The birth of Jesus was remarkable. The whole of the Old Testament had said that He was coming. Prophets had made clear the purpose of God and the centuries had seen the first promises expanded into a life story. A life story written before the life had begun! Many men have had their life story set down after their death; but only one has had it written before it began.

Jesus was God's Son. He was born because God determined it: the choice was God's. The manner of birth was altogether unexpected. We have seen already that God selected Mary of Nazareth to be the mother of the Son of God. God was His Father. The almighty power of God, known as the Holy Spirit, came to rest upon Mary and the process started. There was no human father. Mary was unmarried and remained so until God commanded Joseph to fulfill the marriage vows Mary and Joseph had already promised one another.

Jesus therefore was altogether different. He was the son of God. This meant more than we can ever describe. In the same way that -- the son or daughter of a king and queen has special rights and privileges by birth so Jesus had special honour attaching to him. Let us never underestimate that. The angels did not. When Jesus was born in Bethlehem an angel of great importance uttered the meaning of the birth:

"Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." (Luke 2:11).

"Christ the Lord." Such was the title of Jesus. And, as though to add wonder to the message, the whole heavens were filled with a multitude of angels singing:

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, and goodwill toward men." (Luke 2:14).

Here, then, are the glory and mission of Jesus, the Son of God. Yet, supposing we had only the opening chapter of the story and simply that part of the end which concerns the death of Jesus -- what then? At the beginning we see the babe in the manger declared as Lord by the host of heaven; while at the end we see a man hanging from a cross dying in the darkness. Is this the Lord? Where now are the angels? Can this be the Son of God? Is this the King of Israel?

In these questions we come face to face with deep and deeply interesting questions. We expect a king with a crown of glory and we see a dead man crowned with thorns. We look for a throne and we find a Cross. We imagine a royal court with glittering splendour and we see Jesus, mocked by soldiers, disowned by his people and standing on trial for his life. Has something gone wrong -- seriously wrong? Has the purpose of God in Jesus collapsed in failure?

We look again. Among the very last words of Jesus we discover some powerful checks to our sorrow and dismay. As his life draws to its last minutes we hear him cry with the whole power of his being: It is finished. Shortly afterwards before his head rests silent upon his breast, he prays: Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. These are not the words of a bewildered, defeated man; they show purposefulness and assurance. Let us took more closely.

When we examine the life of Jesus -- that time between his unique birth and his humiliating death -- we discover a time of exquisite beauty. (If you have not read the life of Jesus through at one sitting in the quietness of your own room, then you should do so without delay. Take any one of the Gospels -- Mark to begin with -- and read it straight through with care and with prayer).

The life of Jesus is a life of complete righteousness. There is perfect and loving obedience to his Father in everything. He lives his life: he does not waste it. Apart from a brief glimpse of his boyhood when he lived in subjection to Mary and Joseph, we know very little of his first thirty years. And then he emerges from obscurity, without pomp, without glory, without angels and engages in public preaching and healing for about three and a half years until his death. Imagine, friend, what power is locked away in those three and a half years: they have changed the face of history, affected the destiny of nations and made new men and women out of thousands of sinners.

Let us try to understand something more of this marvel. It is true that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the seed of Abraham and David, and, therefore, the appointed king to rule over all nations. That purpose of God in Jesus still stands and, as we have seen in earlier letters, will assuredly be fulfilled. There was, however, another aspect of the work of Christ -- in many ways a greater work which had to be accomplished before his reign on earth would begin. It is for this other reason that Jesus gave his life on the tree at Calvary.

In the days of Adam and Eve there had been one King -- the Lord God himself. But his authority had been flouted and his word disbelieved. Our first parents rebelled against the kingship of God and as a consequence they were sinners doomed to die. Death came through the door when Adam and Eve let sin into their lives. The two go together. The wages of sin is death.

You will recall that despite this rebellion God was gracious and in his wisdom began to work out a plan whereby the earth would finally be filled with his glory. "As truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with my glory." In the Old Testament we saw this purpose made firm in great promises and personal assurance given to Abraham and later on to David. They were promised a famous descendant and there is no doubt at all -- read again the very first verse of the New Testament -- that Jesus was the One who was promised.

There was, in addition, another constant lesson taught in the Old Testament to all who wanted to worship God. They had to do it on God's terms; and that was reasonable enough, not only because God is Lord of heaven and earth, but also because man was the offender, the guilty party. The lesson God taught man was very simple but remarkably powerful: God is holy and man is sinful and dying. When a man approaches God, therefore, he must acknowledge these things. Very often God made it abundantly plain as, for example, when he told Moses to remove his shoes saying, "the place whereon thou standest is holy ground."

The holiness of God was made plain by an appointed manner of approach to him and by the lives of those who were acceptable to him. But how did man declare that he was a sinner and worthy of death?

God told him how to do it. First of all he gave the lesson to Adam and Eve. A lamb was slain and they were given the lambskin to wear. Herein was a simple lesson. Their sin required a covering and an acknowledgment. The death of the lamb was their acknowledgment that "the wages of sin is death," and the lambskin was the God-given token that God would cover their sins.

Throughout the Old Testament men approached God in the appointed way bringing with them a sin offering, a sacrifice, to show their own unworthiness and their need of God's forgiveness, God's special covering. There was no magic in this. There was no special power in the blood of the sacrifice. The power lay in the faith of the one who made the offering, in his obedience to God's command, and in God's willingness to receive him.

This method of forgiveness had limitations. The first one is obvious; there was no real connection between the sacrifice and the one who offered it. The link was in the mind of the offerer and in the mind of God. The second limitation lay in the fact that although forgiveness could be obtained this way, the root of the problem remained untouched -- sinners were still born into the world, even sinners whose sins had been forgiven discovered that they soon sinned once more. What was required was something or someone to take away sin itself.

Throughout the thousands of years, from Adam to Jesus, sin had been the undisputed king: not one single human being had escaped his power, not one had been sinless. When Jesus come the kingship of sin was put on trail: for the first time a champion entered the field equipped and able to challenge the rule of sin and to restore the holiness and righteousness of God.

(Read for yourself 1 Peter 1, and take up the threads of this wonderful salvation in our next letter.)

next page: The King Dethroned