He Took On Flesh
by R.C. Sproul Jr.

While all ideas have consequences, it is likewise true that consequences have consequences. It seems it is often the unintended, or at least unannounced consequences that have the greatest impact. What television has done to our conversations, for instance, is probably more significant than what it has done to our evenings. What the internet has done to our conception of a community is probably more profound than its impact on business. One cannot, of course, overemphasize the importance of the life of Christ in terms of our salvation. God, after all, so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. It is good and right and proper that as we celebrate the birth of Christ we do so mindful of the death of Christ, that Christmas and Easter should merge together as one. But Jesus did not merely live to die. And neither, when we are careful to remember the eschatological import of His earthly work, did He merely die to live. Instead Jesus also lived to live. Jesus, from the moment of His conception, from the moment that He took on flesh, sanctified the flesh. Before Jesus crushed the head of the serpent, He crushed the mind of the Gnostics.

Just as with the devil, however, the Gnostics still thrash about in their death throes. And in doing so they still affect, and infect the life of Christ's church. I once was involved in a conversation with a friend in which I was explaining Plato's view of the soul. He argued that death was a glorious thing because then the soul was set free from the prison house of the body. Another Christian friend happened by in the middle of the conversation and remarked, "That sounds like the Christian view." We still instinctively cringe when we read things like, "He...sanctified the flesh." It doesn't help that our English translations translate the term sarx as flesh, as Paul uses it to describe our sin nature. Sometimes Paul, and even Jesus, sound downright gnostic. "That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (John 3:6). Flesh doesn't sound too good there, does it? How about Paul's list of the deeds of the flesh, that which we are to put to death? What you'll see, however, is that many of the "sins of the flesh" are actually internal sins, sins of the heart. Which means that not all flesh is flesh.

God, the Hebrews knew long before Jesus spoke to the woman at the well, is Spirit. And God is good. But because God is good, we can believe Him when He spoke His divine benediction over the created order. He saw what He had made, and behold, it was very good. This is the world that He hath made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

This was the first blow against the Gnostics. But then sin came into the world. Was that world, the created order, now mired in the filth of sin? The question had to wait for the answer, until the birth of the answer. Yes it is true that man is spirit and body, and very bad, sinful. But Jesus was also man, spirit and body, and He was good, sinless. The incarnation is the divine amen on the divine work of creation. Jesus, in being born, set our bodies free from the prison house of our minds.

This is the prodigality of our heavenly Father. He gave us, before we had proven ourselves worthy, what He had made. We in turn rebelled against Him. Immediately after He tells us not only that a savior will come, but that this savior will be the seed of the woman. And then, when the fullness of time had come, as He had promised to faithful Simeon, the Child was born.

It is entirely appropriate for us to note the humble beginnings of the King of Kings. He was born, as the catechism tells us, in an estate of humiliation. But we need to be careful even here. That He was born in a mean condition doesn't mean that being born is bad. That He wasn't surrounded by those physical luxuries which were His by right doesn't mean that the luxuries are bad. We are not to remember the smells of the barn animals, and turn up our noses at the creation. Instead we are to remember that even this place was blessed by His presence. The stable was not unholy before His birth, but it was holy after His birth.

Such doesn't mean, however, that the Christian thing to do at that point is to buy a velvet rope, and to sell tickets to the stable, so that we could stand there, an appropriate distance back, and think about the birth of Jesus. The proper thing to do with this holy stable is to remember that it is holy, and that it is a stable. This holy stable remained a holy stable when Joseph and Mary exited their makeshift birthing center. No doubt there were, later, other births there as well, of baby goats and baby lambs.

