Calvin’s Commentaries

I’m typing this in the days between Christmas and the New Year. The days when we are coming off of the crazy December schedule. The days when I’m least likely to know what day of the week it actually is. The days when I can just breathe.

But I didn’t want to leave the Christmas season without writing about Christmas Hope, because this year this truth grabbed my heart in a way that left me breathless.

John 1: 14 describes Jesus’ birth with these words “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us…”

He calls Jesus the Word made flesh.

The more I’ve let this phrase turn over in my mind, the more I’ve fallen in love with Jesus, the more I’ve seen that it really is God’s kindness that leads us to repentance, and the more I’ve been convinced that others need to see God’s kindness flowing through His people before they are going to want to know God.

The Word of God has a very specific job and an all- encompassing reach. ^“For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” (Hebrews 4:22)

In his commentary on Hebrews, John Calvin says “This means that it [the Word] tests the whole soul of a man. It inquires into his thoughts and it searches his will and all his desires. It means that there is nothing so hard or firm in a man, nothing so deeply hidden that the efficacy of the Word does not penetrate through to it.”

God has given His Word the task of penetrating to the most secret thoughts of the heart.

In His interactions with people throughout the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Jesus did exactly that. He brought to light the thoughts from the innermost recesses of hearts. He scattered the darkness so that people could see Him.

The Word became flesh and drew sinners to Himself.

“For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.” John 3:17

He came to say There is something missing in your life. I know you sense that. I know the darkness is overwhelming. I have come to shed light and give you life.

In a religious society that thought rule-keeping was the way to holiness, Jesus taught that obeying out of love for Him was the way to know Him.

We can get to know Jesus by reading through the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. In these books we can see His gentleness with those who were struggling, with those who didn’t even know they needed Him until He spoke to them. We can see His compassion.

The Christmas Hope is that Jesus came to show us what God is like in order to draw us into relationship with Him. He knows us and wants us to know Him. The Christmas Hope is that this broken world is not the way it was meant to be and it’s not the way things will always be.

When Jesus begins to scatters the darkness inside our hearts, His light will shine into our world, and those around us will be drawn to Him. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us to bring hope and light into a dark world.

And today, whether it is Christmas time when you read this or not, I hope you will allow the Word of God to touch your heart in the places where the darkness has convinced you there is no hope. I hope you will ask the Word of God to shine His light, scatter the darkness, and show you what it truly means to know Him and live.

When we can’t see the end of the waiting, it is easy to lose hope. Finding Hope in the Waiting (Part 1) describes how God used a decade of waiting to draw me closer to Him.

During the waiting I was frustrated that God was making me wait. I let Him know just how frustrated I was, but I never took into account that He knows how hard waiting is. He knows because He also had to wait.

The first Christmas was the answer to a very long time of waiting on both sides of eternity. God’s people had been waiting for God to deliver them. And during all that time, He had been waiting too.

Throughout the Old Testament, His heart cry is repeated: “They shall be my people, and I will be their God.” And after all that waiting, at just the right time, He stepped into history. He stepped into our space and time, not to thunder from a mountain top, but to become one of us.

He came to deliver us, but also to be with us. To walk in this broken world, to feel the pull of sin, to feel every emotion we feel so that He can be with us in every way.

Why would He do this?

“Christ has put on our feelings along with our flesh, not only to show Himself to be truly man, but to be taught by that very experience how to help our miseries; and that, not because as Son of God He needed such instruction, but because only thus could we grasp the concern He has for our salvation. Whenever we are laboring under the infirmities of our flesh, let us bear in mind that the Son of God has experienced them too, to encourage us by His power in case we are overwhelmed by them.” (Calvin’s New Testament Commentaries, Hebrews and 1&2 Peter)

He did this to show us the depth of His love, grace, and mercy toward us. He walked in our shoes so that we would trust Him with our hearts.

This love, grace, and mercy is described in Hebrews 4:12-16.

^“For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”

After describing how nothing is hidden from God – not even the thoughts deep within our hearts that we would never bring to the light of day – in case we start to despair, the writer of Hebrews begins to describe how Jesus was tempted in every way as we are. He fought the battles waging inside of us – each one of us – and he WON! – not to gloat over us, but to say “I know the battle. Come closer and find your strength in Me. Come, and receive forgiveness. Take my hand and I will fill you with hope. Come to the throne of grace in your time of need, with confidence, to find help.”

What would our lives look like if we really believed that He is with us? If we felt His comforting arm around our shoulder when fear haunts us, when grief stalks us, when hopelessness threatens to drag us down?

Would things be different if we remembered that He also wrestled with fear, that He fought against grief, that He destroyed hopelessness so that we could too.

What if we cried out to Him and heard Him say, “I’m with you. We will walk through this together.” or “I created all that you see. I hold all things together. If I hold the molecules of your body together, I can work in the details of your life.”

And when we seek to know Jesus, we find it comforting that nothing is hidden from God, because it means that God knows everything about us. He ended the waiting time and became one of us so that we could know Him, too.

Tag: Calvin’s Commentaries

Christmas Hope

Finding Hope in the Waiting (Part 2)