Do you see my brethren that those truly born again are those who are resting in Christ as His disciples? They keep His commandments from the motivation of love for Him, not in order to earn their salvation. I adjure each of you to examine yourselves. Ask God to reveal the truth of your standing before Him to your hearts. Repent of what He shows you then rest in our Lord as you walk and serve Him yoked up with Him. Love Him and serve Him for His glory alone.

37 Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “ If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. 38 He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” 39 But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. John 7:37-39 (NASB) 
3 “ Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.5 “Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth.6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.7 “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.8 “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.9 “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.10 “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.11 “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Matthew 5:3-12 (NASB) 
Hell is real. All who do not repent and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ will spend eternity there. Those who repent and believe are those who ‘come to Jesus to drink.’ They believe as the Holy Spirit is poured out on them to the point that their lives are taken over by Him. Those who do will never experience hell. Instead, they come to Jesus and find rest for their souls. Those who do this are poor in spirit. They mourn for their sins. They are not proud, but meek. In their growing godliness they hunger and thirst for Christ’s righteousness to become manifest in them. They become more and more Christlike, therefore, they take on His character. They show mercy as He does. They become more and more pure of heart. They remove themselves from seeking their own. Instead, they become those who live to bring others to their Lord. Conversely, this holy and separate life does not cause them to find peace in the world. No, instead they are persecuted for righteousness sake.
25 At that time Jesus said, “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. 26 Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight. Matthew 11:25-26 (NASB) 
The passage above is partially made up of a short prayer by our Lord. In vv20-24 preceding this passage our Lord had just pronounced woes upon the impenitent who had seen His mighty works and heard His preaching and teaching.
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Written by J. V. Fesko |
Sunday, December 24, 2023
In the third verse of our hymn, given what appears in the first two verses, Christ’s redemption is cast in terms of the eschatological, or final, exodus. It is no longer the exodus from the tyranny of Pharaoh, nor is it the exodus from Babylon, that appears. Rather, Jesus brings an exodus from the oppressive rule of Satan, sin, and death: O come, thou Rod of Jesse, free. Thine own from Satan’s tyranny; From depths of hell thy people save, and give them vict’ry o’er the grave. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel. Shall come to thee, O Israel.

“O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” is one of the better-known hymns that is typically sung during the Christmas season. What some may not know is that it originated in the Middle Ages, around A.D. 800, as an antiphon, or anthem, that was restructured into verse form in the 1100’s and was eventually published in Latin in 1710. The hymn was later discovered, translated, and published in 1851 by John Mason Neale, an Anglican minister.
As people sing this hymn, they know that they are singing about the birth of Christ. However, what is striking about this hymn is the way in which it unpacks the birth of Christ. It moves from the shadows of the Old Testament into the light of the New Testament with the revelation of God in Christ. This hymn traces the themes of Israel’s exodus to the eschatological, or final, exodus that was to begin with the birth of the Messiah.
We can see this progressive unfolding of God’s redemptive plan if we turn to the Old Testament and begin with Israel’s exile in Babylon.
Mourning in Lonely Exile
In Israel’s earliest days as a nation, God brought his people out of Egypt, made a covenant with them, and began to lead them to the land of promise—the land that he had sworn to give to Abraham and his descendants (Gen. 15:18-21). Israel, of course, was a cantankerous nation and lacked the faith to enter the Promised Land, to believe in the gospel promise of God (Heb. 3:18-4:2).
When Israel had finished her forty-year wandering and stood at the threshold of the Promised Land, it was undoubtedly a time of excitement and hope. The people of Israel were at last going to enter the land promised to their patriarch Abraham so long before.
On the eve of their entry into the land, however, Moses wrote an inspired prophetic song. This song was filled with praises for their covenant Lord, but at the same time it foretold Israel’s future disobedience and sin (Deut. 32:20-24). Israel did fulfill these words and was carried off into exile because of their sin, idolatry, and rebellion. The northern kingdom of Israel was taken away by the Assyrians in the eighth century B.C., and the southern kingdom of Judah was taken away into captivity by the Babylonians in the sixth century B.C.
Over the centuries, millions of people have been displaced by war—exiled from their home country. However, Israel’s exile in Babylon was unique, because Israel was the only nation on the face of the earth with whom God had made a covenant. Just as God had put Adam, the first man and God’s son (Luke 3:38), in the garden-temple of Eden, so he had given Israel, his firstborn son (Ex. 4:22), a fruitful land—one flowing with milk and honey, one that was also marked by God’s very own presence.
In the same way that God walked in the cool of the day with Adam in the beautiful garden-temple (Gen. 3:8), so too God walked with Israel in the Promised Land by his presence in the tabernacle (Lev. 26:11-12; 2 Sam. 7:6). Yet, like Adam before them, Israel sinned, which caused the prophet Hosea to cry out: “Like Adam they transgressed the covenant” (Hos. 6:7).
As punishment for their disobedience, like Adam before them, the people of Israel were exiled from the presence of God. Israel was carried into exile to Babylon, longing for the presence of God, longing for God to redeem them and ransom them from their captivity. However, the faithful remnant did not desire merely to return to the land, but ultimately for God to dwell once again in their presence (Ps. 137:1-4). As Israel sat in exile by the waters of Babylon, there was still hope of redemption.
Many undoubtedly looked to the prophetic words of Isaiah: “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” (Isa. 7:14). There was a coming child, one who would save Israel—the Lord’s presence in the flesh. In this regard, we should note that the word Immanuel (also spelled Emmanuel) means “God with us.”
Perhaps now we have a better idea of what lies behind the first two verses of our hymn:

