COLLEEN TINKER
This Christmas season I am impacted by the way God brought the world’s attention to the end of the law and the revelation of the new covenant. Through the conjunction of two miraculous pregnancies and the births of two Jewish babies, God grabbed the attention not only of Israel but also of gentiles as He fulfilled His promises to to humanity. The curse of the law was about to be broken, and life and immortality were about to be revealed through the gospel!
Zachariah and Elizabeth were both of the tribe of Levi, and their miraculous baby, John, burst into history exactly on schedule. Gabriel announced his birth to Zachariah one day as he offered incense in the temple. An otherwise unremarkable priest from hills of Judah, Zachariah was fulfilling his days of service as determined by lot in his priestly division when an angel interrupted him with a message from the Lord—and ended the 400 years of silence since God had spoken to Israel through the prophet Malachi.
But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard, and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John. And you will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared” (Luke 1:13–17).
And just like that—the fulfillment of God’s promise in Malachi 4:6 was announced. God had remembered His people, and the forerunner of Messiah would be born to the elderly and barren Elizabeth and her priest-husband, Zachariah!
The crowd of people praying at the temple knew Zachariah had seen a vision when the stunned priest emerged. They also knew the childless Elizabeth became pregnant—and they also knew when that baby was born.
Four hundred years of silence had finally been broken—and what an ending to that time of waiting it was! The one God had promised would make straight the way of the Lord had arrived, and all the people wondered what kind of child this baby would be.
A Levite by birth, he was of priestly descent, and the baby John grew up under a lifetime Nazarite vow. His early life, though, was as obscure as his birth had been notable. He lived in the desert “until the day of his public appearance to Israel” (Lk. 1:80).
Another Announcement
Six months after Gabriel appeared to Zachariah in the temple, the angel made another appearance, this time to a young, unknown virgin in the northern part of Israel, in the Galilean town of Nazareth. Mary was descended from the royal line of David in the tribe of Judah, and she was engaged to a carpenter, also from the line of David, named Joseph.
Gabriel reassured the startled girl that she had found favor with God and then told her that she would bear a son. The details the angel told her seemed impossible:
And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:31–33).
Overwhelmed, Mary asked how such a thing could be. The angel told her that the Holy Spirit would come upon her, and her son would be called the Son of God!
The Son of God? Yet the angel told her that with God, nothing is impossible.
Mary simply replied, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word,” and Gabriel left.
Collision of Covenants
Elizabeth’s baby was born with crowds of people celebrating and inquiring what his name would be, but when Mary’s baby was born six months after John, Jesus’s birth was obscure and almost unnoticed. Mary, Joseph, and some shepherds notified by angels were the only ones who knew the Savior of the world was born on that Bethlehem night.
The two boys grew up in obscurity, but when John the Baptist began his ministry, everyone noticed. He had one job to do—a job prophesied hundreds of years before: to be “a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him” (Jn. 1:7).
His job was to make the Messiah known to Israel!
Crowds followed him as he preached repentance from sin, and he accumulated many disciples. He even attracted the attention of Herod and his household. Yet he was always clear about his identity: he was not the Messiah but the one who had been sent to prepare the way for Him.
On the day John saw Jesus coming toward him, he presented Him to Israel:
The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks before me, because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him, but for this purpose I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel.” And John bore witness: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but he who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God” (Jn. 1:29–34).
From that day onward, John’s popularity began to wane. In fact, John said, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn. 3:30).
Disciples who had followed John became disciples of Jesus, and He became the focus of Israel’s attention. As Jesus became the focal point, John slid out of the limelight until he died, beheaded by Herod in a Judean prison.
Jesus, however, became more and more public until one day, on a hill outside Jerusalem, He died on a cross for human sin. The man from the kingly tribe of Judah died a criminal’s death and was buried in a tomb, prepared for internment by two Jewish men who risked their reputations to care for the Man they realized was their Messiah.
On the third day, Jesus changed history forever. He broke death from the inside-out, rising from that tomb in a glorified body, and 40 days later He ascended to heaven from where He reigns as the Head of His church and the King of Israel. The Son of David has taken His throne, and His dominion has no end!
The son of the levitical priest prepared the way for the Son of David who has a different priesthood. As Jesus gained notice in Israel, John the Baptist decreased, and the central role of the levites and the law they administered was fulfilled by the Son of David who inaugurated a new covenant in His blood.
The covenant of law which Moses had mediated with Israel reached its pinnacle in the Lord Jesus who fulfilled all of its shadows.
The covenant of law which Moses had mediated with Israel reached its pinnacle in the Lord Jesus who fulfilled all of its shadows. When He became the singular sacrifice that ended all the animal sacrifices regulated by the law, He became the new High Priest on which the Law of Christ is based.
Hebrews 7:12 tells us that when there is a change of the priesthood, there is of necessity a change of the law also. God appointed the last great prophet, a son of Levi, to manifest the prophet like Moses who was to come—the one Mediator between God and man who would bring a new covenant (1 Tim 2:5). As the legacy of Levi culminated and came to an end, the Son of David took center stage.
No longer do we look to the law to discover how to please God and appease Him for forgiveness. Now we look to Jesus, the new Priest who is also the new Lawgiver and the eternal Sacrifice and Intercessor for us!
When we look to Jesus and believe in Him, we receive eternal life. We are born again with the resurrection life He gives us, and we never need to fear again that we have an uncertain future.
This Christmas I thank God that He showed us so clearly that the birth of Jesus was the focal point of history. The levitical foundation for the law is over, and now we turn away from the law toward the Lord Jesus to find peace with God.
This Christmas I celebrate security—the security of knowing I am hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3) and forever safe as the Father’s adopted daughter, born again with the new life of the risen Messiah!
Merry Christmas! †
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