THE HIGH COST OF BETHLEHEM
by Lanelle
Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift.
2 Cor. 9:15
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.
John 3:16
What a gift! God Himself giving Himself!
Surely the most awesome expression of love of all time... even all eternity! Our minds cannot begin to comprehend the magnitude of that gift.
He is the One Who has been 'I AM' from before time began and Who will always be 'I AM' ...from eternity to eternity; the One Who has all power that He 'spoke' all creation into existence; (Ps.33:6-9, Col.1:1 -17) He Who hung the stars in place in the heavens and by simply thinking of it He holds it all together!
It was His right and privilege to do what so ever pleased Himself. . simply because of Who He was. We could say that He could do as He pleased with no limits and all the hosts of heaven would say 'amen'.
It was 'natural' and proper for Him to express Himself as Deity because He WAS GOD. (John 1:1-5) He did not 'possess' deity but WAS Deity Personified. And all of heaven would bow down to Him, worship, adore Him, and do His biding. His every wish was their command!
Think of HIS PERSONAGE in that high and exalted position of power and glory! That PERSON decided to give a gift to one of His creation: Man.
What could He give? Remember, it could have been ANYTHING His mind could conceive....which would mean it could have been ANYTHING because there is nothing He could not conceive. What a choice of gifts!
So..... what did He decide to give? He says, 'I'll give them ME, MYSELF'.
I can almost visualize some of the angels asking, 'What? How will You do that?' (in angelic language of course :-)
Then He explains to them what He is going to do, what all will be involved in the process, and what it will mean for the ones who receive this gift of Himself.
Sometime in our eternity future I think He will let us see how the angels reacted to that revelation! If it is possible for angels to be so awestruck as to be speechless, I'm sure they must have been.
Just what about this revelation was so stupendous? What about it must have simply taken their breath away? I think it was the staggering cost of the gift!
But what was the cost? We are accustomed to thinking of the cost of the cross when Jesus paid our sin debt. But that was the 'final installment'. The contract was made, the price was set, and payment started 33 1/2 years before that in Bethlehem. Without the payment at Bethlehem there could have been no Calvary... and no 'It is finished' (John 19:30) on the cross.
What was the cost at Bethlehem? Although it is not possible for any human mind to ever fully understand the mysteries of God, Paul explains something of this cost in Phil 2:5-8 when he says:
5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
7 But made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
8 And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Notice the 'attitude' of the 'mind which was in Christ Jesus'. He KNEW that He was God and was in the form of God so it was no pretense to claim the rights and privileges belonging to Deity. They were HIS. BUT.... He chose not to hold on to them, and instead stepped down from His position of rightful privilege to take on the form of a servant!
To be sure, He didn't give up His Deity, because that is not something He 'possessed' but what He WAS. But He did lay aside many aspects, rights, privileges, and expressions of Deity in order to take on a human body and live an earthly life common to other men. He willingly chose to be 'touched with our infirmities' (Heb.4:15) and to feel the pains and limitations that we feel....some of which are simply because we are finite humans. He was laying aside His 'expression' of the infinite to share the experience of the finite with His creature, man. (John 1:14)
Just consider how high He was and how low He came. We cannot imagine what a big step down that was for Him. He was the I AM, the MOST HIGH, and He willingly leaves that position to step into the likeness of mortal man, a servant. He leaves His glory and reputation for humiliation. Instead of having all the hosts of heaven at His beck and call He humbles Himself to not having a place to lay His head.
And yes, He did that knowing all the while that at the end of this experience in an earthly body He was going to submit Himself to the ridicule and torture of those who hated Him. He left the glories of heaven knowing that the human body that He would be dwelling in would face a cruel death at the hands of the very same creatures He loved so dearly!
That kind of love and that kind of GIFT boggles the mind of any thinking person. We could talk about it for years and never get to the heart of it all. It is such a wonderful mystery! (1 Tim.3:16)
To try and put a small part of this in some earthly example that my limited intelligence could half-way grasp, I've wondered what it would be like to lay aside my natural way of expressing myself, my form, my power and ability to do all the physical things I can do in this body, my human way of communication, my reputation, all privileges as a human .... just lay it all aside WILLINGLY and because I WANT and CHOOSE to lay it aside, with no outside pressure.... in order to be able to take on the form of an ant and experience and accept the limitations of simply BEING in the form of an ant.
And do this, all the while knowing, that the other ants would despise me, torture me, and in the end crush the life out of me. And to do it for the simple reason that I LOVE the ant!
Yet, for the Creator of all that is, both visible and invisible.... for HIM to step down from His exalted position and take on the form of man was a much farther step down than mine would be to take on the form of an ant!
WHAT A HIGH COST WAS BETHLEHEM.
Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift.
2 Cor. 9:15