Transcript & Slides: Why Christ Came
Why Christ Came
By David Feddes
Why did Jesus come?
Once upon a time, there was a king—a mighty king. A king so mighty that all other statesmen feared him, and a king so wealthy and splendid that none could match him. This king's heart was melted for the love of a humble maiden. He thought to himself, "What shall I do? If I go to where she lives in her hut with all of my soldiers and in all of my splendor, no doubt she will come with me. But will she love me? And will she even know me? If I bring her to my palace and surround her with all my wealth and all the signs of my power, of course, she won't dare to resist me. But will she love me? And will I truly be loving her?"
So, the king decided on a plan. He left his palace. He cast aside his royal robes and, in the tattered cloak of a beggar, he went to the hut of the maiden and decided to win her heart.
That story is adapted from the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. It expresses at least something of what Christ was up to when he came into the world as one of us. At the same time, it's not a story that's in the Bible, and there is an awful lot about why Christ came that isn't captured in that story. But certainly, one thing is true: the great heart of love that God has for people and the heart of love that he wishes to bring out of us for him—that certainly is a great element of why Christ came into the world.
Father Sent Son
When we look at the Bible and ask, "Well, why did Christ come?" maybe the first and simplest and most obvious answer is that he was sent. His Father sent him. When you want to know anything about what Christ does, the first answer is always, "I was sent. The living Father sent me. I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me" (John 6:57; 8:42). So, if you want to know anything about Jesus' coming, the first thing is to know that he comes from God the Father, and he is himself the beloved Son of the Father.
You see, Jesus did not start to exist when he went into the manger of Bethlehem or when he entered into the womb of Mary. The Son of God, the second person of the eternal Trinity, has always existed in union with God the Father and together with the Holy Spirit. That's why the Bible speaks of him being sent into the world, not just of him being born. He's sent from somewhere else—he's sent from God.
Understanding that basic fact about why Christ came should immediately get rid of one silly notion that some folks have, and that is that God the Father is kind of mean and Jesus the Son is really nice. The Bible says that God the Father, in love, sent his Son into the world, and the Son does nothing except what the Father directs him to do because he always seeks to please and glorify his Father. And the Father is always doing everything to glorify his Son. So, that is the most basic thing that can be said about why Christ came into the world: his Father sent him, and he always does what his Father asks him to do. When we ask why Christ came, we understand that God the Father and God the Son are up to something. But why?
Why Christ Came
- Embody Eternal
- Teach Truth
- Save Sinners
- Destroy Devil
- Lavish Life
Why did God send Christ? I think it can be summarized in five basic things. These are from various passages in the Bible that say, "This is why the Son of God came," or, "This is why he appeared." One is to embody the eternal. Another is to teach truth. A third is to save sinners. The fourth is to destroy the devil. And fifth, to lavish life upon the people whom he loves. So, let's look at what the Bible says about each of those five reasons why the Father sent Christ into the world—why Christ came into the world to become one of us.
Embody Eternal
John 1:14 says, "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." The Word became flesh. The Word that always existed—the Word is another name for the second person of the Trinity—the Word that forever was real and is real and always will be real, the eternal, somehow became flesh. And God chose to do that. God wanted to enflesh himself, to make the Son human.
That's a very staggering thought—that the baby in that manger is the one through whom all things were made. That all of the galaxies and stars and mighty quasars, all the vast stretches of space—when the Bible describes those things that God has made that we know are so unimaginably vast—they're still things that were made, not things that existed forever. And the Scripture says that when you take all of that and put it together, these are the outer fringes of his glory and of his works. So, you take all of that majesty and power and vastness, and it was all made through the Son—the Word. And then he becomes a little baby. It kind of staggers the imagination sometimes.
