Today is the official observance in the Roman Catholic Church of what is known as the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. And although there is a list of traditions that is made use of as reference for this feast, Its dogmatic definition was given by Pope Pius IX on December 8th of 1854 and probably you will agree with me in my observation that Filipino Catholics exercise deep devotion to this feast and particularly to Mary. The basic notion of this doctrine or this feast is that Mary was conceived and born without sin. So she was immaculately conceived. And oftentimes the reason given is it is deemed necessary for Christ to be sinless. In other words, for Christ to be sinless, his mother should be herself sinless. But you can see the logical direction of that if For Christ to be sinless, his mother must be sinless. Then for Mary to be sinless, her mother must be sinless. And so forth and so on. And you go back to Eve, and we know that Eve was not sinless. So this simply, by sheer logic, is a wrong doctrine. And of course, in the scriptures, there is no support for that doctrine. And there are many wrong things in this notion, and it is not my purpose to dwell on that. But we must remember that our guilt does not come from the woman Eve, or to the woman the spouse, but from the man Adam. We are guilty by the imputed sin of Adam. And Christ did not need his mother to be sinless to be himself sinless, because Christ was constituted by God as a second Adam. And therefore, like Adam before his fall, Jesus Christ was himself without sin. And he also, like Adam, was representative of all that he stood on behalf of. And what I am saying is that immaculate conception applies only to Christ, not to Mary. Everyone else who are children of Adam are sinners, including Mary, in need of salvation from Jesus Christ. But of course, we recognize the significant role that Mary played in the redemptive purpose of God. While the status of Christ is like that of Adam, however, He is far superior to Adam. Remember, Adam was created by God as man. Jesus Christ as the Son of God was not created at all. What happened to Jesus Christ is summarized in one of the great statements of the Christian faith, very simple, very concise, God became man. We have gotten so accustomed to that short sentence. It is part of our confession, it is part of our hymns, and we sense little of the significance and the profundity of that statement. So this month, is the season that it is most loudly professed and demonstrably celebrated that Christ was born. And in Christendom, they will even pronounce that statement, God became man. This is the month that I will use. Just confining myself to the letter to the Hebrews in order for us to ponder on that simple, concise, but very profound statement, God became man. And I will start with Hebrews chapter two. If you turn your Bibles, Hebrews chapter two, we will concentrate on verse nine, but we begin with verse five to get the context. Hebrews 2, verses 5 to 9. For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere, what is man, that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him. You made him for a little while lower than the angels. You have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet. Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him, but we see him, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God, he might taste death for everyone. That is the inspired infallible and inerrant Word of God. Now, the writer of Hebrews has been explaining from the very start of his letter the superiority of the Son of God, and he makes that first in terms of his argument, the superiority of the Son of God over angels. He asks questions like, to whom did the Father say this to angels that He said to the Son? who is like the sun in terms of his attributes compared to the angels. So that is his main argument. And then he comes to the first warning of the letter to the Hebrews. The letter to the Hebrews is known for its five key warnings scattered throughout the letter. And the very first is the preceding verses to our text. Verses 1 to 4 is warning his readers not to drift away and they must pay attention to the gospel of God. Now the way he makes that warning is in gist by saying that the Ten Commandments of Moses were mediated by the angels. And this was a tradition in the Old Testament that angels mediated the law. And then the writer is saying, if violating the law mediated by angels merited punishment, Then he draws the conclusion of how much worse it will be if we ignore so great a salvation that is mediated to us by the Son. You see, he's still trying to assert the superiority of the Son over angels, this time by showing how much more threatening. It is to violate the salvation that the Son has mediated than even to violate the law that angels mediated. And then he uses the famous 8th Psalm to remind his readers what was God's intention for the creation of man anyway. And the answer is clear in Psalm 8, in order that man, though lower than the angels, yet it is not to angels that he assigned the mandate of dominion over the world. The dominion over the earth is assigned to man, not to angels. But then, what happened? The one who was assigned that mandate to have dominion over the earth, over the world, has failed. And that, of course, is Adam. And because he failed, we do not see that dominion being exercised in the manner that it should be. And then he makes a contrast, and this is a very telling contrast. Later in verse 8, he says, but we do not see the world under dominion. Not everything anyway. But then in verse 9, he makes that stark contrast, but we see Jesus. And for the first time, the writer names the one whom he has been referring to as the son. For the first time in this letter, he identifies who this son is greater than the angels and he makes no ambiguity in his assertion that that one greater than angels and who now is fulfilling the dominion that Adam failed to exercise is Jesus