Jesus Born King
By Solomon White
Isaiah 9:6--
“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder…”
For to us a child was born. But why a child? Why was Jesus born as a baby and then grown to maturity on earth in order to save us from our sins? Couldn’t he have entered this world in the form of an adult? We know from Scripture that the Word became flesh as a baby, conceived in the womb of the virgin Mary, brought to full gestational term, and birthed in a barn (Matt 1; Luke 2; John 1).
Jesus was born as a baby because we were born as babies. He not only died for our sins, but he also lived a life just like ours for our righteousness. He lived the perfect sinless life that we never could. He was the perfect child, friend, sibling, and person we never could be. In what’s commonly known as the Great Exchange, Christ took our sins upon himself and put them to death on the cross, and in exchange, he credited his righteousness to us so that we might be seen as justified before God. It says in 2 Corinthians 5:21 that, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” He put our name on his homework and this could only be done after living a full life in our place, perfectly obeying the law of God.
We need to know that the birth of Jesus was not Plan B. We do not serve a janitor God who follows behind us cleaning up our messes. God created Adam and he fell. He brought the law through Moses and we broke it. But Christ came and saved us forever. All of these are not multiple attempts by God to “get it right.” All of this was God’s redemptive plan for his creation from the beginning.
In Scripture, we see that God is a God of covenants, from the covenant of works that was made with Adam in the Old Testament to the new covenant of grace through Christ in the New Testament. Both of these covenants are predicated on the covenant of redemption made between the three persons of the Holy Trinity in eternity past. The Word become flesh, being born as a little baby in a manger, was not a begrudging task being done as an obligation or last-ditch effort to save humanity, it was the second person of the triune Godhead fulfilling his redemptive nature.
A common question that is asked when studying the Bible is “Why did Adam fall?” Why was there a tree of Good and Evil in the garden in the first place? Couldn’t God stop him from sinning? Why did he let us fall into sin and this unrighteous mess that we are in now? Why did we need to be redeemed? It happened because God is a God of redemption. Before he created the universe he had a covenant of redemption between the three persons of the Trinity. The Father started the process of redemption of a creation he knew would fall. The Son was given the task to fulfill that redemption. The Holy Spirit applies that redemption to God’s chosen people. This fulfills the divine redemptive nature of all three persons of God. If this God we read of in Scripture were to create a universe, it would be this one that must be redeemed for his glory.
God loves the outcast. He loves the ones the world loves to hate. Not only does he love them, but he also loves to use them to do great things for his glory. Christ’s very birth was a statement of humility. The king of the universe was laid in an animal feeding trough. The stable was dirty and smelly. It was a humble place to be.
Philippians 2:8 says “And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” This humbling of himself in no way diminished his rightful claim as king. He is on his throne and we are co-heirs with him through the work he did from the manger to the cross. Isaiah says the government is on his shoulders, and later in Matthew 28, Jesus says all authority has been given to him. Jesus is king over all other kingdoms, governments, institutions, and countries. And as king, he was under no obligation to redeem us to the Father, he did it because that’s who he is and he loves us. He is not great because of what he did, he did what he did because he is great.
God created this world to glorify his name and things are playing out exactly as they should according to his will and purpose for his redemptive glory. Nothing was a mistake that he needed to clean up. The purpose the whole time was for Christ to be born, live a perfect life of righteousness for us and to put our sins to death on the cross and redeem us to the Father.
The hope of King Jesus brings life forever. There is only one kingdom and as Christians we are no longer rebels to the kingdom, but rather children. We are the king’s kids and we have the privilege to glorify him and enjoy him forever.