The message of Christmas is that God came into the world in all of His glory, and what was only a whisper becomes a shout. And someday in the future, as you read the Book of Revelation, when He comes back in Second Coming glory, the Bible says the shout will be even louder, so that every voice in the universe will cry and shout and sing His praise. Welcome to Grace to You, the Bible Teaching Ministry of John MacArthur. I am your host, Phil Johnson. Who has the spirit of Christmas?
According to one website, it's people with a generous and giving nature, those who care about others, those who have a kind word to say or a broad shoulder to lean on. Who display the spirit of Christmas?
Well, today John MacArthur will show you that even the most generous person you know might still be missing the real meaning of Christmas. That's the title of John's current study, "The Real Meaning of Christmas," and in it. John is helping you revisit the truths of Christmas, helping you remember what's really most important in the holiday season ahead.
So follow along.
Now, here's John MacArthur. Isaiah chapter 40. As we prepare our hearts for making this Christmas season most meaningful, I want us to focus on this very phrase. In verse five, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.
Now, if you know me at all, you know that the glory of God and the glory of the Lord is a tremendously important and urgent theme in my own teaching ministry. I speak of it often because the Bible speaks of it often, and you might think that perhaps we're forcing. This very, very beloved theme onto the issue of Christmas, but that is not the case at all. For the word of Isaiah in chapter forty, verse five, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, is in fact the Christmas story. It is the Christmas message.
The birth of Christ was the revelation of the glory of the Lord. Just as Isaiah had promised, there is coming a greater disclosure, a fuller revelation. Let's see how the New Testament speaks of its fulfillment. Hebrews chapter one. Hebrews chapter one is another text that deals with the true Christmas story.
I want you to notice verse three: Who, being The brightness of glory. Who is Jesus Christ? He is the glory of the Lord. That is what he's saying here. He is the ineffable radiation of God.
He is the brightness of God. That's why it says in John one fourteen, the Word was made flesh and dwelled among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father. The phrase being the brightness of His glory is very simple. The brightness is the word apagasma means radiance. It means to send forth light or to send send forth brightness.
It's simply saying He is the shining forth of God, just as the radiance of the sun reaches the earth to light us, to warm us, to give us life and growth.
So in Christ. Do we sense the warmth and the radiance of the glorious light of God touching the hearts of men? The brightness of the sun is of the same nature as the sun. It is as old as the sun, and never was the sun without its brightness. The brightness of the sun cannot be separated from the sun, and yet it is distinct.
And so Christ is God and yet distinct. He is God and yet He is the manifestation of God. He is the glory of the Lord, who shouts the reality of God, which is only whispered and spoken in time past. He is the Son of Righteousness, risen with healing in His beams. And the most graphic illustration of this is found in a familiar text in Matthew 17.
It says, "And after six days, Jesus took Peter, James, and John His brother." Brought them into a high mountain privately, and was transformed or transfigured before them. His face did shine like the sun, and his raiment was as white as the light. And there he is, showing his glory. There he is on that mountain that day, revealing his glory. He wanted them to know who he was.
And out of a cloud that surrounded them came a voice: "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased. Listen to him." And standing there were Moses and Elijah, and that was a marvelous reality. Why was this going on? To convince the disciples beyond a doubt who he was—the voice of God, the ineffable brightness of Shekinah glory—and then the presence of Moses and Elijah. Why, Moses of the Law, Elijah of the Prophets, and Christ stood with them—the two greatest Old Testament spokesmen for God.
They were to understand that Jesus was ranked as the voice of God. Moses and Elijah, who had begun the two eras of miracles in the Old Testament, and now Christ to begin the third. Moses and Elijah, both of whom left this world shrouded in mystery. Moses' death, a very unique and strange one. Elijah translated Christ, who died a unique death and then rose to be translated.
Parallels go on and on. But when they saw the glory and heard the voice of God and saw the presence of Moses and Elijah, it was an affirmation beyond question of the fact that Jesus was not only the voice of God but that He was God Himself. That's why later on in Peter's ministry, as he writes Second Peter chapter one verses sixteen to nineteen, he says, "We do not preach unto you cunningly devised fables, but we were eye witnesses of his Majesty when we were with him in the holy Mount. We know whereof we speak; we saw his glory." It became the point of their confidence, and so Jesus is the glory of God. Back to Hebrews one.
You look at the cradle and you don't see just a baby. You look at the cradle and you don't see just a child, but you see the glory of God, the glory of the Lord, in human flesh. Every time Jesus performed a miracle, every time He healed a lame man or gave sight to the blind or hearing to the deaf or a voice to the dumb, every time He forgave sin, God was revealing His glory. Notice it says also in verse three that he was the express image of his person. The word is "character," from which we get "character." It basically is a classical word.
