“Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift.” (2 Cor 9:15)
With Christmas fast approaching, that time of year when we, through the giving of gifts to one another, celebrate the giving of the greatest gift ever, the baby Jesus, we are faced with a dilemma: Have we fully unwrapped Jesus’ gift? Are we making use of the entire gift?
Paul describes Jesus’ gift, the gift of His own life, laid down for us at the cross, as “Indescribable.” With that kind of a descriptor attached, perhaps what I am attempting to do here is really impossible. After all, how can you describe a gift that is considered “Indescribable?” Nonetheless, the Bible gives us many clues as to what all is entailed in this “Indescribable Gift,” and today we will focus on the clues given us in Isaiah 9:6-7:
“For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this.” (Isaiah 9:6-7)
The first part of this “indescribable gift” is found in the first line…“For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given.” So many of us believe that God’s gift of Salvation is for everyone, but if we even recognize that there are other parts to the gift, we tend to think of those as being for someone else, perhaps even for a different time and age. But the text is clear: “unto us…” This one little pronoun in the English language is considered to be first person in plural: It includes everyone who reads these beautiful words. Friends, the gift is for you. It is for me. It is for all of us!
The second thing to be gleaned is also found in the same line: “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given.” This phrase points out to us the humanity of Jesus, how He came as a human being, in the form of a child. Why is this important?
Because there was only one way out of the enslavement to the devil that we experienced: We needed to be rescued by another human being,
Why another human?
We, as humans, were entrenched in and enslaved to sin. A god, even the God, could not pay the price of sin for a human being. For this, it required another human being, so “Unto us a child is given”. Jesus came, not as a deity, but as a tiny baby, a human being. He grew up among us, He was faced with the same temptations that we face, fully human. He came in the only form that would work in our battle between good and evil.
Finally, although the phrase, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given” implies Jesus’ humanity, it also implies His deity, His existence before His birth as One of the three parts of God: The Son. The apostle Paul puts it this way: “who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.” (Philippians 2:6-7). In other words, Jesus came as the Son of God–God in human flesh, not just to provide forgiveness for my sin, but to conquer sin and death forever.
In summary, the thing we can learn about the “Indescribable Gift” is that it is for each one of us, for me, for you. However, although it is an individual gift, it isn’t just about forgiving our individual sin. Rather, it is about conquering sin and death, forever, and for this, we needed a gift that was not only fully human, but also fully God: The perfect, “Indescribable Gift,” Jesus Christ!
Please spend some time meditating on the enormity of these aspects of Jesus’ gift as you go into the Christmas season this year, and be sure to join us on Saturday for “The Indescribable Gift,” Part 2, to further see what the indescribable gift of Jesus Christ means for us today.
In His love,
Lyn
Lyn Chaffart, Speech-Language Pathologist, mother of two, Author — “Aboard God’s Train — A Journey With God Through the Valley of Cancer”, Author and Moderator for The Nugget, a tri-weekly internet newsletter, and Scriptural Nuggets, a website devoted to Christian devotionals and inspirational poems, with Answers2Prayer Ministries. Follow Lyn on Twitter @lynchaffart.
(To access the entire “Indescribable Gift” mini-series, please click here.)