Christmas - Incarnation then death of our Saviour by RC Sproul
What we celebrate at Christmas is not so much the birth of a baby, as important as that is, but what's so significant about the birth of that particular baby is that in this birth we have the incarnation of God Himself. An incarnation means a coming in the flesh. We know how John begins His gospel, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." So in that very complicated introductory statement, he distinguishes between the Word and God, and then in the next breath identifies the two, "The Word was with God, and the Word was God." And then at the end of the prologue, he says, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." Now in this "infleshment," if you will, of Christ appearing on this planet, it's not that God suddenly changes through a metamorphosis into a man, so that the divine nature sort of passes out of existence or comes into a new form of fleshiness. No, the incarnation is not so much a s...