Monday, December 19, 2016

The Visitor - Greg Albrecht



There are two biblical stories about the birth of Jesus. One is the factual story of who did what, when and where, given to us by Matthew and Luke. The other story occurs in our keynote passage.

The "other story" concerns itself with the profound significance of what happened at the intersection of time and eternity, when God in the person of Jesus came into our world to be one of us. The first 18 verses of the first chapter of the Gospel of John is powerful, majestic, and in some ways mysterious. As literature, this passage ranks among the most profoundly meaningful essays of a similar length. It is one of those biblical passages which encapsulates the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Our passage tells us that God came, in the person of Jesus, to be one of us, as the God-man. Let's just take a moment and try to get our heads around this extraordinary claim of Scripture. The first ten words of verse 14 is a distillation of the gospel; The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

God became a human, while obviously remaining divine, for by definition God never stops being God. He is the Word, the Eternal Son of God, the Alpha and the Omega, the Author of the gospel and the main subject of the gospel, the Lamb of God, the Prince of peace, the King of kings, Lord of lords …as verse 18 calls him, God the One and Only.