In Greek, and it means an engraving tool, a die, or a stamp, or a mold, or a mark that is made by a seal. It has the idea of a copy, or image, or reproduction. And he is saying Christ is the image of God. He is the express image of God. He is the character of God revealed.
He is the mark of God on human society. He is the stamp of God on human flesh. Paul in Second Corinthians four four and in Colossians one fifteen says Christ is the image of God and he uses a different word. The word is icon, which means an exact reproduction, an exact image, or a precise copy.
So whether it's character or whether it's icon, Jesus is the stamp of God, the mark of God, the seal of God, the image of God, the reproduction of God, the precise copy of God. And may I hasten to add that those words, even at their best, come short of the reality of the truth, because it's impossible to express that He is in fact the very essence of God in any analogous way without losing something. I think it's best expressed in Colossians two nine, where Paul says, "In Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." Greatest statement of the deity of Christ, and then in order to support that, the writer gives us the excellencies of Christ. Number one, his inheritance. Verse two: Whom he hath appointed heir of all things, sonship demands inheritance.
Psalm two. I will make his enemies his footstool. Psalm two. I will set my king on the holy hill of Zion. Psalm two is where the father affirms the right of the son to rule.
Colossians one. All things are made by him and for him. Everything ultimately comes back to belong. To him, for of him, and through him, and to him, are all things. To whom be glory forever.
Amen. Romans eleven thirty six. In Revelation five, you remember the scene. John looks at the throne of God, and it's time to take back possession of the earth, and they cry, "Who is worthy to take the scroll, the title deed to the earth, and open it?" And they look all over heaven and everywhere, and no one is found. And finally, comes forth the lamb, the lion of the tribe of Judah.
The Lord Jesus Christ, and He can take the scroll. Why? Because He is the rightful heir to the earth, and He unrolls the scroll. And beginning in chapter six, the seals are broken as He repossesses the earth to establish His kingdom. He is the one who has the right to rule.
He is the one who is given the inheritance by God. And a marvelous thing to realize that this one who came in humiliation and condescension will inherit all things.
So we see, first of all, his inheritance. Secondly, his initiation. The end of verse two. By whom also he made the worlds. Christ not only will receive it in the end, but he is the source of its origination in the beginning.
He initiated it all through the word "by" means through. Dia through all things were made by him. And without him was not anything made that was made. John one three says, he can create, he did create, and only God can do that. May I point out one very interesting thing?
The word for world there, worlds, is not cosmos. It is not talking about the physical worlds alone. It goes way beyond that. The word is iones, and it means ages. It means ages.
Listen, it is not that he just created the physical worlds and the physical things that exist in the universe. It is that he created the concepts in which physical things can exist. It takes you one step beyond the physical. He created time and space and force and energy and matter. He created the stuff of which the physical creation is made.
He made it all.
So we see his inheritance, his initiation. Thirdly, we see his influence. Verse three, it says this: He upholds all things by the word of his power. That's his influence. He holds the whole thing together.
It is his influence. It is it is him that makes the atom move in its proper orbit. The building block of all things. It is His power. By the way, the verb there has to do with supporting present continuous action.
He continually holds all things together. This universe would disintegrate and fly to pieces if it weren't for His upholding power. Do you know that if the Earth's rotation should slow down just a little bit, we would alternately freeze and burn? Or did you know that the sun has a surface temperature of 12,000 degrees Fahrenheit, and if it were any closer or further away, we would freeze or burn? Do you know that our globe is tilted at exactly 23 degrees, and if it wasn't at that exact angle, vapors from the ocean would move north and south and pile up massive continents of ice?
Did you know that if the moon did not remain at its exact distance from the Earth, the ocean tides would inundate the land twice every day? Do you know that if the ocean slipped to just a couple of feet depth further than it is, carbon dioxide and oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere would be completely absorbed, and no vegetable life could exist? Did you know that if the atmosphere didn't remain constant in the Earth? But it thinned out. Millions of meteors, which are harmlessly burned up in space, would pummel the Earth in a barrage of bombardment that would devastate us all.
Who holds the delicate balance? Who keeps it all working? The Sun does. The glory of the Lord. Often think about that.
That when He was walking through the world in His human body. He was going through all of the things that a man goes through, at the same time he was upholding the whole universe.
So we see his inheritance, his initiation, his influence. Fourthly, we see his intervention in verse three. I love this. When he had by himself, I'll say that again. When he had by himself.
Purged our sins. Did you know he did it by himself? You must know that. Did it by himself. By himself, he purged our sins.
