Think about that. Where God is beautiful, we know beauty. Where God is just, we know justice. Where God is righteous, we know righteousness. Every attribute of God, we have, or have access to, on a smaller scale. And if not for original sin, we would have direct fellowship with God and would share in his all-powerful, all-knowing, ever-present Being.
And this brings us to the next gift that He gave us. When He made us, he gave us Free Will. But being all-knowing, He knew before-hand that we could not handle it. We would, at some point, inevitably act in our own self-interest, rather than in the interest of others; we would, sooner or later, make bad choices. And God knew this about us, yet He gave it to us anyway.
Mankind has philosophized about the "problem" of Free Will for ages. If God knows everything in advance, how can we think that we are free to choose? But if we have freedom to do whatever we want, then God could not possibly know how things will turn out--there are just too many variables. But this is false thinking, as it limits God: it makes Him out to be nothing more than a super-computer, using predictive analysis to foretell the future. But God is not all about algorithms, just like He did not make us robots. He gave us Free Will, so that we could choose to follow Him on our own, not just because He commands it.
His commands are the third gift He gave us. In the book of Romans, Paul speaks a lot about the Law. Without the Law, we would not be able to know what we are doing wrong, when our Free Will has allowed us to sin. Romans 7:7 says, "I would not have known what sin was except through the Law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the Law had not said, 'Do not covet.' " The Law was given so that men could be reconciled to God. He called out an entire race of people to follow the Law (after sin had entered the world). Where those men failed in keeping the Law, He allowed them to offer a sacrifice. In the case of a sacrifice, all of that man's sin would be transferred to the animal that was being offered, whether it was a bull, a lamb, or a dove.
The problem with the Law is that it is exclusive. The Jews, the people who were given the Law, believed that God would only love them, and not the Gentiles (all other people, the ones who were not Jews.) This is why it was so hard for them to accept the Sacrifice of Jesus, the Lamb of God, who was sent to take away the sin of the entire world. Their thinking was that God could not possibly love those who did not follow the Law. But Paul writes in Romans 11 that without the Law, Jews would not know what sin was.
So the greatest gift of all is Mercy. By God's grace, He gave men Free Will; and by His mercy, He gives them the Law to show where they failed, and Grace to everyone who has access to God, even those who do not know the Law. This is what Paul meant when he said, "For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that He may have mercy on them all." (Romans 11/32).
Does this mean that all will be saved, no matter what they believe, or what god they serve? Of course not. But those to whom He gave the Law know that without sacrifice they would never measure up. And those to whom He gave grace by offering His only Son as a sacrifice know that without mercy, we would be left out.
I know it would be easier to say, "Jesus is the greatest gift of all," or "Jesus is the reason for the season." Those statements are true. But they are so inadequate when describing God's gifts of mercy and grace. Most people alive today do not think they even need mercy or grace. Why would they follow Jesus? They will do just fine on their own--they can live life with the Free Will that God has given them, and not worry about the law, or sin, or sacrifice. Yet Jesus died for those people, too. I don't mean to be talking in circles, but we seldom think through the entire history of God's interaction with Man, or why it was even necessary to send a sacrifice. But as you think about Christmas, I would urge you to to think about the back-story, about why Jesus needed to come when He did, so that He could eventually sacrifice Himself for us. Thinking about this makes me feel very, very small.
Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable His judgments, and His paths beyond tracing out! Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been His counselor? Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen. --Romans 11: 33-36
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