December, 2004 

What’s ‘Begotten?’

Often I like to use this newsletter as an opportunity to either inform you or to challenge you with regard to our ministry at Saving Grace.  However as we begin another church year with this season of Advent, and we celebrate our Lord’s coming into the world in the flesh, it struck me as most appropriate, simply to stand in awe of this miracle:  The God of the universe took on frail human flesh. Philippians 2 tells us that Christ Jesus, even though he was in very nature God, “made himself nothing taking on the very nature of a servant.”  What a miracle and what a mystery!

The Apostles’ Creed summarizes the mystery this way: [Jesus] was conceived by the Holy Spirit, (and) born of the Virgin Mary.   The Nicene Creed echoes that and adds that Jesus was “begotten, not made.”  That word “begotten” is also used in the famous Bible passage John 3:16 (KJV).  But what does it mean to be begotten?  Author and Christian apologist C.S. Lewis, in his book, Mere Christianity helps us understand this when he writes, “To beget is to become the father of; to create is to make… When you beget, you beget something of the same kind as yourself… But when you make, you make something of a different kind from yourself.” 

So many want to mistakenly see Jesus as a “prototype” for humanity – a great teacher or a role model for all to follow in order to achieve heaven (or divinity itself).  But these are mistaken views, for they do not agree with Scripture.  What’s worse, they strip Jesus of His beauty.  He simply is not like you and me; not just in the fact that He lived a sinless life and that He rose from the grave, but in His very essence!  In fact, He is like nothing in all creation!  And this is because He was begotten… not made.  Jesus was begotten from God the Father before anything was made.  As you display your manger scenes this Christmas, join me in marveling at just how singularly amazing Jesus, our Lord, truly is!