Now, beloved, that's power. By himself, a greater work than creation, a greater work than. Providence upholding was the work of purging. He made purification. He cleansed our sins, and that becomes the great ringing theme of the book of Hebrews as you move through.
He says in seven twenty-seven, the writer of Hebrews does who needeth not daily as those high priests to offer up sacrifice first for his own sins and then for the people's. For this he did once when he offered up himself. He purged our sins. That was his intervention into the human disaster, and for a brief moment, the glory departed. For a brief moment, the Shekinah went black.
For a brief moment, the brightness became darkness, and the very darkness Jesus had resisted engulfed him. But he did it for us, and it didn't end there. We see his inheritance, his initiation, his influence, his intervention, finally his installation. When he was done, he sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. The Majesty on high.
Is simply a name for God. He is the Majesty on High. His right hand is the place of honor, the place of blessing, the place of power. He sat down. Why did he sit down?
He was done. Want to know something interesting? In the temple and in the tabernacle, there were no seats. You read the description of the tabernacle. You read the description of the temple.
There were no seats nowhere. Why? Because the priest never finished, and so he never sat down. Sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice by the millions, and they never sat down because it never, ever was a finished work. Jesus made one sacrifice, and when it was finished, he sat down.
He sat down. It was over. There was nothing more to do. He finished, and sat down. Hebrews ten twelve.
What a great verse! But this man, that is Christ, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God. Beloved, this is the message of Christmas. God has come into the world, and we focus on His deity. This is God.
Why was he given the right hand? Four reasons. First of all, the right hand was the place of honor. Philippians two says that God has highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name. The right hand is the place of honor.
He's seated there because he is to be honored. Secondly, it's the place of ruling. First Peter three twenty two says that God lifted him to his right hand and made angels and authorities and powers subject unto him. It's the place of honor. It's the place of rule.
Thirdly, it's the place of rest. He sat down because he was finished. Fourthly, it's the place of intercession. He's at the right hand of God. Romans eight thirty four tells us wonderfully.
Making intercession for us, and so he took his place at the right hand.
Now, what am I saying? This, the prophet said, the glory of the Lord should be revealed. The writer of Hebrews says, the sun is the brightness of His glory. The message of Christmas is that God came into the world in all of His glory, and what was only a whisper. Or in the word, an audible voice becomes a shout.
And someday in the future, as you read the book of Revelation, when He comes back in His blazing glory—which I love that Jesus calls great glory—when He comes back in second coming glory, the Bible says the shout will be even louder, so that every voice in the universe will cry and shout and sing His praises. What does it say to us? Let me have you look at Second Corinthians three, and we'll close. Verse ten: For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth.
Now listen, what that verse means: the Old Testament, the Shekinah appearances, the text of the Old Testament, the old covenant. Was glorious. That's true. Even that which was made glorious refers to the Old Testament, the Old Economy, the Old Covenant. The shekinah appearances; it was made glorious, but it has no glory in this respect by reason of the glory that excels.
In other words, the new disclosure of glory in the incarnate Christ and the new covenant about Him is so far more glorious that the old seems not glorious at all. It has no glory. When compared with the glory that excels, great thought.
So that revelation of the glory in the New Testament far exceeds anything in the past, and that's why we say God shouts in the person of Christ. What does it say to us? Verse eighteen. But we all, with unveiled face, that is, the veil is taken away. The things that were mysterious, troublesome, confusing, we're not like Ezekiel anymore.
That's gone. The veil is off. We now behold in a glass the glory of the Lord, and who is it? It's Christ. And as we behold Him and look at Him and gaze on Him, we are changed into the same image, from one level of glory to the next, by the Spirit of the Lord.
In other words, we literally become like him as we gaze on him.
Now, all of us as believers are in this process. We're gazing at his glory and being transformed into his image. In the process, you remember the story of the ugly duckling. I'm sure you probably do. Let me refresh your memory.
He was more awkward and less attractive than the ducks he grew up beside, and so they ridiculed. His differences, fleeing their abuse, he took shelter in a home whose pets were a chicken and a cat. He was rejected there too because he couldn't lay eggs like a hen, and he couldn't purr like a kitten. You just don't understand me, he told them. But he was treated only with scorn.
Then one day he beheld the graceful and elegant swans, the most beautiful birds he had ever seen, and a strange feeling came over him. He turned somersaults in the water. He stretched his neck trying to follow their flight, and he uttered a cry so loud that it frightened him. When he finally lost sight of them, he dived right down to the very bottom of the water. And when he came up, he was quite beside himself.
