In the spirit of the season, here’s an old truth from J.I. Packer on Christmas.

“The really staggering Christian claim is that Jesus of Nazareth was God made man – that the second person of the Godhead became a ‘second man’. . . . This is the real stumbling block in Christianity. It is here that Jews, Muslims, Unitarians, Jehovah’s Witnesses . . . have come to grief. It is from misbelief (sic), or at least inadequate belief, about the Incarnation that difficulties at other points in the gospel story usually spring.”

J.I. Packer, Knowing God, 53-54.

Did you catch that the Incarnation is “the real stumbling block in Christianity”? In other words, for many of the almost-Christian religions heresy begins at failing to embrace the biblical claim that Jesus was fully God and fully man.

“The Incarnation is in itself an unfathomable mystery, but it makes sense of everything else that the New Testament contains.”

J.I. Packer, Knowing God, 54.

So Christmas presents us with an incomprehensible truth upon which Christianity hinges. Namely, that the baby born in the stable and laid in the manger was at the same time God and man.

While I trust this statement will not sound ‘new’ to most of you, I hope it compels you to marvel for two reasons.

1. God accomplished a mind-blowing feat in Bethlehem by squeezing all of His God-ness into a human body. Now that’s impressive.
2. While Christmas seems like a happy time, it is incredibly controversial because it makes such a pivotal claim about Jesus. And this claim ultimately separates true believers from false ones.

So Merry Christmas… or should I say, “Happy Incarnation!”