Tag: First Advent

Categories
Sovereignty

Day 12: God’s Sovereignty in the Advent

And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

Luke 2:6-7

This advent season we focused on the key characters and events identified in the birth of Christ at his first advent. We have stood with Zechariah and watched the smoke rise off the altar of  incense in the Temple. We walked alongside the righteous Elizabeth as she strove to honor God in her bareness. We’ve stood as a shadow near the throne of King Herod and examined how even a wicked king points us to the hope found in Jesus. Perhaps you can still hear the echoes of John the Baptist from the corners of the wilderness heralding the message of repentance and the news of the kingdom’s arrival. And let us not forget the lessons of both manhood and betrothal we gleaned from our time traveling from Judea to Egypt and back with Mary and Joseph. From the angels to the elderly, each person who appears at the first advent of Christ has a unique story that points us to the second advent of the Savior. And although these blessed saints have their proper place in the first advent story, it is all too easy to focus on the people in the story and miss the One whom the people and the story are meant to glorify: God.

When we come to the Bible, we must not merely think of the Scriptures as individual segments of history placed alongside one another to make a nice, cozy compendium consisting of isolated stories and events. No, to do that would be to miss the grander story that the individual stories mean to tell, for the Bible has one central plot, one central narrative. And that narrative, which works as God’s revelation of himself to man, is a storyline of God’s sovereignty over all things, particularly the redemption of man. Now, by saying God is sovereign, we mean that he has “absolute rule and authority over all things.”[1]

This attribute of God, his sovereignty, can be seen by the unfolding of events in the first advent of Christ. The timeline of these events does not begin in Luke 1, or even in Genesis 1; but rather, as the Apostle Paul teaches in 2 Timothy 1:9, “salvation is the result of a purpose given in Christ Jesus ‘before the ages began.’”[2] Yes, the Bible teaches that before God ever said, “Let there be light,” He promised eternal life. Titus 1:1-2 testifies of this truth, saying, “Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ . . . in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began.” These works of the Apostle Paul show us that the redemptive storyline of the Bible began, not when Adam and Eve sinned, but before Adam and Eve were ever created. Based upon his promise of eternal life for his people, it was, as far as we know time, always God’s purpose to reconcile people to himself through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. From before time began, God’s sovereign plan for redemption was always Jesus and the story of the first advent is the capstone of God sovereignly working out the details of this magnificent plan.

Now, to be sure, we do not merely have to infer God’s sovereignty from the Bible, but rather we can learn this attribute of God from such explicit passages as Psalm 115:3, which says, “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases.” And Ephesians 1:11, which says that God, “works all things according to the counsel of his will.” And, as suggested previously, when we look at the story of the first advent, this is what we see God doing: working out the details of His plan of salvation that he promised before the ages (Titus 1:2) “according to the counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:11).

If you happen to doubt this, think about some of these events for a moment: From the testimony of Gabriel, we see God’s intimate involvement in the first advent. It was God who sent Gabriel to Zechariah and Mary to tell of the conception and birth of both John the Baptist and Jesus (Luke 1:19, 26). It was God who made it possible for Elizabeth to have a son in her old, barren age (Luke 1:37). It was even God who revealed to the prophet Micah that the Savior would be born in Bethlehem, and some eight centuries later it was the same promise-fulfilling, sovereign God who ordered the census via Caesar which would require Mary and Joseph to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem while she was pregnant and close to birthing Jesus (Micah 5:2; Luke 2:1-5). Coincidence? No. God’s sovereignty on display. Yes!

And lest we think that God quit and then restarted working out his plan of redemption somewhere between Malachi and Matthew, how about the genealogy of Christ listed in Luke 3? Here is a list of names, highlighted by Adam, Abraham, and David, which takes us but 90 fleeting seconds to read is, in reality, a detailed record of thousands of years of God’s sovereignty in ensuring that Jesus would be born in the appointed place, at the appointed time, to the appointed person, and for the appointed purpose of accomplishing God’s sovereign plan: saving “his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).

It is the first advent of Christ that functions as the marquee event in scripture displaying God’s sovereignty over all people and all events for all time. And to display this even further, we will visit the Garden of Eden this advent season one last time. Recall that God placed Adam and Eve in the garden and in an expression of his wisdom and his will, he forbids them to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:16-17). Upon Adam and Eve’s temptation and Fall, the Lord pronounced curses upon the couple, first to the woman and then to the man. The Lord said to Eve, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children” (Genesis 3:16). And to Adam, God said, “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). Here is arguably the most somber moment in all of Scripture, save the cross, as God pronounces the curses of painful childbearing and death upon two sinners. Now, think about the first advent of Jesus. Is it not the curse of childbirth given to Eve that brought the Savior into the world when Mary conceived? Is it not the curse of death given to Adam that saw Jesus cancel the debt of sin when he was executed in his own death on the cross? Is there a greater display of God’s sovereignty? What God dealt to Adam and Eve as curses in Genesis 3, he sovereignly used thousands of years and many generations later to save his people from their sins through the birth and death of Jesus at the first advent.

