An Exposition of the Belgic Confession: The Incarnation

God keeps his promises. The incarnation of Jesus Christ proves this assertion because this event lies at the center of what is truly the greatest story ever told. You know how that story begins. At the dawn of human history, God placed Adam in the Garden of Eden and commanded him not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But as we know, Adam ate from the forbidden tree, plunging the entire human race into sin and death. But even as God was pronouncing the curse upon Adam, Eve, and the serpent, God also promised to rescue Adam from his sin through the seed of the woman. The promise seed would be a biological descendant from Eve who would somehow redeem our fallen race from sin and restore us to the place of honor we once occupied before the fall. It will take a second Adam–one who obeys the covenant of works which Adam broke and who can redeem us from the guilt and power of sin to undo the consequences brought upon us by the first Adam. This brings us to the person in whom God fulfills his promises, Jesus Christ, the second Adam, who is truly our Immanuel, God with us.

Our confession treats the doctrine of election in Article Sixteen, the promise of redemption and the covenant of grace in Article Seventeen, and the incarnation of our Lord in Article Eighteen. The structure of our confession reminds us that all of these doctrines are necessarily connected. You cannot talk about God’s sovereign choice to save particular sinners without talking about God’s promise to save his chosen ones and give them to the Son as his bride. We cannot discuss this covenant of redemption (the so-called covenant before the covenant) apart from a discussion of the covenant of grace, since this is the means by which God will actually save those whom he chooses. And we certainly cannot talk about the covenant of grace without talking about the mediator of that covenant, Jesus Christ, the one in whom God fulfills his promises.

To read the rest of this exposition: An Exposition of Article Eighteen: "In This Way He Is Truly Our Immanuel"