Christ. But then he tells us something that is really ironic. How do we know that Adam has succeeded if he did succeed? God told him, you will live. If you fail, the threat was you will die. But now here, Jesus is being described by the writer, he is now crowned with glory and honor that didn't happen to Adam, but how did it come about? Just the opposite of Adam. If Adam had succeeded, he would have lived. But Jesus has succeeded and now crowned with dominion, by what way? By dying. That's the irony, that's the mystery. And the only answer to that is, why did God become man? and then only to die. It is because it was the death of a substitute in order that he may have the dominion that Adam failed to accomplish. So let me give you this message. God became man to be the substitute for the punishment of sin. And now, with kingly glory. Makaharing Karangalan. God became man to be the substitute for the punishment of sin, but now with kingly glory. In other words, the writer here is saying what Psalm 8 mandates for man is now happening to the Son of God. He was made lower than the angels, although he was superior to angels. That has been the argument in chapters 1 and 2. the Son of God is superior to the angels, but now, for a little while, made lower than the angels, that is, he was brought to humiliation. But notice, however, the contrast is that we do not yet see the sum-eight dominion of man over creation happening, but we see it now being fulfilled in Jesus Christ. So it's not happening to man as a sinner, but it is happening because of Jesus Christ. And he, as I've said, is named for the first time. Jesus is God becoming man. And for that divine purpose already stated in the creation of man in order that he may be a substitute for sin and a substitute or representative for dominion. So we can look at this in two ways. How God became man in order to be substitute. First, he is God's gracious provision of substitute for punishment. Siya ang mabiyayang kaloob na kahalili para sa parusa. God's gracious provision of substitute for punishment. And the second is that He is God's glorious fulfillment of dominion of creation. Siya ang malwalhating katuparan ng Let's look at this in both ways. First, Jesus is God's gracious provision of substitute for punishment. The writer twice makes reference to Christ's death. He speaks of the suffering of death, and then he makes the statement to taste death for everyone. And again, as I have said, it is easy to miss the irony here, because we know that Adam, if he failed, he was going to die. That was the threat of God to him. The moment you eat of that fruit that is forbidden, you will surely die. So death is the result of Adam's failure, which means, by opposite, if Adam succeeded, he would have lived. But now in the case of the second Adam, in the case of the God-become-man Jesus, the way for his fulfillment of the mandate of dominion is that he needed to taste death for everyone. How do you explain that? The explanation that the writer gives is by the grace of God. In the case of Adam, it would not have been grace, but earned. In the case of sinners today, the only way that you will be spared of punishment for sin is by the grace of God. How? Jesus owned the penalty of sin in death. as substitute for sinners. It entailed for the Son of God to become man and begin from the very beginning of humanity. Now remember, it did not happen to Adam. When he was created, he most probably was created an adult. In the case of Jesus, in order to be substituted, this is the wonder of wonders. He began from the very beginning of humanity. When is that? At conception. God, or through the angel, told Mary that she will conceive in her womb a son. This was already a person. If I may just digress for a while, this is the reason why one of the most heinous sins that is celebrated today by Westerners is abortion without realizing that this is no less than murder. And this is the only murder where the mother tells the murderer, doctor, thank you. Jesus begun a conception. Imagine that, the creator of the universe, the creator of life itself, becoming an embryo in the womb of Mary. And then born, born in the lowest of circumstances. Then lives, which Galatians 4.4 says, under the law. He had to obey every aspect of the law. If he made an infringement of the law in any way, he would have been disqualified as substitute. But he obeyed every aspect of that law. That law which you and I can never obey in ten lifetimes. Jesus, in that one lifetime of his humanity, obeyed all that is in the law. But it did not end there. He who did not sin died the sinner's death. How do you explain that? And the writer here puts it even more vividly. the whole New Testament is pervaded with references to the death of Christ. But chapter two, verse nine of Hebrews is the only place where the writer describes it as he tasted death for everyone. He's seeking to emphasize the personal experience by Jesus of the death. Paul would have simply said Christ died, or to make it theological, he would have said Christ died for sinners. But our writer here in our text says he came to taste death for everyone. This is so personal, just like your taste is personal. I don't taste what you are tasting, you will not taste what I am tasting. And Jesus is undergoing the very horrific nature of dying. Now don't get fixated with the words for everyone and make a case for universal atonement that is not the purpose of the writer at all. This is simply another word for saying he died for sinners. But the word that stands out really is he tasted it. He tasted the horror of dying. Some will die a silent death. They sleep and they will not wake up again. Others die a more heroic death, perhaps in a battle or in martyrdom. In the case of Jesus, it was the most humiliating death to be executed, both by Romans and Jews, for sins he has not committed. And he tasted the horror of it, and let me say, more horror than you and I can ever taste. Because He died on the cross and on that cross, He gave expression to that horror with that cry of dereliction. