Epiphany or "Three Kings' Day"

        January 6^th was Epiphany— the significance of that day is that God incarnate first appeared to us Gentiles, when the wise men from the east arrived at the house in Bethlehem.

        God had appeared to mankind before in human form. For instance, one of the persons of the Godhead walked with Adam and Eve in the garden. He was visible to them and they tried later to hide from him. Long years later, Abraham met, had lunch with, and bargained with a “man” at Mamre, who turned out to be God Himself. Joshua met the “Captain of the Lord’s host” outside Jericho. We could go on with numerous other instances, but who those persons were, has not really been defined.

        A profound change comes when we get to David’s time (about 1000 BC).  Suddenly David is talking about a person called “the Son”. Who is this “Son”? In Psalm 2, he tells us about this Person, “You are my son; today I have become your father.” (Psalm 2:7). This is a direct statement of the incarnation—no longer is this Person appearing like a man, He actually IS a Man—He is one of us!  This is December 25^th!

        But David tells us more in the same Psalm—he tells us what we must do with this Man. “Kiss the son, or he will be angry and your way will lead to your destruction.” This isn’t a kiss on the cheek, this isn’t a ‘holy kiss’, this is a kiss of submission, this is a kiss of this Man’s feet!

        I scoured the books of the Old Testament for literary or symbolic use of the word “son”. In Exodus (4:22, 23), in Deuteronomy (1:31, 8:5), and in Psalms (80:15, 17), Israel is the “son”. But the key verses for us in Isaiah (about 750 BC) are 7:14 and 9:6—“the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” and “to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.”

        Moving on through the Old Testament, still looking at literary uses of “son”, we find Ezekiel addressed as “son of man” (over 100 times), and Daniel, as well. Nebuchadnezzar saw a “son of the gods” in the furnace. But the really important quote in Daniel (about 605 BC) is 7:13: “There before me was one like a son of man [or human being]…all nations…worshiped him.”

        And finally, we want to see what happens to that Son. Zechariah (about 520 BC) 12:10 says “They will look on me, the one they have pierced…and will grieve…as one grieves for a firstborn son.”

        When we come to the New Testament, at last we find out who this Son is. Mark 1:1 tells us unequivocally, that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. And John confirms, in 3:16, that it is Jesus: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son.” The culmination of all those thousands of years, of all those mounting details of prophecy, is the appearance on earth at last, of God’s Son—JESUS!