The incarnation: a "new creation"

"(The infancy) narratives (of Matthew and Luke) are concerned to stress the divine initiative in the Christ event. “The birth narratives have as their centrepiece the entrance of the supernatural into ordinary human life, Something is about to happen at God’s initiative, unprecedented in the history of the world” (Buckwalter 1996: 800). Jesus is not just a rare human being who emerged from within human history through, as we might say, a chance combination of heredity, environment, and the opportune time. The Christ event represents God's unique action within history; it is the work of God’s Holy Spirit bringing about a new creation.

"The virginal conception “indicates that God himself made a new beginning in the course of the history of his creation by coming himself in person and becoming part of that history. He himself originated this particular human life by a new act of creation. Jesus Christ is not a saviour arising ou­t of the continuity of human history, but God in person intervening in it, coming to the rescue” (Cranfield 1988: 189; cf. Piper 1964: 141-48).

"It is Luke who makes explicit the connection between the virginal conception and Jesus’ divine Sonship: “The child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God” (Luke 1:35)." -- Charles H. H. Scobie, "The Ways of Our God", pp. 394, 395

Christ is Christmas 365

Quote from the 1951 adaptation of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" starring Alistair Sim:

"We spirits of Christmas do not live only one day of our year; we live the whole 365. So is it true of the child born in Bethlehem; he does not live in men’s hearts only one day of the year, but in all of the days of the year. You have chosen not to seek him in your heart. Therefore, you shall come with me and seek him in the hearts of men of goodwill." -- Spirit of Christmas Present (Francis De Wolff), Scrooge (1951)

This quote is *not* in the book, meaning its an interpretive insertion from either Brian Desmond Hurst, the producer, or Noel Langley, the screenplay writer.