As most of you probably are aware, I do not usually make a point to preach messages that correlate with the holidays. We are usually studying a certain book of the Bible verse by verse, and I let that be the guide for the subject matter of my sermon, and not what a holiday, either secular or religious, might suggest.

However, we have recently concluded a long study in the Sermon on the Mount. And as I said, I believe that sermon title might better be titled “The Manifesto of the Kingdom of Heaven.” In that sermon Jesus laid out the character and nature of the Kingdom of Heaven and particularly the character of it’s citizens. Then last week, I added to that series a message which attempted to define the characteristics of the consummation of the Kingdom of Heaven which is yet future. To explain in light of Jesus’s teaching what we tend to call “heaven;” or the future state of the Kingdom of Heaven, which I titled “The Kingdom to Come.”

So in light of this series on the Kingdom of Heaven, I felt that today we should look at the inauguration of the Kingdom of Heaven, which is the origin of the title of this message; “The Birth of the King. Matthew in particular presents the birth of Jesus Christ as the birth of the King of Heaven on earth. And so I want to spend some time this morning looking at the origin and nature and ministry of the Coming of the King as the Kingdom of Heaven as manifested on earth.

One of the most important doctrines in the Bible is the virgin birth of Jesus Christ. But though it is of tremendous importance, yet it is possible in the expression of that doctrine to emphasize the wrong person. The emphasis should not be to venerate and exalt the virgin Mary, but to recognize and worship the divinity of the Son born of Mary who was the only begotten Son of God. The fact that Jesus was born without the instrument of a human father, but was born of the Holy Spirit through the flesh of the woman is the doctrine of the incarnation.

Those sects which do not recognize the deity of Jesus Christ must totally ignore such accounts as this found in Matthew, where twice it says that the Child was conceived in her was of the Holy Spirit. And in Luke chapter 1, when the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would bring forth the Holy Child, she could not help but ask how such a thing was possible, since she was a virgin. Gabriel responded, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God. For nothing will be impossible with God.”

The fact that Jesus was born of God and thus God is supported by the fact that men worshipped Him. Worship is not given to men. But when the wise men sought to visit the Christ Child they asked, “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him.”

Now I find it interesting to note that the scriptures, while it has a lot to say about the birth of Christ, yet it does not command us to celebrate nor commemorate His birth. Our celebration of Christmas is something that the Bible doesn’t really instruct us to do. The only holy day that we are told to celebrate in the New Testament is the day of the Lord’s death. That is why we observe the Lord’s Supper. Paul said in this way we celebrate the Lord’s death until He comes again. And also of course every Sunday we celebrate the Lord’s Day, which is the day of His resurrection. But we are never instructed to celebrate His birth.

Now that is not to say that observing Christmas is in itself the wrong thing to do. But I will say that certain aspects of it can be less than advantageous to the gospel as it is often practiced by the popular traditions. Because the idea of a poor little baby born in a stable to a young mother and father plays to a sentimentalism that emphasizes the humanity of Jesus. It’s possible to diminish the significance of Jesus’s birth to purely the human pathos of a helpless little baby boy born to poor Jewish peasants on a cold, dark night some 2000 years ago who was misunderstood and unappreciated by the world. But of course, though those things may be true to some extent, the point that He was the Son of God, God incarnate in human flesh, veiled in all the humility of flesh, so that He might be the Savior of the world is often obscured by our fixation on the human elements of His birth.

But what the scripture teaches is that Jesus was born of the woman so that He was fully man, yet fathered by the Holy Spirit so that He is also fully God. That is what is called by theologians the hypostatic union of Christ. Both natures, divine and human, fully existent and operational in one person, that He might truly be King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And to that end, Matthew begins his account of the birth of Jesus Christ by setting forth the lineage of Joseph, who was HIs legal father, though not by blood. In Luke, a similar lineage is given of Mary. And what is important to understand is that from a human standpoint the heritage of Jesus was from the royal line of David from both Joseph and Mary’s lineage. That is given to establish that Jesus fulfilled the prophecy that the Messiah, the future King, would come from the line of David and would even be born in the city of David, which is Bethlehem.

Now it was the custom in those days for marriages to be an arrangement between families and it was a contractual agreement that was binding from the moment of betrothal. For Joseph and Mary, this betrothal was considered legally married, but not yet consummated. But ordinarily, after a betrothal period of about a year, the two came together by means of a wedding banquet and other ceremonies, and then they consummated their married life by moving into the same home. But they were considered married from the time of their betrothal. Our text states that when his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph,(that being a more legal bond than simply an engagement) before they came together, she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit. And again, that emphasizes the divine origin of Jesus Christ.

