As we enter another Christmas season, we do well to remember that we are under no obligation to keep any time for a holy rest other than what God has commanded in his Word, namely, the weekly Christian Sabbath. Nonetheless, it is always appropriate for us to meditate on the incarnation, including its connection to one of the traditions of the season: gift-giving. Our consumer culture has radically commercialized this tradition—we are under constant pressure to perceive the value of owning this product or enjoying that service. This Christmas season, as we meditate on the incarnation, let us guard ourselves against the grievous evil of covetousness and remind ourselves of God’s remedy for it.

A Grievous Evil

In the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon, calling himself “the Preacher,” observes: “Vanity of vanities! All is vanity” (1:2). He then asks: “What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun?” (v. 3). In other words, “What ultimate purpose may be found in this life, especially when it comes to those things for which we work?” He embarks on a quest to find purpose by a process of elimination, eventually concluding that it can only be found in something beyond this creation, namely, the one, true, and living God (12:13–14).

Solomon identifies many evils during his quest, but he only identifies one as a “grievous evil.” We see it for the first time in 5:13–14: “There is a grievous evil that I have seen under the sun: riches were kept by their owner to his hurt, and those riches were lost in a bad venture. And he is father of a son, but he has nothing in his hand.” His point is that no matter how much wealth we may accumulate, it can all be lost in an instant, which is why Jesus warns us: “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal” (Matt. 6:19).

A few verses later, in 5:16, Solomon says, “This also is a grievous evil: just as he came, so shall he go, and what gain is there to him who toils for the wind?” Even if we manage to retain wealth in this life, we will still lose it the moment we die. Wealth does not endure to eternal life, which is why Jesus commands us to “lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (Matt. 6:20).

Third, in 6:1–2, Solomon says,

There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy on mankind: a man to whom God gives wealth, possessions, and honor, so that he lacks nothing of all that he desires, yet God does not give him power to enjoy them, but a stranger enjoys them. This is vanity; it is a grievous evil.

Solomon now reveals the deeper principle. Even if we accumulate and retain all the wealth in the world, if we do not have hearts of faith and gratitude to God for it, we will be unable to enjoy it. Ironically, it will only serve to further aggravate and amplify our sense of discontent as our deepest need remains unmet. Even so Jesus warns us, asking, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36).

This is the vanity of wealth. Wealth promises good to the one who accumulates it. But since it has no power to set us free from sin and death, and it is not good in itself, it fails to deliver. The grievous evil Solomon identifies in Ecclesiastes is the same evil God exposes in the tenth commandment: “You shall not covet” (Ex. 20:17).

A Glorious Remedy

The Bible calls Jesus “King of kings and Lord of lords” (1 Tim. 6:15; Rev. 17:14; 19:16) as a revelation of the glorious truth that, as the eschatological Mediator, he has been given “all authority in heaven and on earth” (Matt. 28:18, cf. Ps. 2). Using this pattern of naming, we might also call him the Gift of gifts. Jesus calls himself a gift when addressing the Samaritan woman, saying, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water” (John 4:10, emphasis added). Jesus is both the gift of God, namely, the only begotten Son sent from the Father, and the giver of the gift of living water, by which he means the Holy Spirit. Isaiah identifies Jesus similarly, saying, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given” (9:6). In this verse we see hints of the hypostatic union in prophetic form. A human child will be born on earth as the seed of the woman (Gen. 3:15), and in the same event the only begotten Son will be given from heaven by the Father. Gabriel tells Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). Having been sent from the Father into the world, Jesus is clearly the gift of God. But how is he the Gift of gifts?

The Substance of This Gift

The value of a gift is, in part, determined by its substance. When a man proposes, he gives his fiancé a diamond ring as a gift. The size and purity of the diamond and the weight of the gold is directly proportional to its value. The larger and purer the diamond and the heavier the gold, the more valuable the ring. 

So, what about the substance of the only begotten Son? John begins his gospel, saying, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Later, Jesus teaches the crowd the same, saying, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). These and many other texts teach us that the Father and the Son are of one divine substance. They are consubstantial.

