My beloved spiritual children in Christ Our Only True God and Our Only True Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.

PREPARING SPIRITUALLY FOR THE HOLY NATIVITY OF OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST

While preparing spiritually through fasting, worship, repentance, prayer and living a more virtuous life we, the Orthodox Christian believers, should also meditate on who is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Who is, as we confess and believe the awaited Messiah and Redeemer of the world. In our secular society and world the celebration of His Birth, Christmas, has been obscured and deliberately violated and distorted. It is actually referred as the distorted image of Christ.

The center of Christianity is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. In fact, He is the centerpiece of all history. But the world struggles with His identity. Who is He? Is He God? Is He man? Both?

THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD

"In the beginning was the Logos/Word and the Logos/Word was with God, and the Logos/Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made...And the Logos/Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us..." (John 1:1-3, 14).

Thus does the Evangelist John announce the glad tidings and theologize in the first lines of his Gospel. The Orthodox Church places this account at the head of all the Gospel readings, offering it to us at the Divine Liturgy on the day of Holy Pascha, and beginning the yearly cycle of readings from the Gospel with the one.

"Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh" (I Timothy 3:16).

The unutterable, unknowable, invisible, unattainable God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, became man in the form of the God-Man, the Lord Jesus Christ, and dwelt among men on earth.

The preaching of the God-Manhood of the Incarnate Son of God constitutes the content of the words of the Savior Himself, the content of the whole message of good tidings (news) announced by the Holy Apostles, the essence of the four Gospels and all of the apostolic writings, the foundation of Christianity, and the foundation of the teaching of the Church.

THE LORD JESUS CHRIST: TRUE GOD

The good tidings of the Gospel are the good tidings (news) of the Incarnate Son of God Who became man, having come down from heaven to earth.

Faith in Jesus Christ--that He is the Son of God is the firm foundation or rock of the Church, according to the Lord's own words: "upon this rock I will build my Church" ( Matthew 16:18).

With these good tidings (news) the holy Apostle Mark begins his account: "The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God" (Mark 1:1).

With this same Truth of faith the Evangelist John concludes the main text of his Gospel: "But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through His name" (John 20:31; the last verse of the next to the last chapter)--that is, the preaching of the Divinity of Jesus Christ was the aim of the whole Gospel.

"That holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35)--the Archangel Gabriel addressed the Virgin Mary.

At the Baptism of the Savior these words were heard: "This is My beloved Son;" the same thing was repeated at the Lord's Transfiguration (Metamorphosis) (Matthew 3:17, 17:5).

Simon confessed, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God" (Matthew 16:16), and this confession served for the promise that the Church of Christ would be built upon the rock of this confession.

The Lord Jesus Christ Himself testified that He is the Son of God the Father: "All things are delivered unto Me of My Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him" (Matthew 11:27). Here Christ speaks of Himself as the only Son of the only God the Father.

In other words that the words, "the Son of God," might not be understood in a metaphorical or conditional sense, the Sacred Scripture joins to them the expression, "Only-begotten" -- that is, the Only one begotten of the Father: "And the Logos/Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth" (John 1:14; see also John 1:18).

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16).

Likewise, the Holy Scripture uses the word "true," calling Christ the True Son of the True God: "And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding that we may know Him that is true; and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life" (I John 5:20).

Similarly, the word "His own" is used in connection with the Son of God: "He Who did not spare His own" (in the Greek, idion) Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32).

The Only-begotten Son of God is True God even while in human flesh: "Whose" (that is, the Israelites) "are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen" (Romans 9:5).

Thus, all the fullness of Divinity remains in the human form of Christ: "For in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:9).

The First Ecumenical Synod (Council) of Nicea was convoked for the confirmation of this truth in the clear awareness of all Christians, as the foundation of the Christian faith, and for this purpose it composed the symbol of faith (the Creed) of the Ecumenical Church.

THE HUMAN NATURE OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST

Being perfect God, Christ the Savior is at the same time also perfect man. (Source: The Orthodox Dogmatic Theology by Father Michael Pomazansky)

(To be continued)

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"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!" - Saint John Chrysostomos

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With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia (Ministry),
The sinner and unworthy servant of God

+Father George