The incarnation of the Lord Jesus is the central event of human history. When we celebrate Christmas, we are celebrating far more than a babe born in Bethlehem. We are rejoicing in the fact that God came down to earth as our Emmanuel. Jesus is “God with us.”
The Apostle Paul celebrates this fact in one of the most unusual verses in his epistles. Near the center of his first letter to Timothy, at the end of chapter 3, Paul breaks out into a six-line doxology:
“And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory” (I Timothy 3:16).
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