THE BIRTH OF THE ANCIENT OF DAYS
"Therefore Pilate said to Him, “So You are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice" (John 18:37).
This is a great Christmas text even though it comes at the end of Jesus' life on earth, not the beginning.
The uniqueness of His birth is that He existed before he was born in an manger. The personhood, the character, the personality of Jesus of Nazareth existed before the man Jesus of Nazareth was born.
The theological word that describes this mystery is not but incarnation. The person-not the body, but the essential personhoos of Jesus-existed before He was born as a man. His birth was not a coming into being of a new person, but a coming into the world of an infinitely old person.
700 years before Jesus was born the prophet Micah put it like this:
“But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Too little to be among the clans of Judah, From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, From the days of eternity" (Micah 5:2).
The mystery of the birth of Jesus is namely, that the child born at Christmas was a person who existed "from of old, from ancient days".
"Until the Ancient of Days came and judgment was passed in favor of the saints of the Highest One, and the time arrived when the saints took possession of the kingdom" (Daniel 7:22).
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