Monday 5th December
Read John 1:12-13
“Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” (NIVUK)
How do we who are inherently finite aspire to eternity? We live with the consequences of the loss of access to the tree of life, ending in death for all – a full stop on life. The incarnation answers that question. The only way up and out is for the infinite to step down into finitude and save us. By believing in the name of Jesus, we receive Him and His life by adoption – we are born of God.
Irenaeus was born around 130-140AD in western Turkey and studied under Polycarp who in turn studied under the apostle John – two generations from the apostles! He was travelling through Gaul after a period of persecution and replaced the martyred Bishop of Lyon (modern-day France) from around 180AD. Yet already questions were being raised around the incarnation. Consider his response to the idea that Jesus was simply a man, son of Joseph, and the importance that this be refuted…
“But again, those who assert that He was simply a mere man, begotten by Joseph, remaining in the bondage of the old disobedience, are in a state of death having been not as yet joined to the Word of God the Father, nor receiving liberty through the Son, as He does Himself declare: “If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed”. But, being ignorant of Him who from the Virgin is Emmanuel, they are deprived of His gift, which is eternal life and not receiving the incorruptible Word, they remain in mortal flesh, and are debtors to death, not obtaining the antidote of life. To whom the Word says, mentioning His own gift of grace: “I said, You are all the sons of the Highest, and gods; but you shall die like men”. He speaks undoubtedly these words to those who have not received the gift of adoption, but who despise the incarnation of the pure generation of the Word of God, defraud human nature of promotion into God, and prove themselves ungrateful to the Word of God, who became flesh for them. For it was for this end that the Word of God was made man, and He who was the Son of God became the Son of man, that man, having been taken into the Word, and receiving the adoption, might become the son of God. For by no other means could we have attained to incorruptibility and immortality, unless we had been united to incorruptibility and immortality. But how could we be joined to incorruptibility and immortality, unless, first, incorruptibility and immortality had become that which we also are, so that the corruptible might be swallowed up by incorruptibility, and the mortal by immortality, that we might receive the adoption of sons?” (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book 3, Chapter 19)*.
Our hope for eternity is grounded completely in the incarnation – that God became man – so that we may be adopted as children of God. The indwelling of the Spirit is already transforming our finite, mortal flesh and fitting us for eternity. Incorruptible and immortal. Because of a babe in a manger…
*Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson
