Why did God come to earth in the form of a baby?

This great question has been asked by many people, who put it this way, “Hey, if God can do anything, why didn’t he just appear as Jesus, the adult, instead of being born?”

Part of the answer to this question is Biblical. Jesus’ birth and the way He was conceived had to fulfill the Old Testament prophesies. The biggest part of those prophesies was the Virgin Birth, which clearly shows His divinity. He comes to the earth from outside, pure and clean, and He is in no way a product of this world.

More important though is that by coming as a baby, we can see the sign of his humanity. He is one of us in every way. He arrives from heaven with perfection and godliness of which no man or woman is capable - yet he takes the full human journey, which even God in heaven had not taken. How could we follow his footsteps as a man if we hadn't seen him crawl as a baby? How could we believe he had undergone all the temptation we have faced if he had bypassed the most difficult years in which we struggle to earn our adulthood?

It’s tough being a kid, right? But, Jesus experienced it. To make the full sacrifice on our behalf, Jesus had to make the full commitment of being born and growing up, facing all of the struggles and temptations that you and I struggle with. It wouldn’t have meant very much to us if he had sprung from heaven fully formed, bathed in heavenly glory, but never lived through the things we have to.

Thankfully, we see him first as a child in a manger. Then, we see him at the Temple as a boy on the verge of maturity, already about his Father's business. We see Mary and Joseph wondering at him, trying to understand, as he grew "in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and all the people" (Luke 2:52). Finally, we see Him as a young man, quietly beginning a ministry that will change all of human history. We see him in the desert, wrestling with temptation and the matter of his destiny, and we know he is fully human. We see his love for children, and we can believe it because he, too, has been a child. And then, when He is crucified, we know He feels the pain that any man would feel. We are bought with a price that could never have been paid without the full burden of humanity having been accepted.

If He had been God only, His sacrifice would have been cheap and unconvincing. If He had been man only, His sacrifice would have had no power; He would have been a martyr like ten thousand others. But He was man and He was God, and therefore He was all in all. He came as a child to confront and conquer every challenge and every temptation common to humanity. We trust Him with our lives because He was God. We love Him with our hearts because we know that once He was a tiny baby, wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

If Jesus was born, who gave birth to God?

Okay, so this is one of those questions where the answer is so confusing it sometimes even makes me scratch my head and say, “Huh???” But, here is the answer in the simplest way that I can describe it:

God is infinite, which means He has always existed and he will always exist. He is eternal. He, therefore, doesn’t have an age or a birthday.

Let me try and explain it like this, time is a measurement of physical change. But, time has only existed since the creation of the universe. Let’s look at Genesis 1:1, the very first book and chapter of the Bible. It says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” So, we can say that time started with this creation, right? We can start a timeline based on this sentence, couldn’t we?

But, we also know from this sentence that God was BEFORE the creation of the heavens and the earth. That means that God is timeless. And, because He is timeless, He is not physical and is not confined to physical change. Say what?!?!?

Also, try and imagine this…God is perfect, which means he can’t get any better or any worse. He NEVER changes. God has always been absolutely perfect.

So, if we take that statement to its conclusion, whatever God says is right is right and whatever God says is wrong is wrong. True right and wrong is, therefore, timeless!!!

Ouch, my brain hurts.

How old was Jesus when he died?

We have a pretty good idea of the year Jesus was born and the year he died, so we can have a pretty good idea of how old he was when he died. The deal, though, is that people back then weren’t concerned with EXACTLY what time it was, the way we are today. They didn’t have wrist watches; they didn’t have clocks in every room of their homes; they didn’t have paper calendars and computers to keep them accurate. They simply weren’t as concerned with writing down the EXACT times and dates like we would.

But the Bible does give us some information about the date of Jesus’ birth. Read Matthew 2:1.

Also, ancient records exist that show that King Herod died in April of 4 BC. There was certainly some amount of time between Herod’s command to have all the baby boys killed and his death. So how old would that make the infant Jesus in 4 BC? Well, Jesus was probably born within the last three years of Herod’s rule - making his birth somewhere around 6 BC.

Now let’s look at Jesus’ death. Again, while the Bible does not clearly and exactly tell us, evidence does exist in the records of the kings and governors of that period, and this information strongly supports the Bible. From those records, we know that Pontius Pilate was removed from office late in the year 36. Since it was Pilate who order Jesus’ crucifixion, 36 is the latest year we can use to figure our how long he lived.

So if Jesus was born no later than 6 B.C., and was crucified no later than 36 A.D., then the oldest he could have been was about 42 years old.

Now because the dates are not exact, he could have been younger. Many people will argue that he was about 10 years younger than that. Well, maybe. Again, ancient people (and the writers of the Bible) weren’t as concerned about time as we are, and the Bible doesn’t exactly say. It is safe to say that Jesus was between 33 and 42 years old when he was crucified.