He had no idea what the birds were called or where they were going. He only knew that he loved them as he had never loved anything before. Another winter came with all its struggles, and at last spring melted the ice of the ponds. And as the ugly duckling was swimming, he saw again two of those beautiful birds. They swam straight toward him, and the closer they came, the more frightened he became.
And then, when such beauty was right in front of him, he bowed his head in humility and covered his face with his wings.
However, when he bowed his head, he saw his own reflection in the water for the very first time, and in speechless amazement, he saw that he too was a swan. Slowly uncovering his wings from his face, he lifted his head from the pond. He didn't raise it proudly and high, as an ostrich would, but humbly as a swan, slightly bent over, in an expression of gratitude. Then he swam off with his fellow swans. Maybe we can see in that an analogy.
Perhaps your experience is similar to that. Think with me. Your first look at Christ in faith. May be like the ugly duckling, who first saw the swans. You have an overwhelming sense of your own ugliness, and yet there is an irresistibility in Christ that turns your heart inside out.
We know why the ugly duckling was beside himself when he saw the swans. He responded from his inmost being because he was a swan, and that's what he was made to be. And similarly, we may respond to Christ. Deep within ourselves, we really don't know why we respond that way, but it's because that's what we were meant to be. And then one day, as we face humility in our ugliness, as we gaze in the mirror, we see we are becoming that very beautiful thing we long to be.
Then, with humility in our walk and gratitude in our hearts, we live our lives before God. Listen, God wants to transform. You into His own image, from one level of glory to the next. It is staggering for me to perceive that the Lord Jesus Christ is the glory of the Lord revealed to us. It is more staggering to reveal that He is the glory of the Lord revealed for us.
It is most staggering of all to understand that He is the glory of God revealed. In us, Christ in you, the hope of glory. Oh my! Most people will miss Christmas. They'll miss it.
They'll miss Jesus Christ. They'll miss the glory of the Lord. Hope you don't. I hope you focus on Him, so that you can become what you were created to be—you radiating that very same glory. You're listening to Grace to You with the Bible teaching of John Macarthur.
John's current study is titled "The Real Meaning of Christmas." Now you know we've talked many times on this broadcast about things that get in the way of a true understanding of Christmas. At Christmas time, the season of giving, it's clear that people, by and large, don't know much about the one gift that started it all. Here's what What John had to say about that, I think that's true. Because, for one thing, the culture has become much more secularized. Right.
There is less and less and less biblical knowledge, biblical understanding. There are there are caricatures of Jesus rather than real understanding, even of the narrative of the true Christmas story.
So, yeah, if he's mentioned at all, yeah, yeah, we're we're dealing with a really Seriously, secular culture, especially the younger people coming up, the millennials and people behind them.
So, it's it's almost as if we have to introduce this entire generation of people to the Christ of Christmas, and that's exactly what we want to do.
So, I want to mention a book, God's Gift of Christmas. There is no more important thing to know than that the Son of God came into the world to die in our place, to rise for our justification, and to provide forgiveness and eternal life to all who believe in Him, and that is the point of His arrival at Christmas.
So the book, God's Gift of Christmas, examines the most encouraging truths and realities about His coming. These things certainly get lost in the current culture and its secular celebration of this holiday. It's a kind of a book that could actually become a family tradition. You can read it in the days leading up to Christmas to help you focus on the things that you need to be looking at.
Some people use Advent calendars. We like using this little book. Also, a resource you want to give to unbelievers now in the days leading up to Christmas. Beautifully designed and. It'll draw them in.
I promise you that the truth inside will make them think. Yes, it will, friend. God's gift of Christmas is good not only to read on Christmas Day. It's especially good to read in anticipation of the holiday. It's an excellent tool for evangelism for a family member or a co-worker or people in your neighborhood to place your order.
Contact us today. Call us at eight hundred fifty-five Grace. Again, that's eight hundred five-five Grace, or go to our website gty.org. God's Gift of Christmas costs twelve dollars. Shipping is free.
To order God's gift of Christmas or any other resource from Grace to You, call eight hundred fifty-five Grace or shop online at gty.org. And thank you for remembering that Grace to You is listener-supported. We often hear from people who have tuned in for years, and others who've just recently found John's teaching, and they're growing, serving their churches and families, and drawing others to Christ because of. The biblical truth they're learning here to help equip God's people with verse by verse teaching that changes lives. Mail your tax deductible donation to Grace to You, Post Office Box four thousand, Panorama City, California nine one four one two.
You can also donate online at gty dot org or when you call eight hundred fifty five Grace.
Now for the entire Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson, inviting you back tomorrow when John MacArthur brings you a Christmas message from a Bible passage that you may never have associated with the holiday. Be here for another half hour of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time on Grace to You.
