Key Bible Passage(s):
Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:18–20; Luke 1:26–38
Tier 1:
Jesus is an utterly unprecedented phenomenon: He alone is fully human and fully God. This unique reality is brought about through a virgin-birth that was the result of a miraculous act of the Holy Spirit.
This is how Jesus becomes part of our world in order to redeem it, whilst not becoming part of the problem of our world. It is how He becomes human without becoming the sinful kind of human we are.
Tier 2:
To be the human who alone can renew all things, Jesus has to avoid both committing actual sin Himself, and also the inherited guilt and sinful condition of humanity that is passed down through the human race.
By living His human life in such a fundamentally different way, Jesus opens the possiblity of our living human life in a fundamentally different way. Jesus is forging a different kind of humanity.
Tier 3:
Jesus becomes a human being so that He can live an authentically human life… and die a human death. He doesn’t just create a new way to be human - He has to also deal with the old way of being human that is overwhelmed by the reality of sin and overshadowed by the reality of death!
How He is conceived and born paves the way for how He will die, and for what He will achieve in and through His death.
Since neither as God alone who could He feel death, nor as man alone could He overcome it, He coupled the human nature to the Divine that by one nature He might submit to death, and by another defeat it
John Calvin
Group Exercise:
Do you think someone could be a Christian if they didn’t believe in the virgin birth?
Read Gen.6:5. Do you think this remains a fair description of humanity? Does it match your experience of yourself? ...or of others?
Can people who aren’t Christians do good things? What do you make of Rom.3:10-12?
How can people who are born like this become more like Jesus?
…and later in the session:
Does the idea of being holy, or of part of a new creation excite you?
Read Matt.4:1-10
How was Jesus ‘tempted in every way as we are’ (Heb.4:15)?
How does He resist temptation?
How does this shape our prayer… and our response to temptation?
How does the reality of Jesus’ humanity help us as we face temptations?
Homework:
Continue to memorise the Apostles’ Creed
Over this half-term we’ll be working to memorise Matthew 5:1-10
(we’ll memorise the whole of the Sermon on the Mount over the next 3 years)
To Be a Christian, Q&A 53-58
For Personal Refelction: How will this affect how you celebrate Christmas this year?
Over the next few weeks, our homework will include reading through Matthew’s Gospel, and isolating any commands, or examples Jesus leaves for us to follow.
As we list them, reflect on:
Which ones do you obey?
Which ones do you struggle with?
Which ones do you not understand?
Where do you need help, and what help do you need?
