I was happy to receive Sinclair Ferguson’s In Christ Alone: Living the Gospel Centered Life for Christmas. Ferguson is a strong writer whose prose often stands as a model combination of style and content. Here’s a brief excerpt that is well-suited for Advent and Christmas devotions:
We do not see everything under man’s feet – not yet. But we see Jesus already crowned with glory and honor (Heb. 2:5-9a) because He tasted death for us (Heb. 2:9). We see Him by faith, and we realize that His enthroned presence in heaven is the guarantee that he will return to consummate the kingdom He has already inaugurated. Then the last word will be spoken; then the final reversal will take place. The new order begun in the resurrection of our King will spread to everything that He claims for Himself: the fissures in the created order will be sealed and transformed; the groans of creation will be heard no longer (Rom. 8:19-22). Everywhere and in everything there will be reflections of His perfect glory. Then loud voices in heaven will be heard saying, “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever!” (Rev. 11:15).
But all of this lay in the future of the Little One wrapped in swaddling cloths in the Bethlehem manger (Luke 2:12). For the present, the One who “binds up the water in His thick clouds” (Job 26:8), the One who can “bind the cluster of the Pleiades” (Job 28:31), Himself lay bound in strips of cloth wrapped around Him under the illusion that otherwise His little limbs might become deformed in later life.
Here are wonders upon wonders: the Strong One is weak; the Infinite One lies in a manger; the Prince of Life dies; the Crucified One lives; the Humiliated One is glorified.
Meekness and majesty, indeed!
Behold, then, your newborn King! Come and Worship Him!
A refreshing meditation as the Christmas season winds down. A refreshing reminder in the midst of holiday distractions that the Babe of Bethlehem has become the King of the Cosmos.
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