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Today, Tim Keller is teaching on the surprising expectation-defying and surpassingly hopeful meaning of the Christmas story.

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Now here's today's teaching from Dr. Keller.

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his

death he might destroy him who holds the power of death,

that is the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

For this reason, he had to be made like his brethren in every way,

in order that he might become a faithful and merciful high priest,

because he himself suffered when he was tempted. He is able to help those who are being tempted.

This is God's word. At Christmas time, it's very natural and normal for churches that believe in the

historic Christian faith to stress the fact that Jesus Christ is God come in the flesh.

And the reason we tend to do that is because we live in a modern world in which the supernatural

is still looked at very skeptically.

People have a conceit nowadays that the time and space is all that there is.

And so it's right and necessary at Christmas to say, look, Jesus Christ is God come in the flesh.

But perhaps you could argue that the more important point to stress at Christmas is that Jesus Christ is God come in the flesh. Yes, Jesus is our Emmanuel. He's God with us. But maybe it's just as important to stress that He is God with us. That in Jesus Christ,

the holy and transcendent God became really and fully and truly human. See what we read?

He shared in our humanity.

And I submit to you that traditional moralistic religion has completely forgotten this whole idea.

In fact, I submit to you that if you and I were really understanding the fact that Jesus Christ

shares in our humanity, we live differently.

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