Because babies are cute and because they look good on Christmas cards, we can kind of underestimate just what's involved in the Word becoming flesh. All that—one who made all of that awesome universe—becoming one of us. Just a little baby in a manger, who's wrapped in cloths, who needs his diapers changed. Whose mother should probably be careful because otherwise, she might get squirted during the diaper change if she doesn't do it properly. I mean, that's what it is when you've got a baby, isn't it? You've got fingernails. You've got smelly diapers. That's what it is for the eternal God, the invisible, the immortal, the unseen, to become one of us. He grows up. He may have acne. He may have B.O. He may be... I shouldn't even say maybe. You know, we get a little misled when we sing, "The little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes." Did you think he snapped his finger and said, "Mom, I don't want to bother you with crying, but I am hungry, so, you know, a little food would be nice"? No, that's not what it means that the Word became flesh.
The Word became flesh, and John says that he did that in order to embody the eternal Word. Jesus said to his followers, "He who has seen me has seen the Father." God wanted somehow to make himself seen and heard and felt in a way beyond anything else that he had ever done. And so, the Word became flesh. The Bible says he is the image of the invisible God. He is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being. If you want to know what God is like, now you know. You don't just look at the vastness of the galaxies or at the other works of his hands, though they show things about his splendor and his eternal power and divine nature. But you look at this particular person in flesh. Nobody's ever seen God. But God, the one and only who became flesh, has made him known.
We can stagger forever at the mystery of that. It's the mystery that makes possible all the other mysteries. The people who are skeptical about this or that or the other thing about Jesus—miracles, his resurrection, or what have you—if you can believe that the God who made the universe could become a baby whose mother has to be careful changing his diapers, then you can believe anything because nothing is impossible once that has taken place. If God can enter into Mary’s womb and become a little developing zygote and a fetus and a baby, then who knows what else God is going to do in this world that he has made.
So why did Christ come? To embody the eternal. And then, when he embodied the eternal, a big part of his mission was to teach the truth.
Teach Truth
John 1:9 says, “The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.” He came to give light to a world that was confused, that did not know truth. He came and said, "I am the truth" (John 14:6), and he taught the truth.
One time, Jesus was at age 12 in the temple. He wanted to be there because he was about his Father’s business. A big part of his Father’s business was to listen to the great teachers of the day, to talk with and ask questions of the great teachers of the day, and to offer already a few of his own thoughts and answers. As Jesus grew older, he was one who spoke as no one ever spoke before. He was not just a great teacher—that’s a mistake some people make when they look at Jesus. They say he was just a great moral teacher or something like that. No, he was more than that, but not less than that. Jesus is the greatest teacher who ever lived, the smartest man who ever lived. Jesus is the one who came to tell us the way things are.
Once, when Jesus was doing miracles and huge crowds were gathering, he said to his disciples, “We need to get out of here.” He said, “Let’s go somewhere else so that I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” I told you I was going to pick on some of the verses about “That’s why I’ve come.” Well, that’s one of them: “I’ve got to go somewhere else now because I need to preach and teach. That’s why I’ve come.” Not just to do miracles and fix everybody’s problems, though that’s a big part of why he came, and we’ll see more about that. But he came to teach, and he taught.
He taught that the kingdom of God had come near in him. He taught what it means to follow him. He taught what it means to be a big hot air balloon, a phony-baloney religious person, and taught that you need something besides that kind of righteousness if you want to be right with God. He taught what God’s law meant. He said, “You’ve heard that it was said, but I tell you what it really means.” When he reached the end of his great Sermon on the Mount, the Bible says that the crowds were astonished at his teaching because he taught as one who had authority, not as their teachers of the law.
When they heard him explain what the commandments meant, they were hearing the same voice that had spoken in thunder from Mount Sinai. When his words were written in the New Testament Scriptures, those words were from the very same mind and from the very same finger that had written on stone the commandments of God. It was God himself with us, teaching us. And when Jesus stood on the day of his execution, he said to Pontius Pilate, “The reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth” (John 18:37).
