The incarnation always had death as the goal. That’s an oddly un-festive thought. New borns and crucifixion don’t go together, do they?
They must, for grace to abound.
Galatians 3:13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”— 14 in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
To understand this odd pairing of life and death we need to recall the garden of Eden. Life and death were paired there as well. The tree of life, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, both were present for Adam to partake of. There was also a command, a law of the garden. Eat of every tree, except, the one. Of course we know the rest of the story.
The command, the law of the garden was broken and all that was left was curse and expulsion. The curse was known before the rebellion occurred and it was to involve separation, alienation, corruption, all of this amounting to DEATH. It, the curse, was to be realized immediately in a spiritual cutting off (kicked out of the presence of God in the garden) and ultimately in a physical death outside of the presence of God in the wilderness. Both of these awful related realities are properly called death.
Curse and death go hand in hand. But this curse also involved being separated from the Tree of Life which remained in the garden as Adam and Eve were kept out by God’s fiery sword bearing angel guarding the entrance to the garden.
Adam and Eve were kicked out of God’s presence.
This is the backdrop to the incarnation. The first Adam made a horrible hash of everything and basically no one ever since knows anything other than all the realities of death- separation, alienation, corruption. We call this our life because we have never known anything else.
It’s a sad reality; we call our LIVES, “life”, but they are really just dying towards death.
That is until the incarnation. Until the Hope of Israel and humanity arrives. Until a second Adam appears on the scene and this New Man, the Last Adam, Jesus the Messiah/Christ, arrives to do three things.
1) live and entirely perfect life under the law, 2) testify of His Father’s goodness and kingdom and 3) lay down His kingly human life in an eternal way to satisfy the demand of justice to the broken garden command.
In summary, Jesus was born to die for the demand of law so grace had a place and humanity could be brought back to the tree of life. Symbolically Jesus is the Tree of Life. More about that now.
The last book, Revelation makes this trajectory from garden to garden clear.
Revelation 2:7 ‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.’
Revelation 22:1 Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, 2 in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.
So there we are, garden to garden, life to death and death to life. But how about Abraham?
Believing Abraham! He is the first in a long line of redeemed humanity that trusts God and rests in this God, His King (Son) and this wild history of redemption. He trusts that it would take place; we on the other side of the cross trust that it did take place. Neither Abraham or we who believe have done anything to earn our place.
We all trust our God and His Son.
All of us: Abraham, believing Israel, believing gentiles all trust in this one Man, this One Son of God, this one Messiah who is the Christ, a baby born to die so that we might live.
This one is King of all kings and Lord of all authority and the Prince of Peace, almighty God; He dwells with us by His Spirit and we are His people and He is our God.
We have cause for joy! Today, tomorrow and every day. Come let us adore Him!
Soli Deo Gloria
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