “true” as a substantive, but Jesus isn’t normal. These messages will help our believing that Jesus is the true God, true Man, true King, true Light.

These trues are bigger than us, beyond us, and yet for us. These are eternal trues, infinite trues—incomprehensible except by supernatural help. These are trues we can enjoy, that give comfort (when our anxious thoughts are many). These are trues that expose darkness, they are trues that overcome darkness.

Rather than adding another thing to your advent todo list, these messages on Christology are for your advent amens list.

There will be four pieces to each of the sermons: the key piece of revelation/exegesis, the strongholds destroyed/polemics, the trues defended/doctrines, and the advent implications/doxology.

God with Us - Jesus is True God

The New Testament opens with “the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1) who is also the Son of God. Then “The birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way” (Matthew 1:18), and Jesus’ mother was “found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.” An angel confirmed, “that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.” And this was all fulfilling what the Lord had foretold through the prophet Isaiah (in Isaiah 7:14):

“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel.” (which means, God with us) (Matthew 1:23)

Isaiah believed the unbelievable around 730 years before the birth; this was part of his prophesied comfort to King Ahaz, telling Ahaz the he need not fear (Isaiah 7:4). Joseph believed the unbelievable a few months before the birth; he risked his life and took on responsibility for Mary and Jesus as his own.

We believe that the first advent/coming was God’s own coming. So “the Word became flesh” (John 1:14), the same Word that “was God” (John 1:1). Christmas isn’t about a significant birth or even an unlikely birth, it’s about an unbelievable birth. Christmas is not reasonable. Advent is not the celebration of the normal. God became man, just as God said He would. Amen!

Strongholds Destroyed

Christmas is a battle. Though the following text isn’t limited to one season, Paul aimed to destroy strongholds.

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:4-5)

If you can say Amen that Jesus is God, you are toppling the arguments and proud opinions of men who, even in trying to “protect” God, reject the trues revealed by God.

One of the first heresies to come from within the church was Arianism which asserted that the Son of God was a created being and so not eternal, as well as that being created he was subordinate to the Father and so not equal. Modern day Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons maintain this error. They will have Christmas and yet not have the true Christ.

Another early heresy was Nestorianism which regarded Christ not as God the Son incarnate but as a man inspired by God; God’s nature was present but separate from the man. The idea was to keep God from being soiled by humanity, but the idea is an opinion actually raised against God has He has made Himself known.

Maybe the most popular stronghold that keeps men from believing and obeying Christ is the pretense that Jesus was a “good man” or a good teacher. But they didn’t kill Jesus because He did good or taught good, they killed Him because He claimed to be God. Amen!

Trues Defended

God’s “beloved Son” is Himself “the image of the invisible God,” and “in Him the fulness of God was pleased to dwell,” and again, “in Him the whole fulness of deity dwells bodily” (Colossians 1:19, 2:9).

Heresies that denied His divinity were addressed in the Nicene Creed (AD 325). Here is the part concerning Jesus:

[We believe] in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the only-begotten Son of God,
begotten of His Father before all worlds,
God of God, Light of Light,
very God of very God, begotten, not made,
being of one substance with the Father

So we sing in “O Come, All Ye Faithful” a riff on the creed (John Francis Wade, 1841):

God of God, Light of Light,
lo, He abhors not the virgin’s womb;
very God, begotten not created

Jesus is “the true God and eternal life” (1 John 5:20). With Christmas we are celebrating the birth of a baby boy who was true God. The technical term for this is the “hypostatic union.” Even in the creeds, Jesus, our Lord, is the God-Man, “without division” so one Person operating as one. Amen!

Advent Implications

Immanuel, “God with us,” implies at least two things.

First, the Incarnation is the great revelation of God and His immanent care. Jesus said that to see Him was to have seen the Father (John 14:9). The Word in flesh “has made [the Father] known” (John 1:18).

Second, the Incarnation is the only way one could die as an accepted substitute for many, in particular, the only way that God’s justice could be satisfied to save a people. Even a sinless man—though there has never been such a man, this if for sake of argument—could only be “worth” one. It took God in Christ to bear the sin of many (Isaiah 53:12).

Conclusion

We mark not just the Christian calendar according to Jesus’ birth, but Christ’s first advent divides time: Before Christ and Anno Domini. Believe in the name of the Lord Jesus, He is God of God, God with us.

As G.K. Chesterton wrote in The Everlasting Man:

“It is no more inevitable to connect God with an infant than to connect gravitation with a kitten. It has been created in our minds by Christmas because we are Christians, because we are psychological Christians even when we are not theological ones. In other words, this combination of ideas has emphatically, in the much disputed phrase, altered human nature.”

In other words, Christmas is crazy, we just get used to it.

Want to up your advent game without doing more? Instead of Happy Holidays, sure, you can say Merry Christmas. Or, you could respond, “God with us!” Or, if they say Merry Christmas to you, say “Amen!”

Are you weary? Are you worried? Are you tempted to be worldly? Remember these incarnation trues that bring comfort and joy. These are true trues that not only expose darkness, they overcome darkness.

Christmas is the revelation of God and of God’s good news for man in Christ. God with us. Jesus is true God, amen!

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Charge

The most impossible part of Christmas is also the most important: you must BELIEVE that Jesus is the Christ, true God, born of a virgin. Treasure up all these things, ponder them in your heart. All the promises of God find their Yes in Him. Let the Amen sound from His people again, all advent long.

Benediction:

[M]ay the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you, so that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints. (1 Thessalonians 3:12–13 ESV)