Thursday, December 24, 2009

If Jesus Had Not Been Born, There Would Have Been No Crucifixion

'Tis the season to celebrate the birth of the Messiah, God's Anointed One, Yeshua HaMachiah.

There are some who would be spoil sports and try to take the joy of our Savior’s birth out of this time of year, saying Christmas has pagan origins and that we don’t know for sure if Jesus the Messiah was really born on December 25. Also, they would remind us that it was Jesus’ death on the cross that brought salvation to humankind. Well, I’m here to say that Jesus’ birth is an event worth celebrating regardless of when it happened. It did happen! He is THE SAVIOR OF THE WORLD! He offered his perfect, sinless body up on the cross as the perfect blood sacrifice to pay the price for our sins. Jesus TOOK UPON HIMSELF all the sins of humankind, past, present and future in those hours of suffering on the cross. BUT, if He had not come down to earth into the womb of a human woman, a virgin, supernaturally conceived of the Holy Spirit, in human form and been born, He would have never been on earth to do that in the first place. He had to become wholly human, yet wholly divine to fulfill EACH AND EVERY Messianic prophecy foretold in the Judaic Tanakh, or Old Testament in the Christian scriptures. He could not truly claim to be God’s Anointed One if he failed to fulfill even one Messianic prophecy. One of those prophecies foretold centuries before His birth is found in Isaiah 7:14:

“Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”

A virgin shall conceive and bear a son. A woman who should not even be pregnant is going to have a BABY! And IT’S A BOY! His name will be IMMANUEL, which means GOD WITH US! The Divine Creator is sending his only Son to earth in human form to literally live among mankind, and laugh and cry and suffer rejection JUST LIKE US! Immanuel will know what it is like to be human in every way. To humble Himself and become as one of us. What a loving God!

Truly the message for this time of year is one the angels sang after one of them announced Jesus’ birth to those shepherds long ago: “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, good will toward men”. Hallelujah!