CHRISTMAS & GENESIS
Chugley and friends thank Creation Ministries for their many great articles during 2023. We wish all our readers a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous 2024. The Blog will be closed until January.
To read the interesting biography of Joanathan Sarfati click on the live link above his article. Don’t forget to subscribe to Creation Magazine, just click below, makes an unusual Christmas Present also…
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Gibber! Gibber!
Chugley
We at CMI wish all our readers and supporters a safe and blessed Christmas and New Year festive season. But what does CMI have to do with Christmas? How does Genesis relate to a birthday?
The whole point is that the One whose birth is celebrated at Christmas was none other than the One who brought the whole universe into existence! Our Creator took on the nature of one of His creatures, a helpless infant. Think about the movie producers Alfred Hitchcock and M. Night Shyamalan: in their movies, they would make an entrance in the movies they created.
But Christmas is no movie: it happened in history: God, the Creator, became flesh, the Incarnation. World leader in sickle cell anemia research, Dr Felix Konotey-Ahulu, in an interview in Creation magazine, pointed out the significance:
‘The baby whose birth we celebrate at Christmas is the Creator of the world! See John 1:1–5, especially v. 3: “All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.” The world, you see, is no cosmic accident. This world was created by the Triune God, and through this Lord Jesus, who was born in Bethlehem.’
Right back in the early days of the Christian Church, Melito, Bishop of Sardis, gave an amazing Passover sermon in AD ~170 that expresses that astounding event (see below).
Melito’s Passover Sermon (see main text)
The baby whose birth we celebrate at Christmas is the Creator of the world! See John 1:1–5, especially v. 3: ‘All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.’
And so he was lifted up upon a tree and an inscription was attached indicating who was being killed. Who was it? It is a grievous thing to tell, but a most fearful thing to refrain from telling. But listen, as you tremble before him on whose account the earth trembled!
He who hung the earth in place is hanged.
He who fixed the heavens in place is fixed in place.
He who made all things fast is made fast on a tree.
The Sovereign is insulted.
God is murdered.
The King of Israel is destroyed by an Israelite hand.
This is the One who made the heavens and the earth,
and formed mankind in the beginning,
The One proclaimed by the Law and the Prophets,
The One enfleshed in a virgin,
The One hanged on a tree,
The One buried in the earth,
The One raised from the dead and who went up into the heights of heaven,
The One sitting at the right hand of the Father,
The One having all authority to judge and save,
Through Whom the Father made the things which exist from the beginning of time.
This One is ‘the Alpha and the Omega’,
This One is ‘the beginning and the end’
The beginning indescribable and the end incomprehensible.
This One is the Christ.
This One is the King.
This One is Jesus.
This One is the Leader.
This One is the Lord.
This One is the One who rose from the dead.
This One is the One sitting on the right hand of the Father.
He bears the Father and is borne by the Father.
‘To him be the glory and the power forever. Amen.’
Jesus: the pre-existent one; the Word
At Christmas, churches often read the early chapters of the Gospels. It is the Gospel of John which goes back the furthest. While Matthew and Luke tell us about the conception and birth of the One, John 1 goes back way further to before He was conceived. In fact, it reaches back even further than Genesis, as shown above. Genesis 1 is the account of the creation of the space-time universe, but John 1 tells us that Jesus and the Father existed before creation, before time, in eternity past. Indeed, as above, Genesis 1:1 really takes over at John 1:3.
John calls Jesus the ‘Word’, or in Greek, the logos. Why? This comes from the Jewish concept of the memra. This teaching can be found in the Targums, Aramaic paraphrases of the Old Testament.1 Where the Old Testament says something is done by God, the Targums often said it was done by the memra of God. The Rabbis never tried to explain the paradox, because the OT also sometimes describes several personages simultaneously as the LORD (YHWH) who is one (e.g. Genesis 19:24, Isaiah 48:16). They taught six things about this memra, and John 1 identifies Jesus of Nazareth as the embodiment of all aspects of the memra:2
Sometimes with God, sometimes the same as God
In the beginning, was the word, the word was with God (John 1:1).
John 1 reaches back even further than Genesis …. Genesis 1 is the account of the creation of the space-time universe, but John 1 tells us that Jesus and the Father existed before creation, before time, in eternity past. … Genesis 1:1 really takes over at John 1:3.
Agent of creation
All things were made by or through him, and without him was not anything made that had been made (John 1:3)
Agent of salvation
But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name. (John 1:12)
Agent of revelation
No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him. (John 1:18)
Means by which God became visible (called a theophany)
And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. (John 1:14)
Means by which He made His covenants
The Law was given by Moses, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. (John 1:17).
Illustration from www.istockphoto.com
Was Jesus born on Christmas day?
CMI is not claiming that Jesus was born on 25 December. Fact is, we don’t know which day He arrived. But a common argument against 25 December is that shepherds would not have been watching their flocks by night in December because it would be too cold. But those who make that claim clearly have never been to Bethlehem. Just because shepherds in Europe and North America are indoors in December, it doesn’t follow that shepherds in Bethlehem are also indoors. They are indeed to be found watching their flocks by night.2 Indeed, it’s a very good time, because the heavy winter rains make the grass especially lush.