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We read in Micah 5:2 that the “little town of Bethlehem,” as sung in the famous Christmas carol, would be the birthplace of Christ:
“But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.”
This prophecy came about seven centuries before Christ was born. But the plan had been formed in the mind of God before the foundation of the world. As the verse says in powerful terms, the origins of the Messiah are “from of old, from ancient days.” The text says more than that, for it is clear that the coming ruler of Israel will come “for me”—that is, for almighty God. The Messiah is the Servant of the Lord (Isa. 52:13) who came to do God’s will even at the cost of His life. He came down from heaven to rule in God’s name.
But the origins of the plan are what boggle the mind. The text speaks of the Messiah’s “coming forth.” Picture the beginning of a sunbeam originating on the surface of the sun. It starts its 93-million-mile journey through the darkness and emptiness of space to reach the surface of the earth. It had a definite origin, though staggeringly distant from us. It took the Apollo astronauts four days, six hours, and forty-five minutes to reach the moon. At that same rate, it would have taken them 1,651 days to reach the sun—four and a half years. The sunbeam traveling at the speed of light would take eight minutes and twenty seconds to cross that distance. But however long, it had a definite point of origin.
Jesus is the “radiance of God’s glory,” come from eternity past as the true Light that enlightens every person (Heb. 1:3; see John 1:9). Before God said, “Let there be light,” He had already planned the coming of His Son into the world. Before there was any way to mark time—any earth to rotate on its axis, any sun, moon, stars to mark seasons and days and years—before there was evening and morning and the first day, before any of that, Jesus’ goings forth had their origin.
But in some sense, this entire language is what theologians call anthropomorphism, speaking of the infinite mind and character of God in human terms. To be more perfectly exact, God has never had a new idea pop into His mind, and He never will. God has never “worked something out” or “come to a conclusion.” God has never pondered a conundrum and solved it. Omniscience means that God already knew it. Therefore, there really was no “origin” in time to the conception of the incarnation. God always “knew” that He was going to send His Son into the world in the fullness of time to a place that the Jews would call “Bethlehem Ephrathah.” Ponder that. Then worship the God whose eternal mind determined to save your soul by this indescribable gift.