A Mystery
Sunday, December 5, 2010 at 10:38PM 
At the right time, God sent his Son, and the Word who is from the beginning came into our history. The Word who was with God became God with us. This is a mystery of our faith: God who is eternal spirit became God in mortal flesh.
According to God’s plan, as the centerpiece of history, God the Son emptied himself. The One who created thrones and dominions and rulers and authorities, and who upholds them all by his powerful word, humbled himself by taking on the form of a servant. God-with-God and God-equal-with-God made himself nothing, by adding rather than taking away. This is a mystery of our faith: The Creator took on the likeness of his creatures.
For our salvation, the omnipotent One became weak and the self-existent One became subject to death. To make us rich, the heir of all things became poor. To destroy the one who has the power of death, the radiance of the Father’s glory veiled himself in humanity so that he could die.
And in the mysterious wisdom of God, it is by the veiling of his glory that the Son displayed God’s glory to us. “No one,” God told Moses, “can see me and live,” but in the Son, the image of the invisible God, we can see the unseen One. In Jesus, who came to us from the Father’s side to show us God’s glory, we see “all God’s goodness pass before us.”1 This is a mystery of our faith: We see the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
In the mystery of God’s will, for our sake, the exalted Son chose to make himself nothing and be born as one of us. The one for whom and by whom all things exist came to die to free us from the fear of dying. This is a mystery of our faith: The Lord-of-all was born as Mary’s little son, bringing us salvation.
1I’m indebted to D. A. Carson in The God Who Is There for tying the coming of Jesus back into Exodus 33 and God’s goodness passing before Moses.
Reader Comments (7)
Blessed Mystery of Our Father's Faith I adore You.
Keep UP the good words and work and please always keep me in your prayers also.
God Bless Peace
I'll do that, Victor — RS
A breathtaking mystery.
A wonderful post, Rebecca.
Rebecca, This is a wonderful post! it is a mystery indeed, too wonderful to grasp.
O, how I love Him!
Thank you for sharing this.
"God-with-God and God-equal-with-God made himself nothing by adding rather than subtracting. "
Now this bloggles the mind!
Beautiful words! It is not an easy task to put to words a mystery as deep and as wide as God's own Love and Grace through Christ! I thank Becky from 'Daily On My Way to Heaven' for leading me to this post. Merry Christmas!
GOD (Good Old Dad) knew when he led me to your Canadian blog that you certainly would be of spiritual reality help and without you knowing "IT", you really have been and i thank you for the kind reply to my email of today.
You really are a tallented Canadian Child of GOD. :)
Peace
Spiritual Hug
:)