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The only time that Jesus called his father, my God, instead of that familiar and filial address, father, because he was then feeling the separation. That's the horror of Jesus' death that you can only match by spending eternity in hell. But Jesus matched it by dying on the cross that he did not deserve. Jesus took the horror of his substitute. I once watched this documentary of during the Second World War in a Jewish ghetto. When there was an infraction, the Nazi guards had the Jewish prisoners lined up in 10 rows, and then a soldier was put in front 10 meters distance from the rows, and the punishment was every person in front will be executed. And they began to march towards the rows. One of those in the front was a young woman, and she braced herself to die. But the man behind her, an older man, quickly switched places with her. And by the time the guard came to that row, it was the old man who had to suffer death instead of the woman. But that is just a poor illustration of what Jesus did, a substitute. Now the challenge of this to us is find the grace of the incarnation in the cross of substitution. This is the lesson here. This is the direction of the profound confession God became man. Why? Is it for us to celebrate the manger? It cannot be denied that what is prominent in today's celebrations is the manger sin. You see glittering lights and lanterns surrounding that manger sin. I mean, if at all they make use of any biblical event, it's the manger sin that is always put up. But you see, the manger is not sensible in and of itself. What makes it sensible is that the wonder of God becoming man to fulfill what God intended for man, but Adam failed to do. And yet multitudes today will do traditional celebration. And I have nothing against if you want to celebrate Christmas, you can have your noche buena and your caroling. I'm more doubtful about that. And yet many who will do this celebration without any interest in the cross of Christ. And they think they are celebrating Christ because they are lifting up the manger. Friend, the manger has no sense unless you see its direction and connection towards the cross. That it died a substitute with the death that you and I should have died and can only do so by spending punishment in hell. And we entirely miss why God became man if you fall short of the substitute on the cross. And my friend, do you know that substitute? Do you come to God only through the substitute? Dare you come to God by your own self, thinking that you have accumulated enough righteousness and good works so that God may accept you? That is the great delusion of self-righteousness. But even believers, when we come to God, we come to God not by ourselves, but also through our substitute. Daily, believers need to express thanks to God for the cross. Not so much for the manger, but the wonder of it is that God became man as substitute. Martin Luther wrote a less well-known piece of writing that I think should deserve prominence. It's entitled Letter of Special Counsel. He puts in pithy sayings of counsel for people in various spiritual problems. And to the one feeling guilty, he says, pray and sing this, Lord Jesus, you are my righteousness. I am your sin. Now that grates into the ears of our decent sensibilities. But we know what he means theologically. Our sin was imputed to Christ, though he was not guilty of our sins, in the same way that Christ's righteousness is imputed to believers, though we are not righteous in any way. That's the exchange. That's the substitute. And I want you to glory in it. But the second point is that of God's glorious fulfillment of dominion of creation. Again, the writer's citation of Psalm 8 is to remind his readers that it is assigned to man to have dominion over God's earthly creation. Adam failed. But this is the point of Christ becoming or God becoming man. Where humanity failed, Jesus fulfilled and will fulfill dominion over all creation. Now I use two time dimensions here. I said, He has fulfilled because it has already happened. It is past and present, but it is also He will fulfill because it is not yet fully fulfilled. It will be consummated in the future. This is the point of verse eight. We do not yet see. We do not yet see many under the rule of Christ today. Look around you in this world. Institutions deny the Lordship of Christ over them. The United Nations will never have an assembly where Christ is going to be honored. You do not even have to go outside this building. There may be people right here or those of you online who are not under the lordship and dominion of Christ because at this point it is by way of faith. But the time is coming when Christ comes again that Philippians 2.11 tells us every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Lord, that will happen. It has not happened yet, so the writer says we do not yet see, but we see Jesus already fulfilling it. Now the church should be a place where this is already partly true, individually and corporately. What explains the believer after all? Once he was under dominion of sin, but at conversion, he came under the dominion of Christ. And that is what I am inviting you to do if you are still outside of Christ. Put yourself under His dominion, under His Lordship. There alone is salvation. What explains the church? The church is a gathering of those individuals under the dominion of Christ. maybe of different degrees, so sometimes in the church there are eruptions of conflicts because part of us is still not under totally Christ's dominion, but it is our purpose. It should be our daily resolve and struggle to have Christ exercise dominion over us. And this is where the writer is contrasting what Christ's people are. Where Jews still want Moses, And apparently there were readers of the letter to the Hebrews that were aspiring to have angels as their spiritual dominion. The writer is saying