the mystery of God and man.

How can anybody be God and man?

How can there be a child who is the child of a human being

and who at the same time is God with us?

A human child and yet a divine reality.

Welcome. Welcome to Grace to You, the Bible Teaching Ministry of John MacArthur.

I'm your host, Phil Johnson.

You know how it is when you're starting the car on a wintry morning, with the windows frosted over, keeping you from seeing clearly. In a similar way,

all the clutter surrounding Christmas can keep you from seeing the holiday's true significance.

And so to help bring the profound realities of Christmas into sharp focus, we're beginning a study

today from John MacArthur called simply the Jesus of Christmas.

To set the stage for this series, let's hear what John had to say a few years ago about where the focal point of Christmas needs to be.

Yeah, you know, it's kind of a two-sided reality to come to Christmas.

On the one hand, it's fraught with all kinds of pagan things and nothing to do

with the gospel whatsoever. I mean, it's an excuse for wild partying and extravagant purchasing

and all of that. And you say, well, maybe we ought to avoid it because it's so corrupted.

But on the other hand, somehow in that mix, there's this birth of Christ.

So rather than ignore it, I would say, yeah, I get the corruption part, but as long as people are thinking about Christ, let's take advantage of it. And there's no

reason to set it aside when it is such a dominant reality in global culture. But I think

we're back to the essence of the discussion. If you're going to talk to people about Christmas,

you have to talk

about Jesus Christ. And that is the heart and soul of the gospel, of course. But it's also the

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