This Christmas, Thank Jesus For Three Gifts He Gave the World
It is almost a cliche, but for much of the world, Christmas is about gifts. Who doesn’t like the expectation of receiving gifts and then opening the gifts on a special occasion like a birthday or Christmas? The tradition of giving gifts on Christmas day has been a part of culture, at least western culture, for generations. In our consumer and materialistic society in America, the birth of Jesus has become, for many, the year’s most expensive holiday because we shower our loved ones with gifts.
Christmas is also about going to church. Christmas Eve services are packed. Except for Easter, it is the worship service most Christians will attend, even if they skip going to church every other Sunday of the year. I am not knocking Christians for going to church once or twice a year. People have their reasons. My point is that the birth of Jesus is such a profound event in human history that we are all drawn together to worship God for the miraculous gift of His Son.
But gifts are integral to Christmas — gifts to those we love, gifts to those we want to thank, and, of course, God’s gift to us in the person of a babe in the manger — the reason for the season in the first place. Gifts are also important in the Christmas story. Shepherds gave baby Jesus the gift of worship, and the three Wise Men brought gifts of gold, symbolizing His royalty; frankincense symbolizing worship; and myrrh foreshadowing His death and burial.
While Christmas is about the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, I believe we should pause during this Christmas season to worship God not just for the birth of His Son, but to worship God for three life-changing gifts that the death of His Son on the cross bestowed upon those who believe in Him. These are the gifts of grace, righteousness or right standing with God, and eternal life, also known as salvation. While these gifts are available to the world, they are received into a person’s life through faith.
In the most well-known verse in the New Testament, Jesus tells us, “For God so loved the world (grace) that He gave His one and only Son (grace), that whoever (grace) believes (faith) in Him shall not perish (right standing with God) but have eternal life” (John 3: 16). God sent His Son to the whole world. “Whoever” in Greek is the word ‘pas’ which means, “each, every, any, all, the whole, everyone, all things, everything” (Thayer’s concordance). Jesus goes on to say, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him” (John 3: 17). The gifts of grace, righteousness, and eternal life or salvation (saved) through Jesus Christ are intended by God for everyone — all humanity — the ‘world’ — with the caveat ‘all of humanity who believe or put their faith in Jesus Christ’. Jesus completes these immortal words this way, “Whoever believes (faith) in Him is not condemned (right standing), but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son” (John 3: 18). The gifts of grace, right standing with God, also called righteousness in the Bible; and the gift of eternal life, also called salvation, are received through faith. When a gift is offered to you, you have to make a choice — will you accept the gift or will you reject it? Usually you accept the gift if it is given thoughtfully and in love. But every once in a while you receive a gift you cannot, or at least, should not accept, for example, the gift of a ouija board or a deck of Tarot cards.
On Christmas day, we will focus, appropriately, on the birth of Jesus, but it is also a time to focus on the gifts of grace, righteousness, and eternal life — gifts that flowed from God’s love for humanity and the birth, life, and death of Jesus Christ. In one sense, these gifts can all be collapsed into the Kingdom of God — the rule and reign of Christ in our heart — which depends on God’s grace, our right standing with God, and includes salvation (saved) for eternity (eternal life).
Before the true import of these gifts can be appreciated it is necessary to remember that sin, and death through sin, entered the world through Adam’s disobedience and rebellion. “For if by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man . . . “ (Romans 5: 17), and “Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men . . “ (Romans 5: 18), and “For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners . . .” (Romans 5: 19). Sin is a demonic force or power flowing out of our flesh or sinful nature from birth. David gets it right when he wrote, “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me” (Psalm 51: 5). Sin is also pride — finding our ultimate value in self, the worship of self, or the self-life. This is also called idolatry and Scripture tells us God hates idolatry. The worship of self instead of God is the ancient rebellion of Adam and Eve when they believed the serpent’s lie, “When you eat of it (the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God” (Genesis 3: 5). Scripture tells us, “Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft” (1 Samuel 15: 23). When we worship self as our god — our default condition — we place a chasm between ourselves and God as wide as the sea. In our own power, that gap is impossible to bridge. Satan often tells us, “You are not good enough”. This sets us up to believe his greatest lie, “But you can make yourself good enough through wealth, power, accomplishments, possessions, and so on”. No. We can never make ourselves good enough to enter into a relationship with God. Apart from a relationship with God we can never know true peace, joy, hope, and a real, meaningful, fulfilled life. Our self-life will only lead to despair and misery and ultimately eternal death. We rejoice on December 25, because on that day, a new, powerful, beautiful life was opened up for us, if we receive by faith His gifts of grace, righteousness, and eternal life. Believe me, there is no other way. Jesus told us, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14: 6).
