MESSIAH: INCARNATION AND CRUCIFIXION PLANNED BEFORE CREATION
Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.
John 1:3-4 (BSB)
. . . the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
Revelation 13:8b (KJV)
Christmas begins with creation and the fall of man. This idea is not original with us. We read a blurb on the “Sounds of the Season” TV channel that said glass ornaments originated to replace fresh apples placed on the tree to symbolize the forbidden fruit Adam and Eve ate in the Garden of Eden! The entire Trinity—God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit—were present at the creation of the world. In fact, according to the Gospel of John, Jesus created everything. Jesus our Savior, the Messiah the Jews had waited for, knew even before He created Adam and Eve that they would eat the forbidden fruit. Even so, He breathed life into them knowing that in the fullness of time, He would be born as a human child, born so that He could die an agonizing death in our place on the cross. Since Jesus was Creator, present when woman was formed from man’s rib, we love the lyrics by Michael Card that state, “No fiction as fantastic and wild, A mother made by her own child.”
God knew He would create human beings from the dust of the earth. He knew we would have limited capacity to understand Him. He knew before they were even formed that Adam and Eve would disobey Him leading to death. However, He also had a redemption plan to rescue fallen humans before all of that occurred. It is beyond our ability to truly grasp all the “why’s” of God’s ways. We accept that He is God, and we are not. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so My ways are higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9). Jesus was “slain from the foundation of the world” in the sense that God had already planned the cross as believers’ redemption before He created the first man. Yes, this is a difficult concept to grasp, but we accept it by faith.
Take a moment to reflect on the enormity of creation and the power of our Creator. Chew on the idea that Jesus knew He would ultimately be born to die even as He was forming those for whom He would die. Thank the Lord for the ultimate Christmas gift, the Savior born in Bethlehem!
Father, we thank You for creating us, breathing life into us. Thank You for planning for our salvation before we even knew we were lost. Thank You, Jesus, for becoming small enough for us to understand You, being born as a human baby, and growing up to die in our place on the cross.