The truth. Reality. Jesus comes to tell us what’s real, what’s not, what’s true, and what’s false. You can be like Governor Pontius Pilate, and when Jesus says that, Pilate's response is, “What is truth?” He wasn’t asking, “What’s truth? Please tell me.” It’s “What is truth? I’m out of here.”
Well, Jesus came, among other reasons, to teach the truth. And so, we need to realize that this Jesus is the source of all wisdom. This is the one through whom all things were made. Whenever you have one claim to truth that differs from what Jesus Christ teaches, take a wild guess who’s right. I don’t care how much authority or how much prominence a different voice has, there is nobody with greater authority on matters of truth than the Lord Jesus Christ. He came into this world to teach truth in a world that was confused and living in darkness.
Save Sinners
Another reason why Christ came—and this one is right at the center—Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. That’s why he’s named Jesus, after all: Jesus means "the Lord saves." God said, "Give him the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21). “To you, in the town of David, a Savior has been born” (Luke 2:11). Jesus came to save.
Jesus, when he grew up and was living among people, was sometimes accused of being a friend of sinners, a party animal. They thought that reflected very poorly on him because you should judge people by the company they keep. Jesus says, “I didn’t come into the world to save righteous people; I came to save sinners. That’s why I came: to rescue people who needed rescuing.”
The Bible says, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:10). Jesus came to be a sacrifice, and that’s a big part of the reason for him becoming flesh in the first place. Only someone who was one of us could take all of our sin upon himself and pay the penalty for that sin and take the punishment for that sin. The Word became flesh in order that he would take away our sins and pay the price for it. The Bible says in Hebrews, “He had to be made like his brothers in every way to be a merciful and faithful high priest and to make atonement for the sins of the people” (Hebrews 2:17). He had to become one of us, have our flesh and blood, in order to make atonement for us and to take away our punishment.
Because he came to take away our sins and to pay that price, Jesus could say to anybody, “Your sins are forgiven.” He has divine authority to say that, for nobody but God can declare sins forgiven. At the same time, he can say "Your sins are forgiven" because he’s the one who made it possible, because all the sins he forgave are the very sins that he took upon himself and took the punishment for those sins.
He could say to little Zacchaeus, the short dude up in a tree, “I’m going to your house today.” Jesus didn’t have a house. He lived so humbly and in such poverty among us, he didn’t even have a house. But he says, “Zacchaeus, I’m going to your house today,” and he spends time with that Zacchaeus. That guy, who in many ways was lower than a snake’s belly, says, “Here and now, I give half of that money I’ve made to the poor, and if I’ve cheated anybody, I’m going to pay back four times as much.” He didn’t do all that to make up for his past or to save himself but because he was already saved by Jesus Christ and by his faith in him.
When Jesus is hanging on the cross, he's hanging next to a guy who has done nothing his entire life that’s much good. He's now being executed as a criminal, and he’s even been mocking Jesus along with the other thief. But suddenly he has a change of mind. He says, “Lord Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus says to that criminal on the cross, “Today, you’ll be with me in paradise.” Jesus can say that because he’s taken all that man’s sins upon himself. When that man dies, he’s going to be in paradise along with Jesus. Just think about that: in paradise with Christ forever. Why? Because "Christ came to save sinners" (1 Timothy 1:15). He came to save sinners. That’s at the very, very heart of his coming into the world: saving sinners from their own sin and from their own guilt.
Destroy Devil
Jesus also rescues sinners from the domination and tyranny of the devil. "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work" (1 John 3:8). Jesus came to destroy the devil's work, to destroy what he does in individual lives in leading us into sin and wrecking our lives, and also to destroy the devil's worldwide impact, to rescue the creation from the domination of the evil one, and to make creation what it's meant to be.
I love the Christmas story as told in Revelation 12. Revelation 12 shows us Christmas from a different angle. John says, “I saw a woman about to give birth, and I saw a great and terrible red dragon that wanted to devour that baby the moment it was born.” That statement captures a great deal of Old Testament history. In Genesis 3, God said to the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike at his heel.”
