Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh

When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. (Matthew 2:10–11)

God is not served by human hands as though he needed anything (Acts 17:25). The gifts of the magi are not given by way of assistance or need-meeting. It would dishonor a monarch if foreign visitors came with royal care-packages.

Nor are these gifts meant to be bribes. Deuteronomy 10:17 says that God takes no bribe. Well, what then do they mean? How are they worship?

Gifts given to wealthy, self-sufficient people are echoes and intensifiers of the giver’s desire to show how wonderful the person is. In a sense, giving gifts to Christ are like fasting — going without something to show that Christ is more valuable than what you are going without.

When you give a gift to Christ like this, it’s a way of saying, “The joy that I pursue (notice Matthew 2:10! “When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy”) — the joy that I pursue is not the hope of getting rich by bartering with you or negotiating some payment. I have not come to you for your things, but for yourself. And this desire I now intensify and demonstrate by giving up things, in the hope of enjoying you more, not things. By giving to you what you do not need, and what I might enjoy, I am saying more earnestly and more authentically, ‘You are my treasure, not these things.’”

I think that’s what it means to worship God with gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh. Or whatever else we may think of giving to God.

May God awaken in us a desire for Christ himself. May we say from the heart, “Lord Jesus, you are the Messiah, the King of Israel. All nations will come and bow down before you. God wields the world to see that you are worshiped. Therefore, whatever opposition I may find, I joyfully ascribe authority and dignity to you, and bring my gifts to say that you alone can satisfy my heart, not holding on to these gifts.”

John Piper 

The Constancy of the Light

He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

JOHN 1:2–3

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. JAMES 1:17

As we rejoice in the arrival of the Christmas season, let us celebrate the constancy of the light that shined into the world when Jesus was born of the virgin Mary. John tells us that Jesus was “in the beginning with God” (John 1:2). Furthermore, Jesus is the Creator God without whom “nothing was made that has been made” (John 1:3).

Jesus is the eternal God. God cannot change. He declared through the prophet Malachi, “I am the Lord, I do not change” (Malachi 3:6). James made this wonderful statement: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning” (James 1:17).

In the natural world, the speed of light is a constant. When Albert Einstein formulated his famous theory of relativity, he said he was able to put forward this theory because there is one thing and one thing alone in the world that is constant—the speed of light. Everything else is relative. Light is the only thing that is constant in our natural universe. And Jesus is our one constant in the spiritual realm.

Even the sun, which has never failed to give its light since the day God created it, will one day cease to shine. We are told that the energy of the sun is slowly being used up. You won’t have to worry about the sun burning out in our lifetime, but even the sun is not eternal. Its light will not shine endlessly. The light of Jesus, however, will illumine heaven throughout all eternity.

What a wonderful truth to consider this Christmas! We will soon welcome a new year. And though our world is a very uncertain place, we have this certainty to lean on: “. . . His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22–23).

Not only do we have the constancy of Jesus to depend on for today, but someday we are going to be made just like Him (1 John 3:2). We will bask in the direct rays of His glorious light forever! Praise God for the changeless, constant light of the Lord Jesus Christ!

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Two Kinds of Opposition to Jesus

When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. (Matthew 2:3)

Jesus is troubling to people who do not want to worship him, and he arouses opposition against those who do. This is probably not a main point in the mind of Matthew, but it is an inescapable implication as the story goes on.

In this story, there are two kinds of people who do not want to worship Jesus.

The first kind is the people who simply do nothing about Jesus. He is a nonentity in their lives. This group is represented at the beginning of Jesus’s life by the chief priests and scribes. Matthew 2:4 says, “Assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, [Herod] inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.” So they told him, and that was that: back to business as usual. The sheer silence and inactivity of the leaders is overwhelming in view of the magnitude of what was happening.

And notice, Matthew 2:3 says, “When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.” In other words, the rumor was going around that someone thought the Messiah was born. The inactivity on the part of the chief priests is staggering: why not go with the magi? They are not interested. They are not passionate about finding the Son of God and worshiping him.

The second kind of people who do not want to worship Jesus is the kind who are deeply threatened by him. That’s Herod in this story. He is really afraid. So much so that he schemes and lies and then commits mass murder just to get rid of Jesus.

So today, these two kinds of opposition will come against Christ and his worshipers: indifference and hostility. I surely hope that you are not in one of those groups.

And if you are a Christian, let this Christmas be the time when you ponder what it means — what it costs — to worship and follow this Messiah.

John Piper 

The Purity of the Light

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.

JOHN 1: 6–10

Today we want to emphasize Jesus as the purity of the light of Christmas. The Bible says that Jesus was “in the world” (John 1:10). But the Lord was most assuredly not of this world. He did not have His origin in the world. His birth in Bethlehem was not the beginning of His life, for He is the Lord of heaven.

Because Jesus was not of this world, He is the pure, incorruptible Light. In the natural world, there is nothing as pure as light. Light can never be defiled or corrupted, no matter what it passes through or what it falls on. Light can never be debased or sullied. You can shine light through a dirty windowpane or a glass of muddy water, and all the light does is expose the dirt. The light is not touched by the dirt. 

Even the purest water flowing from a clear mountain spring will become contaminated as it flows along. Even the purest looking crystals of snow falling from heaven contain tiny particles of debris. And as that snow falls on the ground, it will become corrupted. But light can never be defiled. Therefore, light is a wonderful picture of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Jesus exposed sin, but He was never contaminated by sin. Jesus could touch sinners, but sin never touched Him. He was totally undefiled. When the Bible calls Jesus the “light of the world,” it’s a reminder of the sinless, stainless purity of the Son of God. Jesus was the only Person Who could look other people in the face and say, “Which of you convicts Me of sin?” (John 8:46). 