This year marks the 1700th anniversary of the First Council of Nicaea. The great burden of that council was to dogmatically pronounce that the Father and the Son are consubstantial. As the creed says, the Son is “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, being of one substance [homoousias] with the Father.” Thus, in the giving of the Son, the God who “has all life, glory, goodness, blessedness, in and of himself” (Westminster Confession of Faith 2:2), has given us himself. This is the most fundamental covenant promise, namely, “They shall be my people, and I will be their God” (Jer. 32:38; cf., Lev. 26:12 and Rev. 21:3). To have God is to have every possible good. This is what Paul means when he says,

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. . . . I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Phil. 3:7; 4:12–13)

In this sense, Jesus is the Gift of gifts. 

The Form of This Gift

The value of a gift is also a matter of its form. Returning to the marriage proposal analogy, when a man proposes to a woman, he doesn’t typically give her a handful of gold flakes and a diamond in the rough. He gives her gold that has been formed into a ring, sized just right, and studded with a well-faceted diamond that maximizes its brilliance.

We see the value of God’s gift of his only begotten Son similarly. Paul writes that the Son,

though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Phil. 2:6–8)

The One who is the very form of God—which for God is no different than his substance!—in the fullness of time took the form of a human, a servant. “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14). Thus, God bridged the gap between himself and humanity in a new and final way (Gen. 28:12; John 1:51). John puts it this way: “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only begotten God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known” (John 1:17–18, author’s translation). He is the substance of all God’s covenant promises (2 Cor. 1:20) and the fullness of God’s self-revelation to man (Col. 1:19). “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world” (Heb. 1:1–2). So, Paul tells us, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). In this sense as well, Jesus is the Gift of gifts.

The Function of This Gift

The value of a gift is also a matter of its function. Think about the marriage proposal again. If a man just gives a woman a diamond ring, the ring would be a valuable gift. But as part of a marriage proposal, it takes on a whole new significance and value.

The gift of God may have started with the incarnation, but it did not end there. The Father sent his Son to accomplish a mission. Jesus teaches the crowd, saying,

I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. . . . For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father. (John 10:14–15, 17–18)

The Father gave his Son that the Son might give himself for his sheep. Jesus laid down his life on the cross as a propitiation for our sins that he might take it up again in his resurrection from the dead and advance us with him into glory. But God does not save us from sin’s guilt only to leave us under its power and influence.

Besides forgiving our sins, granting us right standing before himself, and guaranteeing our eventual reception of glorified life—all by faith alone—he also works to sanctify us. So, we confess,

They, who are once effectually called, and regenerated, having a new heart, and a new spirit created in them, are further sanctified, really and personally, through the virtue of Christ’s death and resurrection, by his Word and Spirit dwelling in them: the dominion of the whole body of sin is destroyed, and the several lusts thereof are more and more weakened and mortified; and they more and more quickened and strengthened in all saving graces, to the practice of true holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. (WCF, 13.1)

One of the several lusts that is progressively weakened and mortified in our sanctification is the grievous evil of covetousness. And one of the saving graces that is progressively quickened and strengthened is the faith by which we recognize that God is the giver of every good and perfect gift (Jam. 1:17). It is by this faith that we are enabled to live in a spirit of genuine love, thanksgiving, and contentment, truly enjoying and wisely managing all of God’s other gifts, like temporal wealth. Part of what it means to wisely manage temporal wealth is to be generous with it, using it for the building up of others. Paul writes, “You will be enriched in every way to be generous in every way” (2 Cor. 9:11).

Jesus is the Gift of gifts not only because he is the greatest possible gift, but because he enables us to enjoy all other gifts in a spirit of thanksgiving, contentment, and generosity. In this season of giving, let us guard ourselves against the grievous evil of covetousness by remembering the remedy God has given in Christ and exclaiming with the Apostle, “Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!” (2 Cor. 9:15).

The author is pastor of Grace OPC in Lynchburg, Virginia. New Horizons, December 2025.