Very early on, when the first seed was born—the one who pleased God and had faith in God—Abel was murdered by his wicked brother, Cain. But Eve gave birth to another child named Seth, and that line that had been promised was still alive and going. When God chose a man named Abraham and his offspring to be the bearers of the promise, they ended up in Egypt. The Pharaoh of Egypt wanted to kill all the male children born to the Israelites. Why would he want to do that? Well, you might say, “That’s because he was a nasty old Pharaoh, a harsh taskmaster. He wanted to wipe out the males and absorb the females into Egyptian society and make the Israelites disappear as a separate people.” Well, yes, that's what was going through his head. But behind his head, there was a great red dragon who’s up to no good.
When God’s promise was given to the line of David—that from the line of King David there would be a child born who would be the Messiah, the Savior—the dragon heard that promise. And so, there’s a wicked queen named Athaliah who tries to wipe out all the royal offspring, including her own grandchildren. Now that’s a real grandma for you! But that’s not just wicked Granny—that’s that ancient red dragon.
In the time after the Israelites had gone into exile, a man named Haman rose to great power in the Persian Empire. He hated the Israelites and wanted them all wiped out. And there again, you have that red dragon who’s wanting to destroy the promised offspring. But unknown to Haman, the queen just happened to be from that very people that he wanted to wipe out. God put Queen Esther there for such a time as this.
Again and again, you have the attempt to devour the child of the woman. Revelation sums it all up. It says, “The dragon tried to devour the baby, but he was caught up to God’s throne.” It summarizes all those years of history by saying: the baby is born, and the baby makes it to God’s throne. Satan tried to overcome Jesus through temptations. He tried to have Jesus wiped out by the evil King Herod when Jesus was just a baby. He tried all these things. You have this dragon who is opposing Christ, and then you have his demons. When Jesus walked into the same vicinity as they were, the demons started howling, “Why are you here so early? Are you here to destroy us?” They knew that at the end of the age, God was going to overcome, overpower, and destroy them. They were deathly afraid of Jesus. They knew who he was and why he came.
We sing of peace on earth, and in one sense, it’s true that Jesus came to ultimately bring peace, but Jesus also said, "I didn’t come to bring peace; I came to bring a sword" (Matthew 10:34). Before there’s peace, there’s going to be conflict. Jesus came to take back territory that’s rightfully his and to rescue it from the enemy.
The Bible says that when Jesus died on the cross, "he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him" (Colossians 2:15). "By his death he destroyed him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and freed those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death" (Hebrews 2:14). That’s what the Bible says. Jesus destroyed him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and freed people who all their lives were enslaved to death.
When you think of why Jesus came, that’s another big reason. That ancient dragon, that evil fallen angel, the devil, had to be destroyed, and he had to be destroyed in a way that didn’t take down everything else with him. Sometimes people say, “Why doesn’t God just squish Satan like a grape? Why doesn’t he just go and smash evil?” Well, I don’t know all the answers to that, but I can tell you this: When God goes to smashing, there’s not much left. When God goes to smashing evil, there’s nothing of us left.
God’s got to be very wise and selective in that process of destroying evil because if he wants to save sinners, it’s not as simple as saying, “I’m going to let all my fury and power flash out and crush and smash and burn and destroy evil wherever it exists.” If he did that, he’d have to make a whole new universe because this one has fallen under the tyranny of the devil. We aren’t just victims of the devil; we’ve been his willing collaborators. Because he had to destroy the devil and yet rescue many from the devil’s clutches, he has proceeded in quite a different manner.
It’s not exactly like Kierkegaard’s tale, where there’s kind of a humble and beautiful girl that God falls in love with, and now the only thing he needs to do is cozy up to her and not overwhelm her with his power and splendor. The girl’s got a problem, okay? The girl is herself very bad, and she’s under the domination of something even worse. If you were telling the whole story, that’s what it would start to look like. The girl has major, major problems and a major, major power that’s been wrecking her life. So, it’s not as simple as winning our love.