The statement, “before they came together” obviously refers to the consummation of their marriage. They were betrothed, legally bound together to be married, but the marriage had not progressed to the stage where they had come together physically. And so Mary was still a virgin. So when Mary was found to be with child, Joseph, as a righteous man, as a man who was concerned about the seemliness of things, was going to divorce her. That’s what it means when the text says he was going to put her away privately. At that point, Joseph had undoubtedly been told by Mary the source of her pregnancy, but as you can imagine, it was just something that must have seemed fantastic to him. As much as he loved her, it must have seemed so illogical to him that he felt compelled to divorce her in order to maintain his sense of decorum. It’s evident from scripture later on when Jesus speaks of divorce that the Jews considered divorce in such cases as obligatory in light of the law. Jesus refutes that idea, but at this point, Joseph may have felt as if the law actually required him to divorce her. And that may be why he wanted to do it privately, so as to protect Mary to some extent, and not disgrace her publicly.

Now all of that is important of course because of the fact that Jesus was fathered by the Holy Spirit. The passage tells us that, but how it must have appeared to the world would have given rise to speculation and scandal. But God is concerned that Joseph know this for sure, and so God sent an angel to communicate it to Joseph. So vs 20 tells us that as Joseph had decided to send Mary away to be divorced, “an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.’”

Notice also that the angel makes a point of saying of Jospeh that he was the “son of David”. God through the angel is announcing the birth of the promised King who would come through the line of David. So according to the flesh Jesus was of the royal line of David and thus qualified to take the throne of Israel. I would like to just take a moment to look at a few verses from the Old Testament, which of course was already in existence, written hundreds of years before, which speak of David’s future descendant taking the throne. Isaiah 11:1 “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots.”
Jer. 23:5 “Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth.” Micah 5:2 “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, [though] thou be little among the thousands of Judah, [yet] out of thee shall he come forth unto me [that is] to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth [have been] from of old, from everlasting.”

Now Jesus is announced to be born a King, not only from a human standpoint, but from a heavenly one. Notice what Psalm 132:11 says; “The LORD has sworn [in] truth unto David; he will not turn from it; Of the fruit of your body will I set upon your throne.” So God speaking to David says I will sit on your throne.

Now that this future King is God Himself is an important point, and the evidence of it is that it is repeated twice in our text of Matthew 1. In the 18th verse, we read, Mary was “found to be with child by the Holy Spirit,” and in the 20th verse, we read, “the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.” So then according to God Jesus is qualified to be the King of Heaven, because He is the Son of God.

Hebrews 2:17 says concerning Christ, that He had to be made like HIs brethren in all things. So Jesus had to be human, born of flesh. But in order for us to be His brethren, we must be made like Him, and that is born of the Spirit. That is why we must be born again, born of God in our Spirit, so that we also have two natures, that of the flesh, and that of the Spirit. And so Jesus, in order to be our substitute, and our Savior, must be born of the flesh and born of the Spirit, even like we must be. In order to be the King of the Kingdom of Heaven, He must be born in the flesh on earth, but eternal God in Heaven. So that John might say in his gospel, “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, the same was in the beginning with God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory.”

Then in Matthew’s account of His coming, we read further that the angel spoke of the ministry of the King. Vs. 21 “She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” The name Jesus is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word “Joshua,” so that the Lord’s name was Joshua.

“Joshua” is a name that means “Jehovah saves.” And so we see that the very name of Jesus is connected with the word, salvation. So the fact that the Lord Jesus is called “Joshua” is very suggestive spiritually. For he is—by virtue of the name that is given to him—he is to be the Savior of His people. As I mentioned at the Christmas party the other night, Savior was a term given to kings, to the Caesars, to deity. It was a term in Greek and Roman culture which had political overtones. In Luke’s account, we read that the angels announced to the shepherds “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.” Jesus was to be the Savior, not politically, but spiritually, He will save His people from their sins.

As a matter of fact, this has a direct application to the world we live in today. Our problem today is not an environmental problem. Our problem today is not an economic problem. And our problem today is not a political problem. Our problem is a spiritual problem, and that is that sin has separated man from God, who is the source of life, and without Him, we all are dead spiritually, and thus condemned to die both spiritually and physically. But Jesus the Savior of the world came to die in our place, that we might receive pardon and given life through Him.

