HOME / PROCLAMATION! MAGAZINE / 2011 / OCTOBER NOVEMBER DECEMBER / EDITOR'S COMMENTS
October November December 2011
VOLUME 12, ISSUE 4
D E P A R T M E N T S
Editor's COMMENTS
He came as a baby
Colleen Tinker
This year God sent two new babies into Richard's and my lives: our elder son's first child, Annaliese, and the first child of a young couple who are part of our spiritual family: Olivia. During the last six months these tiny girls have delighted us as they've begun to smile, vocalize, grab bottles, toys, and toes, and show their personalities.
It's astonishing to think about our Lord Jesus coming to us exactly as these baby girls came; He was born to a young mother and a devoted earthly father who had to keep Him warm, clean, and fed. They had to teach Him to eat solid food, to walk, and to talk. Our Creator took on mortal flesh and grew up among us exactly as we all have grown up.
He was different from us in one important way, however: He was God the Son, the eternal, sovereign Yahweh at the same time that He was Jesus the Son of Man. He looked and lived like one of us, but He carried eternal Light and Life into the human race. He came so His mortal body would bleed and die as the eternal payment for human sin, but His body's death could not kill His eternally living Spirit that was there from the moment of His conception. His intrinsic Life raised His body from death three days later, and at that moment He became the firstfruit of the grave. His Life exploded death from the inside out and broke the curse that kept us from God.
Jesus' birth to Mary identified Him with all of us who are born in the flesh; His resurrection made it possible for us to identify with Him when we are born of the Spirit.
Jesus' resurrection made it possible for a new kind of birth—a birth such as we were honored to witness this past week. A man who has been an Adventist for over 50 years admitted to us in a small group Bible study that he "hoped" he was saved but felt he had to be a better Christian. After the rest of us talked to him about Jesus declaring us righteous when we believe and read about the new birth in John 3, Richard asked him if he would like to pray and receive Jesus' finished atonement for him. He said yes, and we no sooner closed our eyes than he began to pray, telling God He wanted to know the real Jesus and to have the security of knowing he was saved.
His eyes were shining as we showed him Ephesians 1:13-14 that explains the Holy Spirit now lives in Him permanently. His spirit had gone from death to life in those brief moments, and he knew he was saved—because the Holy Spirit was testifying that truth with his spirit as promised in Romans 8:16.
"That which is born of the flesh is flesh," Jesus told Nicodemus, "and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (Jn. 3:6). Jesus' blood is the reason we can be eternally forgiven the moment we believe; His resurrection is the reason we experience our spirits being made alive the moment we believe.
The reason Christmas is a big event is that it marks the birth of God the Son embodied in a mortal body as He entered time and space to bleed for human sin and to destroy forever the curse of eternal death for all who believe.
In this issue Martin Carey articulates the necessity of Jesus' blood, and Dale Ratzlaff explains why Jesus had to be human. Sheryl Barker compares the four common models within Christianity for understanding Sabbath rest and demonstrates why the "Today" model best reflects Scripture. Our friend Heidi Murphy shares her and her husband Dave's story of leaving the Jehovah's Witnesses—and discovering that their story is almost identical to ours. In their columns, Chris Lee and Carolyn Macomber reflect on living life as Christ-followers.
This Christmas we praise God for the new births He has given us this year: human births of dearly loved little girls and spiritual births of dearly loved new brothers and sisters in Jesus. Our prayer is that this Christmas, if you are not sure you are saved, you will receive the Life of the Son of Man Whom our Father sent to rescue you from the death into which you were born and to transfer you into the kingdom of His beloved Son (Col 1:13). †
Copyright 2011 Life Assurance Ministries, Inc., Casa Grande, Arizona, USA. All rights reserved. Revised December 3, 2011. Contact email: proclamation@gmail.com
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