The True Joyful Giver
“Should I hang the fourth stocking?” I asked myself last week when I hung three others, one for me and two for my sons. The fourth stocking belonged to my wife whom the Lord took home on June 24. Christmas Eve will be six months since her homegoing, and I can’t imagine the quality of joy she is having right now.
As we sing “Joy to the world, the Lord is come”, as sweet as that is for us on earth, we should consider heaven’s perspective. What makes those opening lyrics so special is that the foundation of the world’s joy is not that the Lord came to earth merely, but that he finished his redemptive work and came back to heaven as Lord of all. So, imagine if heaven’s saints sing this song, they might actually mean, “Joy to the world, the Lord is come [back from the dead to heaven].”
Yes, the nations should rejoice that Christ came to earth, but only because he was born to die, to be raised for our justification, and to come back to heaven where he awaits his second coming.
Anticipating the sense of loss and anxiety his followers would experience after his return to heaven, Jesus assured them: “I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7, ESV).
That’s such an amazing perspective on the gift of the indwelling Spirit that we too easily take for granted. It’s better for Jesus to be physically away from us in heaven so that His Spirit would live in us here on earth. And yet upon giving the Great Commission, Jesus assures his people: “Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt 28:20, ESV). Though Christ is not here with us physically, he is with us by his Spirit in his Word. Because God gave Christ on a cross and now gives us the Spirit in our hearts, we can be assured that he will graciously give us all things.
“Christmas is ultimately good news because Jesus came so that the triune God might tabernacle among us.”
Celebrating Jesus the child over against celebrating Jesus the crucified and ascended King is like receiving a wrapped present and enjoying it in its wrapping and never opening it. Just as the purpose of wrapped gifts is for them to be opened for what is inside, so the purpose of Christ’s birth was that he would be given up to die in the place of sinners and be raised for their justification and adoption into the Father’s family with the promised indwelling Spirit.
Christmas is ultimately good news because Jesus came so that the triune God might tabernacle among us.
My wife and I hung the following verses on our wall in every place we lived, whether it was the Middle East, East Asia, Southeast Asia, or Alaska:
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (Rom 8:28-32, ESV)
These verses were the touchstone of our family’s convictions and comfort. My wife loved the logic of the final three questions (31-32) of these verses. It’s as though Paul comes to the end of his linguistic boundaries and is at a loss for how to improve what he just said in verses 28-30. “What then shall we say to these things?” Can the promises of God get any better than this?
These truths are so glorious that they deserve to be restated in another way. And here is Paul’s attempt to recast what he has just said in a more succinct way: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” The answer: no one! Though we might suffer at the hand of people, the evil one, or the curse, no one and nothing can finally do anything that will be bad for us.
And then Paul asks the most hope-giving rhetorical question and essentially puts to rest all anxiety and discontentment: “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” Who dares argue with the extravagant generosity of God? Every mouth should be stopped in reverence and humble gratitude.
God loved sinners so much that in his joy he didn’t even spare his own Son but offered him as a satisfactory atonement. So along with the gift of Christ, he will happily give us all things. God is the true joyful giver.
“If you lose your most treasured earthly relationships and blessings in this life, he gives you all things and withholds no good thing in the resurrection.”
This is an argument from the greater to the lesser. If God would do the hardest act of love imaginable—sending his Son to be slaughtered for his enemies—why wouldn’t he do what is significantly easier? Since it is the Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom, why wouldn’t he satisfy every good desire of our hearts in the resurrection? He will. And more.
If you lose your most treasured earthly relationships and blessings in this life, he gives you all things and withholds no good thing in the resurrection. For the believer, even the sting of death is vanquished and the transfer from this life to the next is not plagued with grief and loss; rather, it is an overflowing cup of celebration and joy. The angels came and took my wife to her true home where she is treated like royalty in her Father's house. What a gift. What a God. And though God gave me a bitter cup to drink, there was sweetness at the bottom: I got to walk her home and didn't have to leave her behind. Until we also are called home, we can rest assured and "rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead" (2 Cor 1:9, ESV).
