Christmas Christology, Col.1-2

Heaven Come Down #3 HC.12-19

♦intro: I read a book in elementary school that I've never
forgotten. I can't recall the title but I can tell you what fascinated
me. There was a boy, in another world, hiking with his family
when he fell into a dark hole and landed in our world. But
because his world was so much more than ours in gravity, beauty,
and knowledge, he possessed abilities that were super, or "more
than" human in our world. For example, he could read people's
thoughts. He could run like the wind. He could leap over a house
if need be. He could learn language just be listening a short
while. He had a knife from his world a thousand times sharper
than any blade of ours. Because of these abilities he became
suspect and targeted by people of our world. However, there were
a few compassionate hearts; a judge, a kindly teach, a family
that took him in. It so happened that every now and again our
hero could hear voices from his parents world calling to him. And
he knew that he had to find his way back to that hole he fell
through before it closed. You'll be happy to know that with some
amazing feats of agility, and with the help of his sympathizers, he
was able to evade scores of prejudice law enforcement and
hunters and find the portal to his own world, just in the nick of
time. I loved that story and I'll tell you why. I loved the idea of
being able to leap, almost fly. I loved the idea of a really cool
knife, and to this day I am a knife admirer. And I loved the idea
of another better world. One where abilities are greater, and
experiences are richer.

i

Christmas Christology, Col.1-2

Heaven Come Down #3 HC.12-19

♦People have been telling stories forever. Our culture is
celebrating one right now about an old man who is generous and
also supernatural, traversing the entire world in a single night as
if omnipotent, and omnipresent! In our myths, and stories we
postulate a hope we all long for: that there is someone out there,
someplace out there, some life, some kingdom that is better than
what we've inherited. Well, as CS Lewis writes, in Christianity the
myth became fact. "The dying god really appears -as a historical
Person, living in a definite place and time. ...Perfect Myth and
Perfect Fact: claiming not only our love and obedience, but also
our wonder and delight, addressed to the savage, the child, and
the poet in each one of us no less than to the moralist, the
scholar, and the philosopher."

♦I want to discuss today the theology of Christ (Christology) and
why it's so earth-shattering.

♦1. Christ is fully human and that is important because...

♦A. Inside all of us is a hope, a longing for a better world, a
higher existence, a life that does not end in death. That my
friends is simply a longing for heaven, for the Kingdom of God.

But we can never enter that world. And do you know why? Sin.
And whenever and as long as we sin, we cannot experience that
world in this one either. Sin has caused us to never be able to
really live a good human life. Sin has put humanity at odds with
God. Only one without sin has the right to life. Our sin has made
it so that we can never live in the Garden of Eden, that is, exist

2

Christmas Christology, Col.1-2

Heaven Come Down #3 HC.12-19

in the full presence of a pure and holy God. Something must be
done about human sin for there to be hope of a better human
world, the Kingdom where God lives in the same environment as
man. The problem is sinners cannot pay the debt themselves.
What is demanded is perfection, full holiness of right and good,
without blemish or stain. Like any western movie, the white
cowboy hats must finish off the black cowboy hats for the West to
be won. In the Star Wars saga, war will never be over until the
dark side is totally vanquish by the light side of the Force. But we
can't do that. None of us. Since God is perfectly fair and just, he
must by nature destroy that which has any wrong, and evil
whatsoever, and that includes everyone in the room. Is there a
solution? There is and it is this solution that Christianity alone
tells of. No other religion offers a solution to the problem of
human sinfulness.

♦[read Colossians 1:15-21] Let consider a few verses closely.
♦"But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through
death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from
accusation—" Colossians 1:22, NIV.

♦"For in Christ all the fulness of the Deity lives in bodily form,"
Colossians 2:9, NIV.

♦'T/?e Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us."John
1:14, NIV.

♦B. The Bible asserts that the second person of the Trinity, the
eternally begotten Son of God, took on human physical existence
so that a real human person could receive the JUST punishment

3

Christmas Christology, Col.1-2

Heaven Come Down #3 HC.12-19

on humans for sin, namely death itself. All this because God is
perfectly fair (holy and just). Jesus became human so that God
the Father could be both fair, and forgiving at the same time. No

moral wrong gets to survive in the end. God will not settle for
anything less. Justice will be served. No stain gets into the new
heavens and the new earth.

♦But someone will say, "Who cares if ever there was a
human Jesus in history. In fact Mahatma Gandhi said that.

"I may say that I have never been interested in an historical
Jesus. I should not care if it were proved by someone that
the man Jesus never lived...the sermon on the mount would
still be true for me." Gandhi sees Jesus as merely
representing a profoundly good way to live the human life.
And while there is some truth here, there is a deeper
problem. Jesus is not just a laudable ideal. Jesus is not just
a good habit or a good example. Jesus is not a merely
hopeful way to live. Jesus is in fact the intersection of two
worlds. God's perfect one, and our human one. He is a time
warp or a black hole, if you will. A tare in the fabric of time
through which one world steps into another.

♦"For there is one God and one mediator between God and men,
the man Christ Jesus," 1 Timothy 2:5, NIV.

♦Jesus is everything our movies dream about, but also a
fact in history. In the person of Christ, heaven has come
down to earth in the most personal way possible. You don't

4

Christmas Christology, Col.1-2

Heaven Come Down #3 HC.12-19

need a saint to pray to. You don't need a horoscope. You
don't need more self-esteem. Money won't save you. Nor
will politics or sex. You don't need certain laws, or
incantations. You need Jesus, your only access to heaven
from earth. Your only shield from destruction by perfect
holiness. Your only space suit keeping you alive in an
environment you are alien to, but were meant to find.