So every time someone pronounced the name of Jesus, he was preaching the gospel. Jehovah saves. God saves. Man can not save himself. Men do not save other men. Only God can save. So that Jesus could say, “no man comes to the Father, except by Me.” Christ is the only way man can be reconciled to God. Because only the death of God could atone for the sins of the world.

Matthew goes on to cite texts of the Old Testament in support of his teaching regarding the purpose of Christ’s birth. What he’s trying to do is to make plain to us the fact that Jesus is the Messiah as the Old Testament Scriptures have prophesied. And so he interrupts his narrative by saying, “now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was written through the prophet, saying, behold a virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.”

The 7th chapter of Isaiah, written hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, is the text which he quotes here. Isaiah 7:14 says, “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call His name Immanuel.” Then Isaiah says in the 9th chapter of that same book, “For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulders, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.” And finally, in the 11th chapter, we read, “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots, and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, and the result of his ministry shall be, they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”

As you can see, the sweep of Isaiah’s prophecy is that the Child who is born of the virgin in Isaiah chapter 7, is the Child upon whose shoulder the government shall rest, and it is through His ministry that we shall find a universal knowledge of the Lord throughout all of the earth in which we live. We have, then, a prophecy here that is fulfilled in the birth of our Lord Jesus, he is truly born of a virgin, but it is the same person who is ultimately going to rule and reign over an entirely renewed earth when the kingdom of God is consummated on the earth.

Now, notice that here we have another name for our Lord Jesus, and it is not a name that emphasizes his human nature, but a name that emphasizes his deity. “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is ‘God with us.’”

So Isaiah says what John later says, that God became man and dwelt among us. He became like us, fully human, so that He might share in our sufferings, so that He might become our example, and so that He might become our substitute, taking our place in death so that we might receive His life. And that life came from His divine nature; because He was fully God. As God, He is the giver of life. John 1 says without Him nothing was made that was made. He says that in Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

And because of His substitutionary death on the cross, by faith in Him we are made righteous and holy with His righteousness, and we are given life in the spirit by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. So that we also are made sons of God. So as Paul says in 1 Cor. 3:16, Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” That is the full import of the name Immanuel, God with us.

So Joseph, then, responds to words of the angel, and we read in the 25th verse—24th and 25th—“Then Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife, ]but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son; and he called His name Jesus.”

There is much that could be said about all the various names and titles of the Lord. The Savior. Immanuel. The Christ. The Messiah. The Anointed One. I love the titles found in Isaiah; Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. But there is so much that we can learn from just the simplest of names; Jesus. This is the name that was divinely given. And so when we plead the name of our Lord Jesus as the one who saves, we are bringing back to God His own promises concerning the Lord Jesus. When He was called by the name of Jesus by man it identified Him as the Savior of His people. He is called Jesus because He saves His people from their sins. And it is the name that marks out his ministry here on earth. No one ever lived up to HIs name more so than the Lord Jesus. And if you trust in Him, He will not fail to perform His atoning work on your behalf. He cannot deny His name. Jesus saves because He is God who saves.

Did you notice Matthew’s words, “God with us?” Is this really true? Phillips Brooks was correct when he wrote, “O little town of Bethlehem how still we see thee lie, above thy deep and dreamless sleep thy silent years go by; yet in thy dark streets shineth the everlasting light, the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.” But Phillips Brooks was a preacher, and he also emphasized the need of personal appropriation. Is Immanuel really God with you?
Have you responded according to the last stanza of the hymn? “O holy child of Bethlehem descend to us we pray, cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today; we hear the Christmas angels, the great glad tidings tell, O come to us, abide with us, our Lord, Emmanuel.”

There is one other word in this passage that might easily be overlooked. It’s a most unlikely word. It’s the word “interpreted.” You’ll notice that when he is said to be Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us. Why should it be necessary to interpret? Why should not the word Emmanuel be sufficient? What is the point of it being “interpreted?” Well, the reason we have an interpretation of this statement is that God wants it to be known. It means that is the desire of the heart of God to have you know that through Christ God with us. If we needed any further encouragement that God is interested in gathering a people unto Himself, it’s found in that word, “interpreted.”

That’s God’s way of saying I want Gentiles, as well as Jews, I want the whole world to belong to this King. May God help you to respond in faith to His gospel.