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Guest Essay

By Peter Wehner

Mr. Wehner, a senior fellow at the Trinity Forum, is a contributing Opinion writer. He attends McLean Presbyterian Church in McLean, Va.

It is still the most shattering event in history.

For more than two billion Christians, the birth of Jesus is the story of one person, at once fully human and fully divine, entering the world. He put a face to a God who was, before Jesus arrived, incorporeal, beyond human senses and human comprehension. In the words of the apostle Paul, God “dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see.” Jesus changed all that.

But Christians also believe that the incarnation ushered into the world not just a person but what in the New Testament is called “the kingdom of God.” This can be understood as the sphere of God’s rule, according to the New Testament theologian Richard Bauckham. Luke, the “beloved physician” who........

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