I've traveled to Bethlehem. I've seen the velvet ropes. I've witnessed the spectacle of Romish faithful frantically rubbing their lucky charms against the rock upon which the angel stood. Israel, at least among we who are Christians, is also called the Holy Land. The sales pitch encourages us to tread the ground that Jesus trod, to wash in the river in which He was washed. But the incarnation wasn't in Bethlehem. It wasn't even in Israel. The shock wasn't that Jesus showed up in the middle east, but that He showed up in Middle Earth. The chasm between His origin, and His arrival wasn't geographic so much as it was dimensional. The glory of the incarnation isn't that God traveled far, but that God dwelt among us, all of us. And so all the world is the Holy Land. We already tread where He trod, and wash where He was washed. This is the world that He hath visited. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

As we rightly, this season, mingle together the birth of Christ with His death and resurrection, we then celebrate the two births of Christ. He was born first that He might live in obedience to His Father. He, in simply coming, in simply taking on flesh, sanctified the created order. But His life of obedience, in accordance with the counsel of His Father's will, ended with His obedient death. And then came the second birth. He was born on the Lord's Day, in that new garden, as the first born of the new creation. He now, having sanctified the created order with His first birth, sanctifies the created order in His second birth. This is the world that He doth remake. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

It is not enough, however, to mingle together His first and second births. For His very word also brings together His humble birth, and His exaltation, His ascension. The wise men came because they knew that a king was born. And so even now He remains a king, wielding all authority in heaven, and also on earth. This is the world that He doth rule. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Jesus did not come, however, merely to bless the creation. He did not come merely to redeem the creation. He did not come merely to recreate the creation. He came also that He might be one with the pinnacle of creation, man. He came that in Him we might have life, and have it abundantly, that we might abide in Him, and He in us. Our union with Christ we neglect to our peril, and so miss our own calling.

The incarnation was not a spectacular event that we, in His providence, missed out on by virtue of being born two thousand years too late. Instead it is, in His grace, a spectacular event that we, by virtue of being born again, get to participate in. Jesus is still in the flesh, and still dwelling among us. Now, however, it is we, those in union with Him, who are His body. We incarnate the incarnation, giving it flesh. We are to be not just His feet and His hands, but His very presence. This is the calling that He doth make. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

Like Him, we are to be a simple people. We are to be consumed with a single goal, that the glory of God might be made known throughout His glorious creation. We are to have a simple diet—our meat and our drink ought to be to do the will of our Father in heaven. We are to be simply adorned, clothed in the works of righteousness in which He covers us, and to which He calls us. Like Him, we are to set our face like a flint toward Jerusalem, that we might take up our cross and follow Him. Like Him, we are to be a separate people. This does not mean denying lawful earthy pleasures. We are not separate with Him but separate from Him if we would become ascetics. Instead, because we are ever with our groom, we are set apart as a people known for their capacity to celebrate. We are set apart as those whom the Gnostics call "gluttons and wine-bibbers."

We are to be set apart, holy, not just in our minds, not just in our souls, but in our hands, in all that we are, just as Christ. We are to be set apart in rejecting gnosticism, in living mindfully not the life of the mind, but the life of the body, and living heartily the life of the mind. We of all people, in being separate, understand that we are not called out of this world. We are called to be His body in this world, for His glory. We are to live in joyful abandon.

Like Him, we are to be a deliberate people. We are to affirm nothing that we have not received from our Father. That means we remove the dross of gnosticism from ourselves. We will not allow our view of the world to be formed by the world. Instead, we will see the world as it is, through God's eyes. We will not look down our noses at His creation, whether it be in the form of a bottle of homebrew, or in the form of our brothers and sisters in Christ.

Like Him, our souls and our bodies are to be not despised, but sacrificed in the revelation of the kingdom of God. His kingdom is here and now. His kingdom is now and forever. His kingdom is without end. All that He sees He rules. All that He touches He changes. All that He indwells, He sanctifies. That we are sold out for the kingdom of God doesn't mean that all our lives are lived in our hearts and minds. Rather it means that all of our lives, all of them, hearts, minds, souls and strengths, are for His glory.

A day is coming when He will come again. When that day comes He will yet be enfleshed. When that day comes He will sanctify His creation once again, this time fully and finally. All that is flesh will be sent to the fire that never dies. But all that is Spirit will live forever, including our remade bodies. We will, at that great day, see Him, for we will be like Him. As we wait for that great day, may we live in the eshcaton, enfleshing not just the king, but the Kingdom. And may we do it, as with all things, for His glory. This is the world that He will make. Let us rejoice, and live in it.