The Baby born in Bethlehem was “the true Light” (John 1:9), the pure light of heaven. Jesus was in the world but not of the world. This Christmas, as we behold Jesus, the Light of the world, think about His incorruptible purity.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Bethlehem’s Supernatural Star

“Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” (Matthew 2:2)

Over and over the Bible baffles our curiosity about just how certain things happened. How did this “star” get the magi from the east to Jerusalem?

It does not say that it led them or went before them on the way to Jerusalem. It only says they saw a star in the east (Matthew 2:2) and came to Jerusalem. And how did that star go before them in the little five-mile walk from Jerusalem to Bethlehem as Matthew 2:9 says it did? And how did a star “rest over the place where the child was”?

The answer is: We do not know. There are numerous efforts to explain it in terms of conjunctions of planets or comets or supernovas or miraculous lights. We just don’t know. And I want to exhort you not to become preoccupied — not to become fixated — on theories that are only tentative in the end and have very little spiritual significance.

I risk a generalization to warn you: People who are exercised and preoccupied with such things, as how the star worked and how the Red Sea split and how the manna fell and how Jonah survived the fish and how the moon turns to blood, are generally people who have what I call a mentality for the marginal.

You do not see in them a deep cherishing of the great central things of the gospel: the holiness of God, the ugliness of sin, the helplessness of man, the death of Christ, justification by faith alone, the sanctifying work of the Spirit, the glory of Christ’s return, and the final judgment. They always seem to be taking you down a sidetrack with some new article or book that they’re all excited about dealing with something marginal. There is little rejoicing over the great, central realities.

But what is plain concerning this matter of the star is that it is doing something that it cannot do on its own: It is guiding magi to the Son of God to worship him.

There is only one Person in biblical thinking that can be behind that intentionality in the stars: God himself.

So, the lesson is plain: God is guiding foreigners to Christ to worship him. And he is doing it by exerting global — probably even universal — influence and power to get it done.

Luke shows God influencing the entire Roman Empire so that the census comes at the exact time to get an insignificant virgin to Bethlehem to fulfill prophecy with her delivery. Matthew shows God influencing the stars in the sky to get a little handful of foreigners to Bethlehem so that they can worship the Son.

This is God’s design. He did it then. He is still doing it now. His aim is that the nations — all the nations (Matthew 24:14) — worship his Son.

This is God’s will for everybody in your office at work, and in your classroom, and in your neighborhood, and in your home. As John 4:23 says, “The Father is seeking such people to worship him.”

At the beginning of Matthew we still have a “come-see” pattern. But at the end the pattern is “go-tell.” The magi came and saw. We are to go and tell.

But what is not different is the purpose and power of God in the ingathering of the nations to worship his Son. The magnifying of Christ in the white-hot worship of all nations is the reason the world exists.

John Piper 

A Great Light

The people who walked in darkness Have seen a great light; Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, Upon them a light has shined.

ISAIAH 9:2

If there is one truth that leaps out at us from the pages of Scripture at Christmas, it is that Jesus came to be the Light of the world! Light came into this dark world when Jesus was born in Bethlehem. The prophet Isaiah calls Jesus “a great light” Who has shined on those who “walked in darkness” (Isaiah 9:2). The prophet is referring to spiritual darkness, which also is very great. But the darkness was no match for the light of God’s Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, also anticipated the coming of the Savior. In his great song of praise, he prophesied that Jesus would “give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:79). 

Another man of God by the name of Simeon pointed to the Light. As Joseph and Mary came to the temple to dedicate the infant Jesus, Simeon took the baby to bless Him. God revealed to Simeon the identity of the Child, and he rejoiced that God had sent “a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel” (Luke 2:32). 

No matter where you turn in God’s Word, you will find that Christmas is about light! We love to sing the Christmas carol, “Silent Night, Holy Night.” But this great hymn is not about the night or about darkness. It’s about the Light. The third stanza of “Silent Night” says, “Son of God, / love’s pure light / Radiant beams from Thy holy face, / With the dawn of redeeming grace.” 

We sing another Christmas carol, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” The last stanza invites us to “Hail the heaven born Prince of Peace! / Hail the Son of righteousness! / Light and life to all He brings, / Risen with healing in His wings.” We sing at Christmas because we have something to sing about! Light has come into the world, and we don’t ever need to walk in darkness again!

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Messiah for the Magi

Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?” (Matthew 2:1–2)

Unlike Luke, Matthew does not tell us about the shepherds coming to visit Jesus in the stable. His focus is immediately on foreigners — Gentiles, non-Jews — coming from the east to worship Jesus.

So, Matthew portrays Jesus at the beginning and ending of his Gospel as a universal Messiah for all the nations, not just for Jews.

Here the first worshipers are court magicians, or astrologers, or wise men not from Israel but from the East — perhaps from Babylon. They were Gentiles. Unclean, according to the Old Testament ceremonial laws.

And at the end of Matthew, the last words of Jesus are, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:18–19).

This not only opened the door for us Gentiles to rejoice in the Messiah; it added proof that he was the Messiah. Because one of the repeated prophecies was that the nations and kings would, in fact, come to him as the ruler of the world. For example, Isaiah 60:3, “Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.”

So, Matthew adds proof to the messiahship of Jesus and shows that he is Messiah — a King, and Promise-Fulfiller — for all the nations, not just Israel.

John Piper