Ultimately, God does win our love and pour out his love and make himself known to us in a very humble form. But there’s a lot more to it than that. Thank God, God is good at multitasking. God knew how to do many different things by coming in the person of Jesus. One of those is to destroy the devil as well as to save sinners.
Lavish Life
Ultimately, all of that still doesn’t express the fullness of what he did. He said, “The thief comes to kill and steal and destroy.” That describes the devil’s work that Jesus came to undo. “But I have come that they may have life and have it to the full” (John 10:10). Jesus came to give us life, to give us love. Or as we read in John 1:16, “From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another.” That’s really a bit of over-translating. Literally, it says, “From his fullness we have received grace upon grace.” From the fullness of Christ, we’ve received grace upon grace upon grace. That’s why he came—that the fullness that is God would keep being poured out on us freely as a gift, more and more and more. More and more life, more and more love, until we’re caught up into the very life and love of God himself.
Jesus said to God the Father in the presence of his disciples, “I have made you known to them and will continue to make you known, in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them" (John 17:26). If you want to understand the greatest depth and power of why Christ came, he came so that God’s love would fill us to overflowing and so that Christ himself and his life would fill us to overflowing.
God came to us to give us himself. You really can’t add to that. He came to give us himself. Of course, along with it, there are thrones and glories and paradise and a new creation and fellowship with the angels and all the other things that the Bible tells us about that glorious new creation. But all of those are fringe benefits. God came to give us himself. Having him, as the psalmist says, “What else do I have beside you? What else would I want? What else do I need? Your love is better than life itself.”
Jesus came to give abundant life, and that abundant life is his love. "This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him" (1 John 4:9). That we might live through him! That’s why he came.
One Christmas my brother received a gift, and he was very eager to open it and find out what was inside. The gifts were distributed, and he got that box and that wrapping paper. He tore at it, and when he opened the box, it was empty. My mom had forgotten to put the present in. The tears started to trickle down his face. What a rip-off! You get all excited about the wrapping paper and what might be inside, and then there’s nothing.
Many people nowadays are going through life ripping through wrapping paper and coming up empty again and again and again. Read the book of Ecclesiastes. Reflect on it a while. Vanity of vanities. I tried this; I came up empty. I tried that; I came up empty. I tried the other thing; I came up empty. When Christ comes, he comes not just to solve the sin problem but the emptiness problem. He comes to give life from his fullness. In him, the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, says the Scripture, and from his fullness, we have received grace upon grace. "I have come that they may have life and have it to the full."
Why Christ Came
- Embody Eternal
- Teach Truth
- Save Sinners
- Destroy Devil
- Lavish Life
Maybe one of these reasons is one you really need to reflect on again. Maybe all of them. But maybe some of you say, “Well, yeah, I’m so glad he came to save sinners, and I am one, and I’m so glad I’m forgiven,” but you’ve forgotten about the abundance of life that he comes to bring and that overflows in you. You’ve forgotten that Jesus promises that overcomers will sit with him on his throne and judge the angels and live with him in glory forever. You’ve kind of been just muddling along with, “Sins forgiven--whew, I’m glad of that.” Well, yeah, be glad of that, and then be glad of a whole lot else.
Be glad and amazed at the fact that God found a way to become a little baby with eyebrows and fingernails and poopy diapers. How did he do that? We'll never fully understand how. But he did because, as God said to Mary through the angel Gabriel, "With God all things are possible." Because he did that, because the divine second person of the Trinity came as a human being, that turned the impossible on its head.
Some people thought when Jesus died that it would be impossible for his movement to continue or for anything to come of him after that. What does the Bible say? “It was impossible for death to keep its hold on him” (Acts 2:24). Because the divine nature was united with the baby with the poopy diapers, death was done. Once the life—the eternal life, the life that existed before anything else was created—once that life took the nature of a creature, creation couldn’t stay dead anymore. Because Christ lives, so do all who belong to him. So does the entire creation that he came to redeem and resurrect and to make alive.
