Hb. 5:1-11, What do ya’ know: Jesus is the God-Man (4)

 3)    Why was it necessary that the Christ be fully God and fully Man?

a)    John 1:18: It was necessary for revelation.  God revealed Himself in creation, conscience and history.  This was a true revelation but was incomplete.  Then God revealed Himself through the prophets and the people of Israel in the Old Testament.  This was and continues to be a strong description of God.  But there is nothing better than for God Himself to come.  And He did it through His Son, not an angel, not God’s partner, not a famous person or any other One but His Son.  The only begotten of God, who is one with the Father, gave us the clearest and strongest revelation of God possible.

b)    2 Cor. 5:19,21: It was necessary for reconciliation.  God required a sinless sacrifice to pay the price for sinful men.  Only God could be that One.  But this righteousness had to be proven.  The Christ had to be one of us, to live the life we live; He had to be one with us in life, as well as death.

c)    Heb. 2:14-17: It was necessary for deliverance.  Death is not just an “event.”  It is a power, power to imprison sinners.  By God’s plan and permission, the Devil held this power.  As God told Adam, in the day you eat of the tree you will surely die.  Even though He didn’t immediately die physically he became bound by spiritual death, a culture of death if you will.  We were slaves of sin, the end result being that we lived in death (Rom. 6:20-21).  But Christ became flesh and blood so He might experience the death event, so that through His resurrection He might destroy the one (the Devil) who had the power of death.

d)    Heb. 2:17-18; 4:15: It was necessary for intercession.  This involves Jesus’ role as our High Priest.  One qualification for any High Priest is that he must be from the same “crowd” that he represents before God. Every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in things pertaining to God (Heb. 5:1).  In this way the priest can plead with God on behalf of the people.  He knows their weaknesses.  That can be said of Christ: In that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.

      e)   Heb. 5:1-11: It was necessary for salvation.  What we needed in a High Priest was not just one who could sympathize with our weaknesses.  We needed one that could satisfy the payment for our sin in such a way that we would never need to offer another sacrifice.  Christ cannot offer a sacrifice unless He is a priest.  But He cannot be a priest unless He is one of us.  The sacrifice, to meet our need, must be one involving a sinless Lamb.  In a perfectly sensible but surprising move, Christ became both High Priest and Lamb of God.  It could only happen if the Christ who was One with God came to earth to become One with us. 

Lk. 1:26-38, What do ya’ know: Jesus is the God-Man (3)

We have supported from Scripture the fact that Jesus was fully God and fully Man, that the two “natures” existed fully in the one Person.  But we learn from Scripture more than that, in answering this question:

1)    How did Jesus become the God-Man?

a)    Jesus “took on” (Phil. 2:7) and “became” (John 1:14) the God-Man through the Virgin Birth.  This was revealed in Isaiah’s prophecy in 7:14: Therefore the LORD Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son and shall call His name Immanuel.  This prophecy was quoted in Matt. 1:22-23 as having been fulfilled in the birth of Jesus Christ.

b)    What we know about the details of the mysterious event are seen in the conversation Mary had with the angel Gabriel in today’s passage. 

i)      Christ was born of a woman.  This fulfilled the very first prophecy of the coming Savior in Gen. 3:15 (cf. also Gal. 4:4).  The point is: He came into this world through the womb of a woman like any human.  From the time of the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve and their descendants knew that the Savior would be a “human being” like them.  Eve even seemed to think that Cain (Gen. 4:1) and then Seth (Gen. 4:25) might have fulfilled the promise.  But both of these men were sinners, needing the Savior like their parents.

ii)   Christ was born of a virgin (Lk. 1:27).  Mary did not come to be with child through Joseph or any other human.  This would have resulted in the Child being born with the same sinful nature as all humans have.  Instead …

iii)            Christ was born of God (Lk. 1:35).  God worked a miracle in Mary, even as He had worked a miracle in the original creation of Adam and Eve.  Thus the Christ had no sin nature and was thus “innocent” as Adam was before he ate the forbidden fruit in the Garden.  That is why Jesus Christ was referred to as “the last Adam” (1 Cor. 15:45).  The first Adam sinned and brought sin upon the human race; the last Adam lived a righteous life and through His death and resurrection defeated death and brought life to all who receive Him (Rom. 5:12-19 gives a detailed contrast of these two “Adams”).

iv) Therefore, because Christ had no sin, and committed no sin, the Divine Nature and the Human Nature could reside fully in the same Person.

c)    How can you destroy this glorious doctrine?  Some disbelieve it, comparing it to pagan myths that depict gods having a sensual relationship with mortals.  These are just myths; and the result is a half-god/half-human creature, not the glorious Savior of Scripture.  Others confuse the Virgin Birth by their exaltation of Mary.  Some teach that Mary also was preserved from sin (declared by Pope Pius IX Dec. 8, 1854).  Others teach she, like Jesus, ascended to heaven without actually dying (declared by Pope Pius XII Nov. 1, 1950).  These are not taught in Scripture and deny the fullness of Jesus as Son of God/Son of Man!

