Understanding Christmas
We all enjoy the temporal delights of this season with the beautiful decorations inside and outside, family get togethers, gift giving and receiving, the Christmas movies, great food, and other festive things that give us pleasure.
As we celebrate Christmas, do we truly understand the eternal significance of this holiday for each one of us? I did not clearly understand this until God presented to me the exciting Big Picture of the Bible which opened God’s powerful and living Word (Hebrews 4:12) to me. (An abbreviated version of the Big Picture is below; a more detailed version is available at no cost in both books (written and audio) on the website shoeleatherfaith.com.)
God weaves this Big Picture through all the 66 books of the Bible. In this we see that God redeems (buys back) what was originally given and lost due to man’s freedom of choice to disobey God. What God started in creation with a perfect, sin free world, He plans to redeem.
Creation of Man Genesis 1:26-31, 2:15-17 God gives man four major things including: (1) dominion over the earth, (2) the image of God, (3) a personal relationship with God and (4) a body that was intended to live eternally. Man was created “good” and with freedom of choice; he could choose to obey or disobey God. Man would have remained good in God’s eyes throughout eternity if he had not chosen to disobey God.
Man Falls Genesis 3:1-13 Satan, a created angel, rebels against God and in the form of a serpent, entices man to question God’s word and His goodness. Man chooses to disobey God in the one no-no that God provided. Even though eating a fruit seems innocent and does not rank on our radar screen of evil, it was a deliberate choice to disobey God- which was a sin (an archer’s term meaning to miss the target).
As a result, man loses dominion, divine part of the image of God (righteousness and holiness), the personal relationship with God and death is instituted.
God temporarily allows Satan to have dominion over the Earth.
God provides a Plan of Redemption The Bible reveals the Plan which God provided prior to the foundation of Earth (Revelation 13:8, Ephesians 1:4, 2 Timothy 1:9) whereby He provides man “the Way” to redeem what was lost in the Fall. The Old Testament and the New Testament weave the Plan to be fulfilled through a Redeemer (Messiah) who is first hinted at in Genesis 3:15 immediately after the Fall.
Throughout the Old Testament, we find prophecies about the Redeemer at its center, for He is the Alpha and Omega of prophecy, the beginning, and the end, the first and the last, forever, and ever. It has been calculated that the odds of any one man fulfilling only 8 of these prophecies would be 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000 (one hundred quadrillion-17 zeros) Fulfilling 48 would have been the mathematical odds with 157 zeros.
The New Testament clearly identifies this Redeemer to be Jesus Christ whose birth we celebrate on Christmas Day. Jesus fulfilled over 300 prophesies in His earthly ministry. (Microsoft Copilot A.I. replied that those odds were incalculable.)
In order to redeem what was lost Jesus had to be a perfect substitute for all sinners and take the penalty of death for each of us. Jesus was crucified, was buried for three days, and was resurrected to have victory over death. As a result, believers now will in heaven have a glorified body like the resurrected body of Jesus Christ that will live forever (Philippians 3:21, 1 Corinthians 15: 35-50); what was lost in the Fall is redeemed. On the cross Jesus becomes the sacrificial Lamb of God to shed His blood in a once-for-all-eternity blood sacrifice (Hebrews 9 & 10).
By faith in Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, we are justified (counted righteous by God). We lost righteousness and our personal relationship with God through Adam. And now through Jesus, our Redeemer, we obtain the gift of righteousness and the abundance of grace (unconditional and undeserved love) whereby we can once again have an intimate relationship with God (Romans 5:17, 21).
“We can now put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Ephesians 4:24). We lost our divine image of God (righteousness and holiness) and now He recreates and sanctifies us through Christ to conform us back progressively to that image (Romans 8:28-29, 2 Corinthians 3:18). Therefore, salvation through Christ (redemption for what was lost) is a process involving justification (salvation from the penalty of sin), sanctification (salvation from the power of sin), and glorification (salvation from the presence of sin).
After His resurrection from death Jesus lived another forty days on this earth (Acts 1:3) and was seen by over 500 people during that period (1 Corinthians 15:6). Immediately before His ascension to the right hand of God, He gave His disciples and all believers the Great Commission to be witnesses to evangelize and disciple the world (Acts 1:8, Matthew 28:18-20). However, He knew without the power of God, this would be impossible (Luke 18:27). So, Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit of God would come upon them to provide them the power of God; a few days later at Pentecost the Holy Spirit came to indwell them and subsequently all believers in Christ. We are living in this time now.
In His Word God provides “some” insight into the end times on this Earth and the future eternal times in Heaven. The last book of the Bible, Revelation, in the last two chapters, 21 and 22, gives us a keyhole view of the Eternal Kingdom for Believers in Jesus Christ-Everything made new.
New heaven and new earth (2 Peter 3:13, Revelation 21:1).
New Jerusalem (Revelation 21) Believers’ home for eternity will be on the new earth. It appears from description to be cube shaped with 1,380 miles in each direction. And our glorified bodies apparently will allow traveling vertically, as well as horizontally. One mathematician calculated if 20 billion people accept Christ as Savior, then this new city will allow each person to have seventy-five acres in each cubical direction as his/her individual eternal home. This assumes that 25% is used for inhabitants and 75% is used for common areas.
Triune God to dwell among His eternal family and reign on the throne eternally in New Jerusalem (Revelation 21:3, 22:1-5).
Curse removed - no more tears, no more death, no more sorrow, no more crying, no more pain. Everything made new will remain new throughout eternity (Revelation 21:4).
New paradise with a river of water of life and the tree of life on both sides of the river (Revelation 22:1-5).
No more darkness and night, no more light from the sun, God will give the only light needed for eternity (Revelation 22:5).
What an awesome keyhole view of a believer’s eternity!!!