In his sermon titled The Crux of Christmas, Pastor Alistair Begg concisely connects the dots between God’s sovereignty, the first advent of Christ, and the redemption of man, saying,

Here’s the point, though: the storyline of the Bible . . . is not of a plan that God instituted but which went wrong and then had to be, if you like, reconfigured and reinvented. No, not for a moment! If you read your Bible from the back to the front or from the front to the back as well, you will discover . . . that God’s purpose from all of eternity was not Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden but was Christ in the garden of Gethsemane. It was Christ on the cross that from the very beginning of the work of God in his kingdom—it was to establish that people that are his very own . . . You see, the great mystery of it is that when you look into the cradle in Bethlehem, you gaze into the face of “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” I suggest to you, that really is the crux of Christmas.[3]

If the unchanging God sovereignly worked out all things to accomplish the first advent of Christ, we joyfully expect him to sovereignly work out all things to accomplish the events of the second advent of Christ. God’s sovereignty is where our hope rests and where our worship finds direction; and this is true, not just this advent season, but in every day between now and the second advent of the Savior.

[1] John MacArthur and Richard Mayhue, eds., Biblical Doctrine: A Systematic Summary of Biblical Truth (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2017), 937.

[2] Samuel Renihan, The Mystery of Christ: His Covenant & His Kingdom (Cape Coral, FL: Founders Press, 2020), 152.

[3] Alistair Begg, “The Crux of Christmas,” Truth for Life, Parkside Church, December 2, 2018, https://www.truthforlife.org/resources/sermon/crux-christmas/.

Categories
First Advent

Day 1: The First Advent

She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

Matthew 1:21

The word advent comes from the Latin word adventus, which means “coming.” Christians typically celebrate the First Advent of Jesus Christ annually from about November 30th to December 25th.

One theologian defines Christian Advent as, “The season of the ecclesiastical year when the church prepares to celebrate the birth or coming (adventus) of Jesus Christ . . . and engages in self-examination in expectation of his second coming in glory to judge the living and the dead.”[1] This is such a formidable definition because it captures the inextricable relationship between Christ’s first and second coming. The Twelve Days of Advent exists to help people reflect and project; we hope your reflections on the meaning and events of Christ’s first advent will provoke joyful, hopeful worship at the many projections of His second advent.

The theme of “the advent of Christ” runs throughout the Bible: In the Old Testament, the writers, from Moses (Deuteronomy 18:15) to David (Psalm 2:6-9) to Isaiah (Isaiah 53), point Israel to the hope of the Messiah’s first advent. And in the New Testament, the writers, from Paul to Peter to John, point the Church to the hope of Christ’s second advent. Today, we will examine how some Old Testament writers pointed the children of Israel to the first advent of the Messiah. Next time together, we will examine how some New Testament writers pointed the Church to the second advent of Christ.

The First Advent

Let’s go back to the definition of advent and this time we will only focus on the first part of that definition. The Christian Advent is: “the season of the ecclesiastical year when the church prepares to celebrate the birth or coming (adventus) of Jesus Christ.”[2] Although we often tend to associate the first advent strictly with the birth of Jesus, in a broader theological sense, the phrase “first advent” refers “to the coming of Jesus Christ to earth to provide salvation through his birth, life, death, resurrection, and ascension.”[3] Therefore, the call for Christians to prepare themselves for the celebration of the first advent of Christ encompasses more than just reflecting on the appearance of a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger (Luke 2:7). It is a call to prayerfully reflect not just on the Baby’s birth, but on the purpose for the Baby’s birth, which is to glorify God by saving his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21).

The Protoevangelium

The first promise of Jesus in the Bible is in Genesis 3:15. Here, Adam and Eve, who may still have the taste of forbidden fruit upon their palates, listen to God pronounce his judgment upon the deceptive serpent. The Lord God says to the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15). The pronoun “he” in this verse shows us that God had one person in mind who will ultimately defeat the serpent and the evil kingdom he represents. The unfolding of Scripture reveals that “one person” to be Jesus. For this reason, “Some Bible scholars have called Genesis 3:15 the protoevangelium [meaning] “the first gospel”, because it is the earliest prophecy promising a future deliverer.”[4] This observation of Jesus as deliverer begs two questions: 1) who needs deliverance, and 2) what do they need deliverance from? Thankfully, the context of Genesis 3 answers both questions: 1) mankind needs deliverance, and 2) mankind needs deliverance from sin’s penalty. Genesis 3:15 begins to unveil the purpose for the first advent of Christ by communicating that Jesus came to defeat evil in the deliverance of his people from the penalty of their sins. 

