Seems Tim and I have a theme going on this week – quoting J.I Packer!

J. I. Packer is Board of Governors Professor of Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. He also serves as contributing editor to Christianity Today.

His writings include books such as Knowing God (IVP Books), A Quest for Godliness (Crossway), Growing in Christ (Crossway) and Rediscovering Holiness (Servant), and numerous articles published in journals such as Churchman, SouthWestern Journal, Christianity Today, Reformation & Revival Journal and Touchstone.

Over the past 30 years, J. I. Packer’s classic — Knowing God — has revealed to over one million Christians around the world the wonder, the glory and the joy of knowing God.  In my humble opinion, it is a MUST-READ book and should be on the shelf in each of our homes, and regularly read and re-read.

Today, I want to share some quotes from Chapter 5, where Packer unpacks (pun intended!) the Incarnation and hope they cause you to marvel at the mind-blowingly-incredible, universe-altering truth of Jesus Christ — The God-Man:

“The supreme mystery with which the gospel confronts us… [lies] in the Christmas message of Incarnation.  The really staggering Christian claim is that Jesus of Nazareth, was God made man — that the second person of the Godhead became “the second man” (1 Cor 15:47), determining human destiny, the second representative head of the race, and that he took humanity without loss of deity, so that Jesus of Nazareth was as truly and fully divine as he was human.” (p.53)

“The baby born at Bethlehem was God made man.  The Word had become flesh: a real human baby.  He had not ceased to be God; he was no less God then than before; but he had begun to be a man.  He was not now God minus some elements of his deity, but God plus all that he had made his own by taking manhood to himself.” (p.57)

“How are we to think of the Incarnation?  The New Testament does not encourage us to puzzle our heads over the physical and psychological problems that it raises, but to worship God for the love that was shown in it.  For it was a great act of condescension and self-humbling… But, as James Denney rightly insisted, ‘the New Testament knows nothing of an incarnation which can be defined apart from its relation to atonement…  Not Bethlehem, but Calvary is the focus of revelation.’

The crucial significance of the cradle at Bethlehem lies in its place in the sequence of steps down that led the Son of God to the cross of Calvary.  The key text in the New Testament for interpreting the Incarnation is not, therefore, the bare statement in John 1:14. ‘The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us,’ but rather the more comprehensive statement of 2 Corinthians 8:9, ‘You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.’  Here is stated not the fact of the Incarnation only, but also its meaning; the taking of manhood by the Son is set before us in a way which shows how we should ever view it — not simply as a marvel of nature, but as a wonder of grace.” (pp.58-59)

We now see what it meant for the Son of God to empty himself and become poor.  It meant a laying aside of glory; a voluntary restraint of power; an acceptance of hardship, isolation, ill-treatment, malice and misunderstanding; finally a death that involved such agony – spiritual even more than physical – that his mind nearly broke under the prospect of it. (See Luke 12:50 and the Gethsemane story.)  It meant love to the uttermost for unlovely human beings, that they through his poverty might become rich.

The Christmas message is that there is hope for a ruined humanity — hope of pardon, hope of peace with God, hope of glory — because at the Father’s will Jesus Christ became poor and was born in a stable so that thirty years later he might hang on a cross.  It is the most wonderful message that the world has ever heard, or will hear.” (p.63)

Quoted from: Knowing God by J.I Packer (20th-Anniversary Edition); Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1973.

Sorry, about last week’s break in blogging service from yours truly.  But I’m back!

If you are anything like me, you might be right in the middle of the annual, perplexing conundrum that faces all husbands everywhere, every year — what to buy your wife for Christmas?

I feel like there’s only so many pairs of slippers, chocolates, bath salts, and the like that you can buy and bless your wife with.  So to try an help you be “creative” and stay away from those default ideas (unless your wife really does want new slippers!), I want to give you a bunch of suggestions for good books you could give as gifts to that one special woman in your life this Christmas.

I make these suggestions, not on the basis of me having read them all, but on the basis of the blessing and encouragement the content of these books* have had on Clare.  I trust they serve you, your wife and family in 2010!

	Womanly Dominion: More Than A Gentle & Quiet Spirit by Mark Chanski
	Comforts from the Cross: Celebrating the Gospel One Day at a Time by Elyse Fitzpatrick
	The Shaping of a Christian Family: How My Parents Nurtured My Faith by Elisabeth Elliott
	Stepping Heavenward by Elizabeth Prentiss
	Elizabeth Prentiss: More Love to Thee by Sharon James
	Treasuring God in Our Traditions by Noel Piper
	Choosing Gratitude by Nancy Leigh DeMoss

If your wife enjoys music as well, then here’s some suggestions that are playing on the iPod in our house at the moment, and might make a nice gift:

	Glorious by Paul Baloche Click here for a review by Bob Kauflin
	We Shall Not Be Shaken by Matt Redman Click here for a review by Bob Kauflin
	Glory in the Highest by Chris Tomlin

*There’s two books on this list that Clare hasn’t read yet, but might be winging their way to her this Christmas!