If we attempted to catalog our reasons for expressing gratitude, the list would be monumental. However, if we narrowed to our most important reason, we could do no better as Christians than to recall 2 Corinthians 9:15: “Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift.”
John 3:16 identifies that divine Gift in the familiar words, “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” Various English versions seek to express the idea of “unspeakable” with such terms as “indescribable” and “inexpressible.”
How does one speak of Him who is unspeakable, describe Him who is indescribable, express Him who is inexpressible, take the measure of Him who is immeasurable or mine the depths of Him who is inexhaustible? An attempt to do so would have to include quite a number of biblical truths about Christ.
Divine Gift
Christ is the eternal Son of God. This divine Gift was fully divine as well as fully human. We term this His incarnation. Christ is also the sinless Son of Man. Though born of human lineage according to Matthew 1:1-16, and although He fully experienced temptation, He was altogether without sin.
Christ became the crucified Savior of the world. Even before His birth, He was identified as the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. Though introduced as Lamb of God, He walked in human sandals and understood human temptations without ever succumbing to them so that He might take away our sins. As the Lamb of God, Christ willingly became the divinely provided Sacrifice for the sins of the world. Amazingly, the sacrificial One became our caring Shepherd who seeks to minister to the suffering, the straying, the sinning and the sorrowing.
Perfect Sacrifice
As our prime reason for thanksgiving, this perfect Sacrifice for sin experienced resurrection from a death that could not hold Him. He triumphed over death, hell and the devil. As we give thanks to God for His Son during this Thanksgiving season, we remember that He will one day return as the triumphant King of kings and Lord of lords.
When the final trumpet sounds and the archangel shouts, this Lord of glory will appear the second time to gather those who are His into an eternal future while fitting us for the new heaven and new earth so that we might be at home with Him through endless ages.
So again this year, we who belong to Him have the greatest reason to give thanks to God for His greatest Gift.
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