O come, O come, Emmanuel,
and ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here,
until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, O come, thou Lord of might,
who to thy tribes, on Sinai’s height,
In ancient times didst give the law
in cloud and majesty and awe.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
shall come to thee, O Israel.

Here the hymn recounts the faithful remnant in exile in Babylon, longing and looking for the birth of their Savior. Our hymn couches this desire in terms of the biblical theme of the eschatological exodus, evident in the connections between Israel’s exile in Babylon and the exodus from Egypt by reference to God’s presence on Sinai.
The Shoot of Jesse and the Key of David
The prophet Isaiah, however, had much more to say about this coming Savior. Many Old Testament saints knew that the coming Savior would come from the line of David (2 Sam. 7:12-13). However, the nation was in ruin, and the temple, God’s dwelling place, was razed to a pile of rubble. It seemed as though David’s line had been cut off. Once again Isaiah prophesied: “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit” (Isa. 11:1).
Here the prophet likens the Davidic dynasty to a stump—
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With teens increasingly identifying as non-binary and transgender, this other side of the story needs to be told. Don Johnson’s new documentary Dysconnected: The Real Story Behind the Transgender Explosion does just that—and much more. Through a combination of powerful personal stories and interviews with top-notch scholars and medical experts, Dysconnected explores why transgenderism is on the rise, the understanding of human nature that is driving it, and how Christianity’s vision of male and female provides a much richer alternative.

As puberty hits for a young girl, imagine the additional earth-shaking and existential uncertainty caused by wondering whether she might actually be a man trapped in a woman’s body. She starts on puberty blockers, moves on to cross-sex hormones, and even goes through with top surgery (a double mastectomy). But she realizes shortly thereafter that these extreme and invasive interventions didn’t relieve her distress. The euphoria of each phase was short-lived as the familiar struggles returned and nothing really improved. This is the tragic story of many young people today who are being steered into so-called “gender affirming” care, only to realize that it doesn’t work in the long run.
With teens increasingly identifying as non-binary and transgender, this other side of the story needs to be told. Don Johnson’s new documentary Dysconnected: The Real Story Behind the Transgender Explosion does just that—and much more. Through a combination of powerful personal stories and interviews with top-notch scholars and medical experts, Dysconnected explores why transgenderism is on the rise, the understanding of human nature that is driving it, and how Christianity’s vision of male and female provides a much richer alternative.
Daisy’s Detransition Story
The film begins with gripping video footage from a teen named Daisy who followed the exact “gender-affirming” progression explained above. Hearing and seeing the real video she recorded of her teenage self as she documented her F2M (female-to-male) transition made me sit up in my chair and lean in. Her first-person account is captivating and offers an ideal launching-off point for exploring the many factors that lie behind this transgender moment.
Daisy’s story is woven throughout the film and her frank and clear articulation of her experiences and the broader societal issues is one of the most compelling aspects of the film. And, as the film concludes, Daisy’s recent life events make for a wonderfully surprising and redemptive ending—or perhaps more accurately, a merciful gift and new beginning. The film’s conclusion brought my wife and me to tears.
DSM Depathologization
One of the insidious aspects of transgenderism uncovered in the documentary is medicine’s bowing the knee to the LGBT agenda. Plastic surgeon Patrick Leppert shines throughout the film in exposing exactly how this has happened. He explains that by the time plastic surgeons have patients referred to them for gender transition surgeries, the diagnosis and treatment plans are already well-established, frequently originating from a child’s self-diagnosis many years prior. Leppert explains:
You’ve got a thirteen, fifteen, seventeen-year-old young lady who’s going to have a mastectomy, and the plastic surgeon is relying on a diagnosis that was made by that child perhaps ten years before. And nobody has waived a flag on this and said, ”Wait a minute, what are we doing here?” The plastic surgeon at that point is a technician, and that is contrary to everything I learned as a surgeon.
Leppert also explains how the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, the definitive text used for psychological diagnoses) has been modified not because of any new research or data, but to fit the transgender narrative. Gender Identity Disorder has been depathologized into the more nebulous and neutral Gender Dysphoria, which then gives way to affirming a cross-gender identity, rather than treating what really is a body dysmorphic disorder.
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