The Suffering Servant

Now, we have seen that the purpose of Jesus’ first advent was primarily to deal with sin. To determine how Jesus dealt with sin, we turn to the Prophet Isaiah. The book of Isaiah contains multiple prophecies regarding the first advent of the Messiah, including both his physical appearing and his virgin birth (Isaiah 7:14; 53:2). However, it is in the 53rd chapter of Isaiah, a passage that is often referred to as “The Suffering Servant,” that we begin to see how Jesus dealt with sin. In Isaiah 53:5-6, the prophet describes Jesus, saying, “But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one— to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” In this text we see that men sheepishly wander away from their Maker in the depravity of their sin. In response, God ordains that his Son bear the penalty for their sin: death. Christ’s offering to the sinner of perfect righteousness and substitutionary death is how he dealt with sin.

Like Isaiah, several other prophets throughout the Old Testament foretold details about the first advent of the Messiah. For example, Micah prophesied that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2). Hosea and Jeremiah prophesied about the opposition against Jesus at his birth (Hosea 11:1; cf. and Jeremiah 31:15; cf. Matthew 2:18). From the first book of the Old Testament, Genesis, to the last book, Malachi, the voices of its authors point their audience to the hope of the first advent of their Messiah – Jesus (Genesis 3:15; Malachi 3:1-4; 4:1-6).

Today, we have looked at the first mentions of Jesus in Genesis and how we see, even in the Garden of Eden, that His first advent was primarily to deal with sin. We also examined the Prophet Isaiah who teaches how Jesus dealt with sin during his first advent. Hopefully, these scriptures have been a display that we cannot separate the manger from the cross; Jesus was born to die, so that those who are dead in sin may live for eternity.

Now that we have a good understanding that the purpose of the first advent was primarily to deal with sin, next time we will examine the purpose of Jesus’ second advent!

[1] Walter A. Elwell, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology Second Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001), 27.

[2] Walter A. Elwell, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 27.

[3] J. Daniel Hays, J. Scott Duvall, and C. Marvin Pate, An A-to-Z Guide to Biblical Prophecy and the End Times, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007), 16.

[4] John MacArthur and Richard Mayhue, eds., Biblical Doctrine: A Systematic Summary of Biblical Truth (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2017), 251.

Categories
First Advent

Why The Twelve Days of Advent?

In December 2017, my wife and I were new parents to a one-year-old boy and a one-month-old girl. We committed to the Lord and each other to raise these two children for the glory of God, no matter the cost or circumstance. When the holiday season came around that year, I found myself perplexed regarding the fulfillment of my oath to my God and my wife. Red and green were everywhere: lights on houses, bulbs on trees, inflatables in front yards. Once, we took our children on a neighborhood walk in their strollers, and we found ourselves in the shadow of a 30-foot Santa Claus – no exaggeration. Of course, this is normative for the neighborhood, but what about inside the Christian home? What about inside the church? Should we utilize pagan practices to usher in the celebration of the Savior’s incarnation? Especially for a Savior who died to rescue his people from their pagan practices! In short order, I examined the scripture, the history of Christmas, and decided that “as for me and my house,” we would point ourselves and our children to the birth of Christ in December.

Then, I silently surveyed the practices of many people around me during the holidays while genuflecting on my own traditions. I became deeply convinced that the people of God around me who were married, single, with kids, without kids, young, old, college student, retired, etc., including myself, struggled to focus on the meaning and implications of the incarnation for two primary reasons: 1) the culture we live in largely pressures us into the rat race of consumeristic gift giving and receiving to the point that it usurps our affections away from Christ, and 2) we have ample practice celebrating the holidays according to the culture and don’t really know a different way to celebrate the season.

At this point, I knew I needed to do something for God’s glory to point the Bride of Christ back to celebrating the historical ecclesiastical calendar in the observance of the first advent. In June 2020, I began studying, reading, listening, writing, and talking to anybody who would listen about the first advent of Christ. During this time, I observed the connection between how the Prophets pointed Israel to the first coming of the Messiah with how the Apostles pointed the Church to the second coming of the Messiah. This observation led me on a journey that uncovered the connections between the first and second advent of Jesus. I committed to sharing these connections with as many Christ-followers as possible. And, in September 2021, I finished recording the final episode of what has come to be called: The Twelve Days of Advent. 

Starting December 2nd thru December 24th, a new episode, 5-10 minutes each, will be released every other day. You can access each episode wherever podcasts are available. My vision is to glorify God by providing his people with a tool to help them start a new tradition in their lives, homes, families, and churches; a tradition that reflects on the meaning and events surrounding the first advent of Christ and projects the hope found in the second advent of the Savior.

Special thanks to my wife for patiently listening and affording me time to work on this endeavor. 

God is faithful,

John Fry