Grace has been called ‘unmerited favor’. Michael Card expands on this description by defining grace this way: “When someone who owes you nothing, gives you everything”. I like this way of thinking about grace because it emphasizes that grace is a gift given to you and me, in spite of the fact that God owes us nothing because our sins have alienated us from Him. Imagine someone giving you a precious gift after you have spent your life devaluing, insulting, and offending that person with your words and actions. And God’s gift is not part of a contract — “I’ll do this for you, if you do that for me”. The gift of grace is a covenant that God wants to make with you — He loves you. God says, “I’ll do this for you . . . “. All you need to do is receive the gift by faith and then walk with Him.
Jesus gives us a good picture of the gift of grace in the Book of Revelation, “Here I am. I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him and he with Me” (Revelation 3: 20). That is pure grace. We open the door and receive the gift of grace through faith. This passage is one of many that points to a major benefit of the gift of grace: Jesus is telling us that He will enter into our spirit and dwell within us when we open ‘the door’ of our heart through faith. Because He will dwell within us, the Holy Spirit will live within us by faith when we are born again, and God our Father will live within us as well (John 14). Think about that this Christmas and celebrate the gift of grace and all that accrues to those of us who are ‘in Christ’.
Paul reminds us of the importance of God’s grace, “For if the many died by one person’s trespass, how much more has God’s grace, and the gift in grace through the one person Jesus the Messiah, abounded to the many!” (Romans 5: 15 N. T. Wright, The Kingdom New Testament — A Contemporary Translation).
Righteousness or right standing with God is one of the most powerful truths ever spoken into humanity. The death of Jesus on the cross atoned for our sin! “We implore you on Christ’s behalf. Be reconciled to God. God who made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5: 20, 21). Because of Christ’s sacrificial death, our relationship with God has been completely transformed. Not because of anything we did, but because of what He did out of love for us. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone , the new has come! All this is from God” (2 Corinthians 5: 17). Not better, new!
Paul writes, “The result is this: since we have been declared “in the right” (righteous or in right standing with God) on the basis of faith (not by works), we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus the Messiah. Through Him we have been allowed to approach, by faith, into this grace in which we stand; and we celebrate the hope of the glory of God. And that’s not all. We also celebrate in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces patience, patience produces a well-formed character, and a character like that produces hope. Hope, in its turn, does not make us ashamed, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5: 1-5, N. T. Wright, The Kingdom New Testament — A Contemporary Translation).
All this because we have been made righteous by Jesus Christ through His death on the cross. Paul describes the Christian life as a result of the gift of righteousness and the indwelling Holy Spirit, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5: 22, 23).
The final gift is eternal life. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6: 23). God gives eternal life for all who are in Christ; for all who believe. Most Christians think eternal life begins after we ‘die’. We will all ‘die’, in the sense that this physical life on earth will end for a season. But we will not die, in the sense that we will go on living, although in another time/space dimension, ultimately being resurrected back on earth when the New Heaven comes to the New Earth. While eternal life has this future component, eternal life begins the moment we accept this gift by faith. When we accept this gift, our life changes. We are transformed, or born again, from someone who lived life in the kingdom of the world, which is also the kingdom of satan, into someone who is now living in the Kingdom of God. This is salvation and it will last for eternity. The prophet Isaiah described the Kingdom life, “Surely He (Jesus) took up our infirmities (diseases) and carried our sorrows (emotional and physical pain), yet we considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions (sins), He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53: 4, 5). This is eternal Kingdom life — by His wounds we are healed and made whole. It is a gift from God made possible only through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus’ death on the cross. We cannot enter or experience life in the Kingdom of God through our own efforts or work. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2: 8). We receive the gift of salvation through faith.
