GOD SENT HIS SON 
Romans 8:3‑4
Christmas is about God sending His Son on a mission. Christmas is truly the first and only totally foreign missionary journey. Wherever a man might journey on this earth to carry out a mission for God, he is still on the earth ‑ ‑ ‑ his home. When the Son of God entered the earth scene at Bethlehem, He was truly on foreign soil since His home was the eternal presence of God.

God is the initiator of the whole process that brought Jesus to earth. The Apostle declares, "God sending His own Son". Your deliverance from sin is definitely a divine work; and it began in the heart of God. "Sending" calls attention to the appearance of Jesus Christ as truly being a mission. He came to earth as the Son of God under the mandate of His Heavenly Father. When you consider that the One involved is "His Own" Son, you begin to see the glory of this whole event. While God has many sons in creation ‑‑‑ man, angels, cherubim, there is only one "only begotten" Son. The Son sent on this journey was the only One of His kind. He was the unique Son of God. He was the One who has been eternally the Son of God. He is the One without beginning and without end. He is the One who has been in the bosom of the Father from all eternity. He was the eternally Beloved One. Yet this is the One God sent on this very special and urgent mission.

The urgency of the divine action is suggested by the opening clause, "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh". Actually this statement stands detached from the rest of the statement in the verse. It is an absolute. Yet a connection is meant. The inability of the law made the mission of the Son necessary. The law was not able to make men holy and righteous. The problem was not with the law, but with the weakness of the flesh of man. Being what he is in himself, man just could not keep the law. A perfect and good law was not enough to meet his needs. He needed so much more than instruction. It was because of this desperate need of man, and the weakness of the flesh of man, that God took this drastic step of sending His Son. He was sent to do what the law could never accomplish; and what man could never accomplish for himself.

This mission of the Son needs to be the central thing in our thoughts at Christmas. The fact that He came makes sense only when you realize why He came.

GOD SENT HIS SON IN THE LIKENESS OF SINFUL FLESH
The Apostle John declared, "And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us." Paul expands that "God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh." This surely gives us some insight into just how much God loved the lost world of mankind.

We must be clear about what the Apostle says. He does not say that "God sending his son in the likeness of flesh." That would not be true. God did send Him as flesh, not in the likeness of flesh. The humanity of Jesus Christ was both complete and real. It was not a pretending to be flesh. He was flesh. He was made flesh. On the other hand the Apostle does not say that "God sending his own son in sinful flesh." He is too careful about the words He uses. That would not be true. He came in flesh, but not in sinful flesh. He was always without sin. His temptations were real. The battles He fought with the world, flesh, and the devil were real battles. But He won all of them. He was the victor in every skirmish. He came from the field of conflict without a taint of sin about Him.

The literal reading would be, "in the likeness of the flesh of sin." Jesus Christ came with a body that was real, and that was subject to temptation, but He never committed sin. He came in the likeness of our flesh which is marked by sin. Our flesh has the chief characteristic of being weak and being marked by sin. He came with our kind of flesh, and in the likeness of our sinful flesh.

We might add that the Son entered into this willingly. Though He was sent by the Father on this mission, He willingly accepted the assignment. He humbles Himself and enters our experience out of His own willing choice. Who can begin to measure or understand this kind of love?

GOD SENT HIS SON TO BE A SACRIFICE FOR SIN
This presents to us the means by which His mission was to be accomplished. "God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.''

"And for sin" can be translated "and for a sin offering". This phrase is so used in both the Greek Old Testament and in the popular writings of the day. Such a translation would also be consistent with the way the phrase is used in other places in the Scriptures. Jesus came to do for us what the law had not been able to do. The means by which He would do this is by becoming a sacrifice for our sins. "Condemned sin in the flesh" must be taken with "for sin". God is the One who did the condemning. The God who sent the Son also condemned sin in the flesh of the Son. Do you understand this? The Son took upon Himself our kind of flesh. In our kind of flesh He was made to be an offering for our sin. In that offering in His flesh, God the Holy Father condemned our sin, judged our sin, passed sentence on our sin, satisfied the demands of the law on our sin. It had to be "our sin" since the Son had no sin of His own. He was "without sin".

To celebrate Bethlehem without remembering Calvary is a perversion of the Biblical message. Bethlehem was just the first stop on the mission. The mission would end at Calvary. The mission demanded Calvary and the cross for an altar. The mission included the Son being made sin for us. He included Him dying in our place on the tree. God knew this when He sent His own Son. He knew what the end and the price would be. But He also knew that this was the only way for us to ever know deliverance from sin. His love for us compelled Him to send the Son on this mission.

GOD SENT HIS SON THAT WE MIGHT BE RIGHTEOUS
In the family of man there was not one righteous man. Though righteousness was the requirement for entrance into the presence of God, there was not one righteous, no not one. Though righteousness was required for living life peacefully and meaningfully, there was not one righteous, no not one. This was the purpose in the coming of the Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin. He came that there might be a righteous people.

His death on the Cross made it possible for man to be declared righteous by God. As an act of grace, God can bestow upon the ungodly the gift of righteousness when they come to Him in repentance and faith. This is called imputed righteousness. This truth has been wonderfully set forth in this Roman letter, but the Apostle is taking a step beyond this truth in our text. God has done even more. This imputed righteousness is something God does "for" man. Our text is speaking of something God does "in" us. This purpose is that we might be filled full of the very things required by the holy and good law of God; that the principles of that law might be lived out in our day by day Christian experience. The secret of this becoming true is found in the closing expression, "who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." This is a simple definition of who a Christian is. A Christian is a person whose sins have been paid for by Jesus Christ upon the Cross, who is now becoming what God wants them to be by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, and not by the power of their own weak and failing flesh. Another way of saying this is that through the coming of Jesus Christ we are delivered from both the penalty and the power of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation because we have been delivered from the penalty of our sins, but the proof that we have been delivered from the penalty is that we are now being delivered from the power of sin through the Holy Spirit.

God sent His son that you might live the right kind of life.

Was the mission of Jesus to the earth in vain? Or was His mission accomplished? His mission was accomplished. He went back to heaven to report to the Father a mission accomplished. This is the significance of His cry from the cross, "It is finished." He was reporting that He had completed all that He was sent to the earth to do. However some of us are not now knowing and showing the benefits of His mission.

You know the benefits of His mission only when you place your faith in Jesus Christ alone for salvation. As long as you are trying to save yourself by keeping the law, or trusting the church or baptism, or any other thing ‑‑‑ you will not know the deliverance Jesus came to work out. Indeed all such attempts on your part are your way of saying He did not need to come for I can take care of it. Is that what you really want to say? That is what all of your self‑attempts at deliverance are actually saying. Then for those who have come to place their trust in Him alone for salvation, there needs to be the continued looking to Him alone for salvation. Jesus Christ, God's Son, is the only Deliverer from sin. He did and is doing what the Father sent Him  to do, and we benefit from it!!!