Today we will be moving from what led up to the first advent of Christ, to what happened in that first advent, and what that means for us as believers.
When Jesus came in the first advent, He brought the gospel of salvation to all the world, calling all sinners to repent and believe in Him, so that the righteousness of Christ may clothe our unrighteousness, and pay our sin debt in full. Fundamental to the gospel is not only that we are given Christ’s righteousness and have our sin debt paid, but that we also therefore commit our lives to living holy lives of good works, following the perfect example that Christ left for us. At Jesus’ departure from the earth, He promised us the Holy Spirit, who would give us divine resources for growing in obedience to God. The Church first received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Along with the Holy Spirit, and also upon conversion, we are given new hearts that have their orientation no longer towards sin (as our old selves were), but towards God. Our hearts represent our total person, including our mind, will, decision-making, and emotions. So, with these divine resources, we strive by grace to follow the same path that our Lord gave to us as our example, that we may grow in faithfulness and thus in the love of our God and neighbour. We can know how to do these things only through the Scriptures, which Christ commissioned for our possession through the prophets and apostles. We now have the full revelation of God, which is the perfect guide for all our faith and practice.
In Jesus’ first coming, Jesus’ goal was to inaugurate the New Covenant, which was a fulfillment and perfection of the Old Covenant. In the Old Covenant—also knows as the covenant of works—believers did not have the divine resources of a new heart and the Holy Spirit. They also only had shadows of the true things of Christ. All of their biblical rites, ceremonies, and feasts pointed to Christ, and have their culmination and completion in Him. For instance, Jesus is the perfect sacrifice, ending the need for sacrificing sheep and goats. Jesus is the new temple of God, localizing God’s presence within us by making us one in union with Him. We now do not need to seek out God in a temple or tabernacle. The Holy Spirit has made His home within us as a proxy for Christ—this is why the Holy Spirit is also called the “Spirit of Christ.” The Holy Spirit is within us to work the work of Christ in us. So, while in the Old Covenant people had only shadows and glimpses of the God-man, we in the New Covenant have the full revelation of Christ. The things that people in the Old Covenant were longing for, we have—but this having is not yet complete.
Christ came as the New Israel. The Bible teaches that He came in the stead of Israel as Israel’s true representative, succeeding where ancient Israel failed. For instance, Jesus was chosen by God. Jesus is the promised Son of David, the forever king of Israel. Remember that, in the Old Testament, the decisions of Israel and Judah’s kings were regarded as the decisions of Israel, and Israel generally followed the decisions of its kings, whether for good or for evil. Christ, being the federal head of all Israel, and even all those who will be resurrected unto life, truly represents Israel in His incarnation. He has all the required accolades. He is also the highest in the offices of Prophet and Priest. Everything that made Israel as a whole the people of God is encapsulated in Christ. Important to know at this point is that the command to love God with all one’s heart, soul, and strength was given to all Israel, and not merely to one person. So, it would take all Israel perfectly obeying God’s laws for the way of salvation to be possible—even for the way of faith. However, no one did obey perfectly. Only Christ obeyed perfectly, declaring as the true Israel that He had come “to fulfill all righteousness,” meaning to obey every jot and tittle of the Law, and therefore to make a way forward for people of all ages to have faith in His completed work on the cross and His subsequent resurrection. Because Christ obeyed in Israel’s stead, we can now have a way for salvation apart from perfect obedience (obedience which could have only been accomplished by Christ).
Christ, being the perfect embodiment of Israel in His humanity, now qualifies as being the unifier and determiner of those belonging to the true commonwealth of Israel. Israel, in the truest sense is found in Christ alone, since no one else has, or even could, fulfill all that God requires and desires of His people. This is because all of us have been corrupted with sin, so it took Jesus’ divine nature to prevent Jesus’ human nature from inheriting a sin nature. In other words, Jesus did not inherit a sin nature from Adam. Rather, His human nature inherited a perfect nature from the Holy Spirit, therefore being in accord with the Son’s divine nature. This is why the doctrine of the virgin birth is so essential to the Christian Faith. Without it, Jesus would have been born with a sin nature, and therefore would have been just as lost as we are. In Jesus’ birth, the promised “seed of the woman” came through Mary, since there was no male seed in His conception. Likewise, Jesus’ lineage is traced through Mary to David. This is why Luke 3:23, when it starts Jesus’ lineage, is often translated by saying that Jesus was “supposed as being” a son of Joseph, but then details Mary’s father and ancestors, rather than Joseph’s. Anyone reading the genealogy in Greek would clearly see that Mary’s lineage is being described, because of the omission of the definite article before Joseph’s name (which is present before all of Mary’s other ancestor’s names). So, Jesus is also the promised fulfillment of the “seed of the woman” who will crush the serpent’s head.
Since Jesus perfectly represents true Israel as its federal head, and the promised seed, He is thus the One through which all Israel grows and is reckoned. Whether or not one is a partaker of the promises originally given to Abraham is determined by one’s relationship with Christ (John 8:31-59). Now, our allegiance is to Christ. Our obedience and loyalty are to Christ. He is the One Whom we are commanded to “love.” He is the One to Whom we are unified, and in Whom we abide. He is our way, truth, and life. He is the Gate and the Great Shepherd of the sheep. There is no way to the Father apart from our union with Christ, and thus our partaking in His life and death. He is the Seed who grows in all who call and believe in His Name. In Him all that God desires for His people is fulfilled, which includes bringing in all peoples and nations into fellowship with God. That was God’s plan from the beginning: to redeem all men for Himself from every people group. So, through Christ, we are now full members of the true Israel of God.
The first advent brought us the Messiah. It brought us the gospel, which, whenever God applies it to a person, it removes him from the way of evil and places him onto the way of holiness. However, in this life, we are not perfected through the gospel right away. Rather, we spend our entire lives in a process called “progressive sanctification,” meaning that our whole person (our heart) is growing to become more and more like Christ. This life, once we are saved, is to be spent striving towards holiness with the grace that we are given through Christ. It is a life that has its chief love set on God, and therefore in being conformed to God’s commands not merely in an external way—since mere external obedience is no obedience to Him—but obedience that stems from a transformed heart. It is obedience that comes from a heart rightly focused on God (according to His Word), which then overflows into our practice. This obedience of the hearts is to extend to every belief, thought, decision, and action in our lives—subjecting our whole selves to God in love, that we may then, through the true love of God, then love others truly.
We are currently in a period commonly called the “now, but not yet.” The “now” that we possess is both incomplete, but also a guarantee that it will be made complete. We are works of God that are not yet complete, but whom God promises to complete—that we may be perfectly like Christ in His perfect humanity and relationship with God. (We will expand on this “now, but not yet” theme in the next devotional). In a way, we are not all that different from God’s people waiting for the Messiah in the Old Covenant, except that we are now much closer and guaranteed its completion in us.
Next time we will be looking at the second advent of Christ.