Six Reasons for Jesus’ Coming
The partnership letter for December 2013
Greetings to all my Partners and to all the Precious People, whom God loves so dearly. I take this opportunity to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New year. On behalf of my family, staff and leadership of Faith Centre International.
This month being such a Special time for all Christians who celebrate the Birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. I would like to share with you along the lines of “Six Reasons for Jesus’ Coming.”
Six Reasons for Jesus’ Coming
So I want to let six of the witnesses speak and testify to why the Son of God came into the world. The witnesses are Matthew, Luke, John, Paul and the writer of the Hebrews. The answers they give are six reasons for Jesus’ coming:
- To ransom many,
- To call sinners,
- To give sight to the morally blind,
- To divide households,
- To save from divine condemnation, and
- To give eternal life.
Are these imaginary acts dreamed up because of our need? Or do they fit our needs because they are true? You must decide. Let’s take these reasons for Christ’s coming one at a time and just let the Bible witness to each one in its own words.
1. He came as a ransom for many.
“The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
The reason we need a ransom to be paid for us is that we have sold ourselves into sin and have been alienated from a Holy God. When Jesus gave His life as a ransom, our slave masters, sin and death and the devil, had to give up their claim on us. And the result was that we could be adopted into the family of God.
Paul put it like this in Galatians 4:4-5, “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” In other words the redemption or the ransom frees us to be a part of God’s family. We had run away and sold ourselves into slavery. But God pays a ransom and redeems us out of slavery into the Father’s house.
To do that, God’s Son had to become a human being so that He could suffer and die in our place to pay the ransom. That is the meaning of Christmas. Hebrews 2:14 puts it like this, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil.” In other words, the reason Christ took on human flesh was so that He could die and in dying pay a ransom and free us from the power of death.
Is this an elaborate creation of desperate human imagination, or is it God’s exact provision for our need?
2. He came to call sinners to repentance.
“And Jesus answered them, Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Jesus came to call sinners to repentance. First, there needed to be a ransom to be paid for sinners. Then, there could be a successful call to sinners. The call is based on the ransom. And Jesus says, He came for both of these things.
He does not leave the ransoming or the calling to others. He ransoms and He calls. Even today He is calling through the Bible and through the preaching of the Bible. He is calling this morning.
That is the meaning of Christmas. He came to call sinners.
3. He came to give sight to the morally blind.
John 9:39, “Jesus said, ‘For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see.” And John 12:46, “I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.”
Jesus did not merely come to ransom and to call, He also came to open people’s eyes so that they can see the light and walk in it. Our problem is not just slavery needing a ransom, and lostness needing a call, our problem is also moral blindness, needing the gift of sight. We are simply blind to some spiritual realities that are utterly crucial to see and embrace.
This is why Christ came, that those who do not see may see. This is the meaning of Christmas.
4. Christ came to divide households.
“"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter- in- law against her mother- in- law; and a person's enemies will be those of his own household.”
The point of this word is not that God loves division and strife. The point is that strife and division caused by true allegiance to Jesus are better than no strife and division with no allegiance to Jesus. The point is that when a person is ransomed and called and given sight, something really radical happens to them.
They see everything differently with that new sight and they have a new master because of the sovereign call, and they are wonderfully free from fear and guilt because of that sufficient ransom. And so they think differently and feel things differently and act differently. And for some in the family, that can be very threatening and so tension develops. For this Jesus came into the world. That too is the meaning of Christmas.
5. He came to save from divine condemnation.
“For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already.”
God sent His Son to save us from His own just condemnation and wrath. The need for Salvation implies that there is a danger we need to be saved from. That danger is sin and death and the devil. But the most serious danger of all is the danger of condemnation of God. If God is for us, then sin and death and the devil will fail to destroy us. But if God is against us, then nothing can save us.
Christmas, the coming of Jesus, is God’s way of being for us – if we will believe. “He who believes is not condemned, but he who does not believe is condemned already.”
6. He came to give us eternal life.
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
Christmas means that God sent His Son so that we could believe and have eternal life.
Believe in Jesus and Receive the Gift of Life.
I want to close by urging you to believe in Jesus and to receive this gift of life and to set out in a life that magnifies God and His rich grace as the giver of every good and perfect thing.
May God continue to richly bless you and your family. I pray for you daily and take pleasure in seeing you enjoy God’s blessings.
We Love you very much, Dr. Roshan and Pastor Zubeda Sing.