Faced with God in History

God, the Author of History, uses His appointed means for grace and life

“The gospels of Matthew and Luke tell us in some detail how the Son of God came into this world. He was born outside a small hotel in an obscure Jewish village in the great days of the Roman Empire. The story is usually prettyfied when we tell it Christmas by Christmas, but it is really beastly and cruel. He reason why Jesus was born outside the hotel is that it was full and nobody would offer a bed to a woman in labour, so that she has to have her baby in the stables, and cradle him in a cattle-trough. The story is told dispassionately and without comment, but no thoughtful reader can help shuddering at the picture of callousness and degradation that it draws. It is not, however, to draw moral lessons from this that the evangelists tell the story. For them the point of the story lies not in the circumstances of the birth (save the one respect to fulfillment of prophecy, but taking place in Bethlehem: see Matthew 2;1-6) but rather in the identity of the baby.”

J. I. Packer in Knowing God, p. 47.

We look back when God’s Arm brought about His work of His salvation. So many texts of the Old Testament tell us of this One to come—we learn of His identity.

Our God is faithful. He speaks His promises; He works His wonders to perform.

His work in history tells of God’s commitment to use His appointed means of saving. Jesus Christ, therefore, is more than a mere topic of the Old Testament! God slowly unfolds more and more glimpses of His invasion into history. He makes use of persons, circumstances and the resulting consequences—what’s the point? God is actively confronting His people and the world with His living, creative, powerful and overtaking ways. He is Actor in history! His act in history becomes clear with the dawn of the New Testament.

Read here the prophetic backdrop of the Story—points of His name and lineage:

1. Jesus Christ is first spoken of in the proto¬-evangelium: the seed of the woman (Genesis 3:15; Matthew 1:18).


2. He is the Coming One who would crush the head of the serpent (Genesis 3:15; Hebrews 2:14).


3. His title, Son, was given to Him (Psalm 2:7; Isa. 9:6; Luke 1:32-35).


4. He would be born the seed of Abraham (Genesis 22:16-18; Galatians 3:16).


5. He would be born the seed of Isaac (Genesis 21:12; Hebrews 11:18).


6. He would be born the seed of Judah (Genesis 49:10; Hebrews 7:14).


7. He would be born the seed of David (Psalm 132:11; Jeremiah 23:5; Acts 13:23; Romans 1:3).

G. Mark Sumpter