THE FULLNESS OF TIME
God’s
Great Plan – JESUS! Good and
evil are in our world. Jesus entered the
world to save it. Jesus brings God’s
unfailing love and faithfulness (grace and truth).
“For God did not send His Son into the world
to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” John 3:17
(NKJV)
“Christ
is coming! The prophets witnessed
to this hope.”
The fact of the expectation of
Our Lord among the Jews at the time of His coming is accepted by all students
of their history. It is the fact that,
at His Coming, Something had filled the Jewish people with the conviction that
the Redeemer, the Messiah, was to come, that He would come about this time,
that such and such would be His circumstances, His characteristics, the marks
by which He might be known. This expectation
was not merely of an event, or of a person in general, but was detailed in its
knowledge of what was to be. This
expectation, and the figure of Him that was to be, was marked clearly. He was
to be born of a Virgin. He was to be born at Bethlehem ;
and yet by an apparent contradiction He was both to come out of Egypt ,
and was to be called a Nazarene. He was to be of the line of David.
God’s Right Time!
“But when the fullness of the time had come,
God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those
who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.” Gal 4:4-5 (NKJV)
“By observing, that
God sent forth his Son born of a woman, the apostle insinuates, that Christ is
the seed of the woman, promised at the fall to come and bruise the serpent's
head.” McKnight
“And she will bring forth a Son, and you
shall call His name Jesus, for He
will save His people from their sins." 22 So all
this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through
the prophet, saying: 2 "Behold, the virgin
shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name
Immanuel," which is translated, "God with us." 24 Then
Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him
and took to him his wife, 25 and
did not know her till she had brought forth her firstborn Son. And he called
His name Jesus.” Matt 1:21-25
(NKJV)
“Paul, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, called
to be an apostle, separated to the gospel of God 2 which
He promised before through His prophets in the Holy Scriptures, 3 concerning
His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to
the flesh, 4 and declared to be
the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the
resurrection from the dead.” Romans
1:1-4 (NKJV)
The Apostle John
wrote that God Himself became flesh in Christ (John 1:1). Jesus'
humanity and divinity were complete, not partial. The two ideas—Jesus as
100-percent divine and 100-percent human—form the bedrock of a Christian
understanding of Christ. The idea that the
Word became human (literally became flesh) stunned
both Greeks and Jews. The Lord's glory
in the Tabernacle (Exod 40:34-38)
was now present in Jesus Christ
“I
believe in the God I see revealed in Jesus of Nazareth.” Wright
“For it is the God who commanded light to
shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of
the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” 2 Cor 4:6
(NKJV)
“The image of
the true and living God, once revealed in all its glory, is to be reflected
into all the world, as was always God’s intention. The mission of the Church
can be summed up in the phrase “reflected glory.” When we see, as Paul says,
the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, we see this not for our own
benefit, but so that the glory may shine in us and through us to bring light to
the world that still waits in darkness and the shadow of death.” Wright
“The nativity is about Almighty God sending His one and only (begotten)
Son down to this earth. This is His gift to us, not for Christmas, but for
eternity. He doesn’t want us to admire it, anymore than we would merely admire
a gift given from a loved one. He doesn’t want us to merely acknowledge His
gift. He wants everyone; He wants you, to receive His gift of eternal life
through Jesus Christ, by inviting Him into your life.” DJ
“For God so
loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in
Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16 (NKJV)
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