Jesus is already crowned with dominion, but the church is continuing the mission to extend that. That's what we need to do, extend it to this world. I don't blame anyone if you do not know that there is an ongoing World Chess Championship. That's something I will not miss, but they're now in game 10, still tied. But what makes this historic is this is the first time two Asians are battling it for the championship. Asians who used to be the weakest, And Asians acknowledge that they owe it to a Filipino, the first Asian gun master, Eugene Torre, who in fact was invited by the World Chess Federation for special honor in that championship. Through him, and when he was interviewed, he said, at my time, there were no tournaments I could join. And now it's all around, and Asians are among the best He extended it. That's what the church is called to do. Extend the interest in Christ. Extend the dominion of Christ. And begin with yourself. And to begin with yourself, I challenge you this own rule of earthly creatures outside of Christ and His kingdom. Why do not mean by this that we do not acknowledge legitimate authorities on the earth? Augustine, in fact, argued when they were being blamed by Romans for the fall of Rome that, in fact, Christians had been the most submissive of citizens to the state, and that should be what Christians are. What I assert is that no one has the rule equal that of Christ that he now exercises over his people because his is the kingdom rule. No one has kingdom rule over us. One day, all our struggles in the Christian life can simply be explained as the conflict of dominions. Who will rule at any given day? Who will rule When you see and experience collision of interests, collision between your emotion and what you know to be the word of God, who will rule? One day man will have rule over creation as intended by God, but at the present it is Christ who is ruling as representative of his people. And because he rules on our behalf, we too have an extent of rule over creation. Creation should not rule us. Because our position now, Ephesians 2, 6 tells us, He raised us up with Him, seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That is a language of royal enthronement. We were seated. We were enthroned with Christ. We are now kings and priests according to Revelation 1. Whenever a mere creature is establishing rules for you outside of Christ, you are showing the fallen Adam in you. And it should be your resolve to grow in sanctification. And growing in sanctification means growing in your rule over creatures. What is your creature rule? Is it your money that seems powerful to control everything? Is it relations that have your emotions in its grip? But Christ is now ruling over you. And you must rule also what Christ already rules. And He rules not because simply He's God. He rules because God became man, and there is no excuse for man who is a believer in Christ to rule with him. Rule over your creaturely sin. For thousands of years, Christians have asked this question, and it is still a mystery. As early as the year 220, a man by the name Origen wrote what in Latin is called the Principius, the first principles, and one of the things he addressed is the incarnation. Then in the year 1098, a man of the Middle Ages, Anselm, wrote one of the classics of Christian literature, kur deus homo, why God became man. And since then, there have been hundreds, even perhaps thousands of volumes written just to address that question, why did God become man? It is such a mystery. But here we are given the concise answer. He became. your substitute. He became our substitute. Be freshly amazed as you confess the truth that God became man to live the life I should have lived, but could not. And then to die the death I should have died, but he did. that substitution. And we will sing to that real, to that truth, with a word, with us, him, his robes for mine. Wonderful exchange. Clothed in my sin, Christ suffered neath God's rage. Draped in his righteousness, I'm justified in Christ I live, for in my place he died. Wonderful words. Let us own it for our own refreshing and amazement at the fact that God became man. Let us sing his robes for mine. His closing prayer. a great God and Heavenly Father, what wisdom you have demonstrated in your redemptive plan that has found fulfillment in the Lord Jesus Christ. In Christ, God became man. And we can be so accustomed to that statement of doctrine, of confession, of hymn, and yet feel no amazement at the profound reality that the eternal, infinite God was conceived in the virgin's womb, born, lived a life of perfection we could not live in ten lifetimes, and suffered a death that we should have suffered And all this he did because he became our substitute. And it is only by that that we know the grace of God. Father, we thank you indeed for this. And though we live in a season when many will expressly celebrate, and yet their celebration terminates on the manger without any interest in the cross. Help us, Lord, to realize that the wonder and amazement of the manger is because it is leading to the cross and to that empty tomb when Jesus was raised from the dead. And because he now rules, though not yet in consummation, We share that rule with Him, and we must be those who, individually as believers, must know and resolve to rule over creaturely forces that seek to control our lives, be that money, relation, profession. Let Christ be our ruler, and thus we can confess the profound mystery that God became man. Speak to those who are still outside of Jesus Christ. They may be fond of Him. They may even celebrate Him, but they do not know Him as the Substitute. Save sinners today and glorify your name through the sanctification of the saints and the Church's resolve to extend the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. And now, may the love of the Father, the grace of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all evermore. In Jesus' name we pray all these things. Amen.