Whatever aspect of why Christ came you’ve been neglecting in your thinking or in your prayers, reflect on it again. Maybe you are somebody who’s just plain been struggling with guilt—a sin you committed that was so serious you wonder whether it can be forgiven, or a sin that you’ve repeated so often that you say, “I’m so stuck in that stupid habit, I’ve done it so many times, that God’s not going to forgive me this time.” But Jesus came to save sinners. Keep that in mind. He came to save sinners—from big sins, from repeated sins, from all the sins. That’s why he came.
Whatever power has been threatening you or destroying you, he came to destroy the devil and all his works. Whatever evil power is at work or afflicting you, I’ll guarantee you it is not the full power of the dragon himself and all his angels. It may be some portion of that, but not all of it. Christ destroyed all of it. He destroyed the dragon and all his cronies. Whatever evil power seeks to afflict and scare you and frighten you of death, Christ came to destroy it.
Christ came to do all of these things. So rejoice that the Word became flesh and embodied the eternal. Rejoice that when you’re confused and wondering what to think, there’s a way to get your head on straight. Listen to the one who literally knows it all—the one who came to teach the truth. Listen to the one who saves sinners and receive his salvation. "To all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to be children of God" (John 1:12). The right not just to be forgiven and let off the hook, but the right to be children of God.
He destroys the devil. The devil in Revelation 12 is actually doing quite a bit of damage yet he’s defeated. The Bible says, “Rejoice, you heavens, and you who dwell in them! But woe to the earth and the sea because the devil’s gone down to you! He’s filled with fury because he knows that his time is short” (Revelation 12:12). He’s living on borrowed time, so don’t be intimidated by a dying dragon.
Receive that lavish life. Don’t skimp. Don’t go around saying, “Oh, poor me.” Realize that from the fullness, you’re receiving grace upon grace upon grace.
Prayer
Father, we thank you that you sent your Son. We thank you, Lord Jesus, that in obedience to your holy Father, you came. We thank you for all that you have done. We ask, Lord Jesus, that you will indeed help us to marvel afresh that you became one of us. You didn’t become an archangel; you didn’t become any of your other creatures. You became human for us and for our salvation. We thank you for your teaching, for the Scriptures that continue to convey that teaching to us, and for your wonderful Holy Spirit who inspired the Scriptures to be true to Christ and applies those Scriptures to our hearts. We thank you for pouring out the Spirit of truth upon your people. We thank you, Savior Jesus, that you came to save your people from their sins. We praise you that you have destroyed the devil and all his works and that his days are numbered. Lord, we thank you for that abundance of life and love that you’ve poured out upon us. We thank you that you are love, that you showed the true nature of your very being—not in all the majesty of your power, not in the wonders of your majestic works, but in the demonstration of love. That we would know that whatever else is true of God—might, wisdom, holiness, majesty—that you are love. We pray that we may live in that love, that we may rejoice in that love, that we may return love to you from hearts that have been melted by the greatness of your love for us, and that we may love one another as you have loved us.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Why Christ Came
Slide Contents
By David Feddes
Why Christ Came
Father sent Son
The living Father sent me… I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. (John 6:57; 8:42)
Why Christ Came
- Embody Eternal
- Teach Truth
- Save Sinners
- Destroy Devil
- Lavish Life
Embody Eternal
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)
Teach Truth
The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. (John 1:9)
The reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. (John 18:37)
Save Sinners
Give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. (Matthew 1:21)
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. (1 Timothy 1:15)
Destroy Devil
The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. (1 John 3:8)
The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan. (Revelation 12:9)
Lavish Life
I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. (John 10:10)
I have made you known to them… in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them. (John 17:26)
Why Christ Came
- Embody Eternal
- Teach Truth
- Save Sinners
- Destroy Devil
- Lavish Life
Last modified: Tuesday, December 17, 2024, 3:46 PM