Michael Horton on Incarnation

Today's first post is written by Michael Horton. Below is an extract of the bigger article dealing with the wonder of the incarnation in a world of false idols.

'But, as God revealed his goodness to Moses by proclaiming his mercy instead of showing his face, so now, when God at last comes near to us in the flesh of Jesus Christ, we can finally see God and live to tell about it. Instead of his word of judgment, we hear his word of pardon:

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of the cross. And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him... (Col. 1:20-21).

Instead of Mount Sinai, burning with smoke, we have come to Mount Zion (Heb. 12:18-28). In Christ, the Consuming Fire is hidden in the gentleness of the manger, turning water into wine, inviting sinners to his table. Clothed in him, we are protected like Moses in the cleft of the rock, and are able to stand in his Holy of Holies without fear of judgment. And yet, our worship must still be “with reverence and awe; for indeed our God is [still] a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:29).

Given this self-revelation of God, what have we to do with the false religious images? A sappy, sentimental, harmless deity is hardly worthy of our awe, and perhaps this is one reason why the popular god elicits only passing excitement and new golden calves must be fashioned when today’s intoxication turns into tomorrow’s hang-over. As Israel fell under the spell of her neighbors’ idols again and again, so too the church in our day seems so eager to shape Yahweh into the various images of popular culture: entertainment, sentimentality, therapy, marketing, anti-intellectualism, and passivity.

C. S. Lewis once wrote that our cravings are wrong, not because we want too much, but because we’re willing to settle for too little. When God offers us a Mediator greater than Moses, a Living Redeemer instead of a golden calf, and a salvation so much richer and more promising than the trivial gods of our mass culture, how can we fail to turn from idols to the true and living God!'

Read the whole article at http://www.modernreformation.org/mh97precious.htm