A Father’s Love
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From time to time, I have the opportunity to study with a young couple who want to get married, regarding what God intended and requires marriage to be (actually, it’s mandatory if I perform the wedding). In trying to underscore the importance of true love and maturity to the relationship, I’ve often utilized statements along these lines:
“A young man doesn’t really understand what true love, maturity, and the awesome responsibility of family ‘headship’ is all about until he has a child. Prior to that point, he’s lived a selfish life. He cried to get what he wanted when he was little, perhaps pouted or became angry to get it when he was older, and bullied, talked, or cajoled his way into getting it as a young man. He may even marry for purely selfish reasons! Other people in his life enabled him to remain selfish by mostly playing along or giving in to his wants. They could have said “No,” and refused to continue to placate his demands because they weren’t dependent upon him. But once he becomes a father, everything usually (and certainly should!) change. That little screaming, cooing life that faintly resembles him is different- it is completely dependent upon him in ways that his parents, siblings, friends, girlfriends, and wife never were! This new life that came from him therefore melts his selfish heart, and hopefully matures his mind and conduct.”
It is probably about this same time, and for the same reason (the birth of his child), that a young man begins to truly comprehend God’s love for us. He begins to understand how God invested some of Himself in mankind from Genesis 1:27, “And God created man in His own image…” when he sees his own characteristics reflected in his child. He begins to understand his own complete dependence on His heavenly Father (from Romans 5:6, “For while we were still helpless…”) when he’s trying to comfort his own crying child in the middle of the night. He begins to understand true love (from Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us…”)when his own heart wants to break at the least hurt of his child. And He begins to understand true sacrifice (from Romans 5:10, “For while we were yet enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son…” ) when all of his selfish desires and pursuits are willingly sacrificed for the slightest benefit of his child.
While this young man may have “known” about these things previously on some level, through this life-changing bundle of joy, he now “understands” a whole lot more about how God thinks, feels, and acts toward us.
The human birth of Jesus was necessitated by one thing: Man’s need of salvation from sin. Romans 6:23 tells us that the just penalty for sin is death. Unless all men were to die for their own sins, a Perfect Man would have to die in their stead. Being sinless, His death could then atone for other’s sins since He would have none of His own needing atonement (cf.Hebrews 9:7,11-14). But by intrinsic nature, “God” cannot die- He is eternal. Therefore, in order to atone for man’s sins, God had to assume human form. This He did by being born of a virgin (of divine, rather than human, progeny), “Jesus of Nazareth.” Then “the fullness of Deity…was in bodily form” (Colossians 2:9)- and this human form of the very Son of God could atone for man’s sins through death. Simply put: the birth of Jesus is important because it allowed Him to die for our sins.
But unless we’re really sharp and studious of the Word, we may not really appreciate God’s investment of Himself in human form, or our complete dependence on Him, or the true love He has for us, or the true nature of His sacrifice; that is, until we have children of our own in which we have invested ourselves, who are (at least initially) so completely dependent upon us, who we love so completely, and for whom we are willing to sacrifice our very lives to save. Now do you get the picture?