♦C. Bear in mind that this coming of God to man is the original
design of creation. That's why we began this series in Genesis,
with the "mother promise" that the Messiah would someday come
to destroy the snake of sin and put all things back. As Chuck
Colson put it, "God's redemption, then, does not change us into
something different so much as it restores us to the way were
were originally created. Virtually all the words the Bible uses to
describe salvation imply a return to something that originally
existed." To redeem is a kidnapping term for buying back, paying
a ransom to bring a person back to home. Reconciliation is the
restoring of an original relationship. Regeneration implies
something has returned to life after having died or quit.

♦"For God was pleased to have all his fulness dwell in him, and
through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth
or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood , shed on the
cross." Colossians 1:19, 20, NIV.

♦Christmas was one of the steps on the way back to Eden, you
see? Of course Christmas is nothing without the Cross of Good

5

Christmas Christology, Col.1-2

Heaven Come Down #3 HC.12-19

Friday and the resurrection of Easter. Jesus couldn't connect our
worlds if he wasn't of our world. That's why its so important to
know he is fully a human. Now then, if that's all he is, he still
can't connect Heaven and Earth.

♦2. Christ is fully God and that is important because...

♦A. First lets reestablish that the Christ of Christmas was not
merely human. Paul's letter to the Colossians reminds us that he
is the image of the invisible God and that all of God-ness lives in
physical humanness in this one person (1:15, 2:9). Which is to
say, that Jesus was no ordinary person. This is what the virgin
birth points to. Jesus is right now, a God-Man. Not 50% of each,
but 100% of each. He is presently in a dimension we cannot see,
but he is still totally God over our and present in his Holy Spirit.
He is "supreme ruler" of all. Lord over America, Lord over
Hindus, Lord over Africa, Lord over atheists. Lord over democrats
and lord over republicans. Lord of Heaven, and Ruler of Earth.
There is no other being anywhere in the universe like this person
we worship in this building. Mohamad is not runner up. Buddha
neither.

♦B. Be thankful this is the case, for no human being can pay for
his own sin and live through death, much less for someone elses!
Jesus in the power of his eternal God-hood, sustains eternally the

wrath of God against our sin, so that the love of God is what we

end up with forever .

6

Christmas Christology, Col.1-2

Heaven Come Down #3 HC.12-19

+"but because Jesus lives for ever > he has a permanent priesthood.
Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God
through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. Such a
high priest meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set
apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens."Hebrews 7:24-26,
NIV.

♦If Jesus isn't God, he would by definition be sizzled like an ant
on the surface of the sun the minute my sins, or your sins, were
laid on him! If Jesus were not literally the Son of God, the
Christian faith would not be worth your time, and you should not
bother with prayer, or worship, or scripture application. What
does it mean that Jesus is fully God and fully Man? Just this. As
I stated earlier, the two natures of Christ make him the portal,
the being through which Heaven and Earth collide. Heaven and
Earth are eternally linked because of a person. We have access
to God because of the God-Man.

♦" Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation
for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was
justification that brings life for all men. For just as through the
disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also
through the obedience of the one man the many will be made
righteous." Romans 5:18, 19, NIV.

♦ Because Jesus is full God and full man, we through faith in Him

are fully set free from the kingdom of darkness, and set free to

access the Kingdom of Heaven .

♦"Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds
because of your evil behaviour. But now he has reconciled you by

7

Christmas Christology, Col.1-2

Heaven Come Down #3 HC.12-19

Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight,
without blemish and free from accusation--" Colossians 1:21, 22, NIV.
♦Here's the reality friends: without faith in Christ and payment
for your sinfulness, the nicest thing you've ever done gains you
no credit in heaven, and no power over the devil. But.

♦"the Father...has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the
saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the
dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he
loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."
Colossians 1:12-14, NIV.

♦"and you have been given fulness in Christ, who is the Flead over
every power and authority." Colossians 2:10, NIV.

♦With Christ you are able to "not sin". With Christ you are able
to produce actual heavenly good with eternal results. With Christ
every time you obey his will in this world you are releasing
Kingdom atmosphere into the earth's atmosphere. Every time
you chose to keep Jesus commands, the dark side takes a hit.
With every act of love from a God-follower, we bring the Kingdom
to earth, which was God's purpose for us in the beginning.
♦Conclusion: Today you'll be given a crismon similar to the one
up front. It has on it a manger with the Christ Child, a real
human like you, but oh so much more; a crown symbolizing the
ruling God himself. Supreme over all things. If this Jesus was
only an angel from heaven he couldn't take your place when
judged by Heaven. If this Jesus was only a fallen man like any
other (as other world religions take him to be) he could not have

8

Christmas Christology, Col.1-2

Heaven Come Down #3 HC.12-19

survived the judgment of heaven. But Christmas proclaims a
being apart from all others.

♦"Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through
the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we
profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise
with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every
way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the
throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and
find grace to help us in our time of need." Hebrews 4:14-16, NIV.

♦He is the only one worthy of your prayers or your songs. He is
the only one who can really change your life. He alone has power
over the evil spirits that attack your family. He alone can bring
you a message from heaven. He alone can change your heart or
break your addiction. Approach his throne of grace. Make it your
business to seek him like the Wisemen of old. Make time in every
day of your life to talk with him in prayer and reading of his word.
Seek Christ in every question. Approach Christ with every pain or
crisis without ceasing. If Superman were your brother, would you
not call him every day for help? How much more so the Christ.

9