We cannot make ourselves righteous and we cannot save ourselves, i.e., earn or work ourselves into eternal life. It is all grace — the gift from God. Some read Ephesians 2: 8 and interpret the gift to be faith. That is incorrect. We receive the gifts through faith, but the gifts are grace, righteousness, and eternal life. Embedded in these gifts are the Kingdom of God, the indwelling Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. All received by faith. Faith is important. In fact, “Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him” (Hebrews 11: 6). So, what is faith?
“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11: 1). The Bible also tells us “So faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10: 17). The ‘word’ in this passage is ‘rhema’. A rhema word is a specific word from God to you for a given situation, circumstance, or decision. A rhema word is grace. In this sense, a rhema word is a gift. Faith is receiving and acting upon a rhema word. Jesus said, “If you remain in me and my words (rhema) remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be given you” (John 15: 7).
Abraham received a promise from God when he was 75 years old. “The word (rhema) of the Lord came to him: This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir. He took him outside and said, “Look up at the heavens and count the stars — if indeed you can count them”. Then He said to him, “So shall your offspring be”. Abram believed (had faith) the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15: 4-6). Abram, soon to be renamed Abraham, received the rhema word and believed. That is faith. The author of Hebrews wrote, “By faith Abraham, even though he was past age — and Sarah herself was barren — was enabled to become a father because he considered Him faithful who had made the promise” (Hebrews 11: 11).
Abraham is one example of faith in the Bible based on receiving a rhema word. Noah received a rhema word and built an ark. Peter received a rhema word and was the first person to call Jesus Messiah. Paul received a rhema word on the road to Damascus and was transformed from Saul, the persecutor of Jews to Paul the Apostle to the Jews and Gentiles.
Faith flows out of a rhema word; the rhema word is God’s grace to the one who receives the word. Faith is also the activator of the gifts of grace, righteousness, and eternal life or salvation. As Ephesians 2: 8 states, “We are saved by grace through faith, and this not from ourselves. It is the gift of God”. Some have interpreted this passage to mean the gift referred to here is faith. Scripture is often used to interpret Scripture. The word ‘gift’ in this passage is the Greek word ‘doron’. Paul talks about gifts 5 times in Romans 5: 15-17. In these verses ‘gift’ is the Greek words ‘charisma’ (grace), ‘dorea’, and ‘dorema’. ‘Dorea’ is derived from ‘doron’. Paul writes, “How much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and the gift (‘dorea’) of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ” (Romans 5: 17). The gift Paul writes about in Ephesians 2: 8 is the same gift Paul writes about in Romans 5: 17 — the gift of righteousness or right standing with God through the death of Jesus Christ on the cross and the salvation that comes through faith because of our righteousness. So, Ephesians 2: 8 is written this way in the Amplified Translation, “For it is by grace that you are saved, delivered from judgment and made partakers of Christ’s salvation, through your faith. And this salvation is not of yourselves . . . but it is the gift of God”, making it clear that salvation by grace is the gift; the gift is received by faith, but faith is not the gift.
One final note about faith. Faith is not a work. Paul makes this clear in Romans 3: 27; 4: 3; and 4: 13-16. A good example of Paul’s distinction between faith and works (works of the law) is found in Galatians 2: 15, 16), “We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified” (NKJV). We are not justified, brought into right relationship or standing with God, through works or works of the law (you cannot make yourself good enough in God’s eyes), but also, faith is different from works of the law. Faith is not a work.
On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, Christians all over the world will gather to worship and thank God for sending His Son, Jesus, in the form of a baby to “Rescue us from the dominion of darkness, and bring us into the Kingdom of His Son He loves, in whom we have redemption and the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1: 13, 14). This is an astonishing act of love. Let us also remember, worship, celebrate, and adore God for the three gifts that make this rescue and redemption possible: the gifts of grace, righteousness, and eternal life.
“Since we have been declared “in the right” on the basis of faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus the Messiah. Through Him we have been allowed to approach, by faith, into this grace in which we stand; and we celebrate the hope of the glory of God” (Romans 5: 1, 2 N. T. Wright, The Kingdom New Testament — A Contemporary Translation).