The Christmas story began with a tree

I have given up on live Christmas trees. I went with an artificial tree about five years ago, and it's a lot easier. I pull that baby out, plug it in, and we're good to go. Then, after Christmas, it goes back into the box. Artificial trees are looking a lot better than they used to.

The first Christmas story begins with a tree, but not our kind of Christmas tree. It was called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This tree was located in the Garden of Eden, where the Lord had placed Adam and Eve in a literal paradise, with radiant beauty at every turn, exotic wildlife and the perfect climate. Best of all, there was no sin or guilt or shame.

God himself would show up there every day to take a walk with his friend Adam. In fact, the Bible tells us the Lord would come to Eden in the cool of the day, which almost sounds as though God took on some kind of human form to walk and talk with Adam.

God gave Adam and Eve only one restriction in Eden: Stay away from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Don't go there.

So where do we find Adam and Eve next? At the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

TRENDING: Bombshell memo declassified by Trump: It looks like FBI slow-walked investigation into Hillary campaign

That is so typical. That is just like us, isn't it? It's like saying to a child, "Do not go in that room."

Where do you find that child next? In the very room you said was off-limits. That is just our nature.

Of course, you know the rest of the story about Adam and Eve and how they listened to the serpent and ate the forbidden fruit. After that happened, they lost their sweet fellowship with God. And then the Lord came to the garden, calling out to Adam, "Where are you?" (Genesis 3:9 NIV)

Did God ask this question because he was oblivious to where Adam was? No. God knew exactly where Adam was and what he had done, and God wanted Adam to confess it.

That is what parents try to get their kids to do when they get into trouble. When my boys were growing up, I had a little trick I used to draw out a confession. I sat them down and said, "I already know what you did. I know everything. If you tell me the truth, the punishment will be less than what it would be if you lie to me. Tell me everything."

Usually I would get some information I didn't know about. But after a while, they became wise to this. When I gave them that fatherly look and said, "Tell me," they would look right back at me as if to say, No way! We've fallen for this before!

The difference between earthly fathers and God is that God actually does know everything. He knew everything that had happened at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; he just wanted Adam to own up to it. But Adam didn't do that. Instead, he made an excuse – the first excuse we know of in human history.

See all 22 Greg Laurie books and movies in the WND Superstore

Adam said, "The woman you put here with me – she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it" (Genesis 3:12). In other words, This is not my problem. It is not my fault. I was happy hanging out with the animals. I take a short nap. I wake up. A rib is missing. And she is here!

Then God gives us the Bible's first Christmas verse, addressing his words to the devil: "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel" (verse 15).

The battle lines were drawn. God was saying to the devil, "Game on. The Messiah is coming. And he is going to crush you."

The Christmas story didn't begin in the gospel of Matthew. It didn't begin in Luke. It began in the Old Testament. Jesus has always been there.

John 1, speaking about Jesus, says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" (verses 1–5).

In contrast to Matthew and Luke, which give us different aspects of the Nativity, John takes us back – way back. He points to eternity past, going back further than our minds can imagine.

Before there was a world, before there were planets, before there was light and darkness, before there was matter, before there was anything but the Godhead, there was Jesus. Jesus Christ – coequal, coeternal, and coexistent with the God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. He was with God. He was God.

Jesus was Deity in diapers. God became an embryo. He did not become identical to us, but he became identified with us. In fact, he could not have identified with us more closely than he did. It was total identification with us, without any loss of his identity. He became one of us without ceasing to be himself. Jesus, who was God, became a man.

When we think of the first Christmas, we think of it as the birth of Jesus, and technically it was. But that is not when Jesus began. He has no beginning or end. He is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last.

Yes, there was a moment when God made a decision to descend from heaven to earth and be born in a manger as a helpless little infant. Isaiah 9:6 sums it up perfectly: "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

From our perspective on Earth, a child was born. But from God's perspective in heaven, a son was given. It was when God became a man.