Monday, December 3, 2012

Advent: Day 2

Where does it all begin? Our meditation on Advent begins long before Jesus' incarnation. It begins at the very beginning with the creation of man:
26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
27 So God created man in his own image,
    in the image of God he created him;
    male and female he created them.
28 And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." 29 And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. 30 And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so. 31 And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (Ge. 1:26-31)
God created man. For we would not, of course, need redemption and the incarnation would not be necessary if we did not exist in the first place. Furthermore, we need to remember that God the Father was not there in the beginning alone. Jesus, as the second person in the Godhead and coeternal with the Father, was there at the beginning:
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. (Jn. 1:1-4)
In addition to John, Paul too reminds us that Jesus was the member of the Godhead who actually did the act of creating:
16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Col. 1:16-17)
That is where the story begins. Our Lord and Savior, the second person of the Trinity, created us long before He became one of us.

By His Grace,
Taylor

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