Why Was Jesus Born? Part I
INTRODUCTION – I Timothy 1:15 – We love Christmas: it provides the best of everything. As much as we love Christmas, God loves it more, for Christmas is a major part of the unfolding of His grand plan of salvation. Why was Jesus, God the Son, born? One reason – a primary reason – is to save us from our sins.
- WE SEE OUR SIN
As Paul wrote, we are “sinners”. Because God is holy and cannot abide sin, either He could wipe out sinners, or He could wipe out sin. God chose the way that cost Him everything. In Hebrews 9:27, 28, we see that Jesus took the full penalty of sin – death – so that our sin could be forgiven.
- WE SEE THE SAVIOR
As we read earlier in I Timothy 1:15, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save.” We would all like to be heroes, saving the small child or the puppy or perhaps the whole planet. However, the reality is that we need a hero, the Hero, to rescue us, to be our Savior. Many well-known passages speak of Jesus as our Savior. A lesser-known section (Isaiah 62:1-12) is a specific promise to Israel and a revelation of the salvific nature of God to all believers. He offers “salvation.” Like the people of Jerusalem, each of us should, as an Advent hymn says, “fling wide the portals of your heart.”
- WE SEE PAUL’S INSIGHT
Paul calls himself the “chief” of sinners. Paul’s sins (before his conversion to Christianity) were overt and vicious: he persecuted innocent Christians, even to the point of imprisonment and death. However, there were people who clearly did more harm than Paul; Caligula and Nero, Roman emperors during Paul’s lifetime, come immediately to mind. Was Paul overstating his sin? Remember that the Bible is inspired by God the Holy Spirit. Thus, Paul was revealing a profound truth: each one of us must contrast our sin with the absolute holiness of God. If we do, then each one of us will accurately call ourselves the “chief” of sinners, a sinner in need of the Savior.
CONCLUSION – We read in Hebrews 7:25 that God saves us “to the uttermost”; just as God’s holiness is absolute, so is His salvation. We must accept His loving invitation to “come to God” through faith in God the Son. Yes, we love Christmas, but God loves it more, because Jesus was born “to save sinners, of whom I am chief.”