<strong>Jesus Became a Baby Because He Loves You </strong>

Why did the King of Glory become a baby? We can answer by saying “for his glory”! And we would be right to say so, but what does that even mean? 

To start with, the word glory can sometimes describe doing good works. When a good deed is manifested in the world, we call it glorious. This is why all of God’s works are glorious, especially his creation of humans (Isa 42:7). The good works God does point back to the good Creator of all. 

God also created humans for glory and honour. David says, God “crowned [humans] with glory and honor” (Ps 8:5). Paul even tells us to pursue glory and honour (Rom 2:7). While sin for a little while decrowned us of our glory, Jesus became human to bring “many sons to glory” (Heb 2:10, 14). 

In summary, God created us for his glory, he crowned us with glory that we for a little while lost by sin, and Jesus restored that glory to us when he came into the world. Glory seems like a good answer for why Jesus was born, but I would say it is not a full answer.

A more complete answer includes the biblical truth that Jesus became a baby because he loves you. And this work of love is glorious.

Philanthropy

The Bible tells us “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). In the New Testament, to be sent means the same thing as “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). 

John tells us that God the Son (or Word) became flesh and dwelt among us, that is, God sent the Son into the world because he “so loved the world.”

God is Love (1 John 4:8, 16), and God loved us “while we were still sinners” (Rom 5:8). 

The Church Father Athanasius (c. AD 298–373) used the word philanthropy to describe why Jesus was born. Philanthropy means the “love of humanity.” I find this word delightful as a term to explain why Jesus was born. He was born out of love, for us and for our salvation. 

Do Love and Glory Mix?  

As a younger Christian, I regularly heard people say: Don't make salvation about you. God came for his glory!

But why are those two different things? The love of God is Manifest in the Son of God becoming a baby for our sake (1 John 4:9–10).

If glory can be a manifestly good work, then we must call this great work of philanthropy glorious. And so as God glorifies us, his work of new creation, we glorify him. 

We are the glorious work of God (Rom 8:29–30), and so as we do good works, we glorify him (1 Cor 10:31). As we grow, we move from one level of glory to another due to the Spirit (2 Cor 3:18). 

And others glorify God when we do good works. As Jesus says, “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matt 5:16; cf. 1 Pet 2:12). Our lights shine in our good works. One might say they shine with glory. 

By the way, this is why Paul says we should “seek for glory and honor” (Rom 2:7). Here glory is not vainglory, and honour is not pride. Glory is a good work manifested to others, while honour is when people affirm the good works done. All of this redounds back to God. 

The Glory of God in his Love of Humanity

The Gospel of John pulls together the themes of glory and love at the cross. Jesus says, “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again” (John 10:17). And John tells us, “we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Certainly, that glory was seen in all of Christ’s work.

But the cross is the central work in John’s Gospel. There, the Son goes to the cross because “the Father loves me.” And there, glory and love meet. The man bruised and broken and bloodied is the glory of God on a cross stained red with love. 

All of this happened because “God so loved the world.” He loved us while we were yet sinners (Rom 5:8). Out of love, God sent his Son into the world to save it. Paul can even say, "I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (Gal 2:20).

As John puts it: 

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:9–10)

Jesus became a baby because he loved you. Isn't that is glorious? 

Merry Christmas!

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