Phil. 2:1-11, What do ya’ know: Jesus is the God-Man (2)

Let’s begin with another quote, with some things highlighted by me.

… one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten recognized in TWO NATURES, WITHOUT CONFUSION, WITHOUT CHANGE, WITHOUT DIVISION, WITHOUT SEPARATION; the distinction of natures being in no way annulled by the union, but rather the characteristics or each nature being preserved and coming together to form one person and subsistence, not as parted or separated into two persons but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, Lord Jesus Christ. (Council of Chalcedon, 451 AD)

In support of this let us call upon two great passages in Scripture on this doctrine: John 1:1-18 and Phil. 2:5-11. (More extensive studies of these passages are found in previous posts on our blog: Nov. 28-Dec. 5, 2014; Feb. 14-28, 2019.)

i)      John 1:1,14: The Word was God and the Word became flesh.  The word “became” tells us there was a change from the eternal nature of the Son and the nature of the Son in the Incarnation and forever after. 

ii)   Phil. 2:6-8:  This passage describes the voluntary “humiliation” of the Lord Jesus.  The word “form” appears twice.  To begin with, Jesus was in the form of God (v6).  Then He took on the form of a bondservant coming in the likeness of men (v7).  We need to think about this term “form.”  Being in the form of something or someone means having all that is necessary to be that thing or that person. 

(1)                        What did it mean that Christ Jesus was “in the form of God?”  It did not mean that Jesus had the same “body” of God because the Bible teaches that God does not have a body.  He is “spirit” (John 4:24).  But He was fully God, from eternity (since God, be definition, is eternal). 

(2)                        What did it mean that Christ Jesus “took on” the form of a bondservant coming in the likeness of men?  It means He took on all that it takes to be a man, including a body (Heb. 10:5-10, Jesus had the body God prepared for Him.  Man also has a soul and a spiritual component by which he can have a relationship with God.  Jesus had these as well.  On the other hand, remember that Adam was a “Man” before he sinned.  Jesus had no sin nature because sin is not essential to being a Man. 

(3)                         How could the eternal lifegiving Son of God become the Son of Man, able to suffer and to die, without becoming less God or being less Man?  The answer is in v7: He “made Himself of no reputation.”  Literally this means He “emptied Himself.”  He emptied Himself of the right to live as God in this fallen world.  He did not cease to be God, but He did not diminish His humanity in any way by using His divine powers to shield Himself from sin.  This is the only way that satisfies our need to believed all that the Bible says about Jesus. 

Psalm 118

We hope you enjoyed reading this magnificent Psalm.  It begins and ends the same, with the familiar call to praise: Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.  And no Psalm gives the proof of God’s goodness and mercy any better than this one.  And if you will allow one of your slightly misguided worship songs to be properly redirected, you will see what I mean. 

Do you sing that little chorus, This is the day, this is the day, that the Lord has made, that the Lord has made.  I will rejoice, I will rejoice and be glad in it, and be glad in it?  It is commonly sung as an encouragement to thank God for today, sung in the morning so we get a good start.  But I am sure you noticed that this song comes from this Psalm (v24).  And I hope you noticed as well: it refers to a particular day.  ONE DAY IN HISTORY.  The day the builders rejected the Stone who then became the Chief Cornerstone. 

It is a passage quoted often in the New Testament (Mt. 21:42; Mark 12:10; Lk. 20:17; Ac. 4:11; Eph. 2:20; 1 Peter 2:7).  It speaks of the day of Jesus’ death (the Stone rejected but thereby He became the Chief Cornerstone).  Reminisce with me for a moment.  Jesus referred to that day as your hour and the power of darkness (Luke 22:53).  It was a sad day, a difficult day, a time of the most severe affliction.  But Jesus also said, My Father loves me because I lay down My life that I may take it again (John 10:17).  Jesus willingly obeyed His Father.  He knew Psalm 118 (several of the quotes listed above were by Christ), that His Father is good and forever merciful; that He was on His side and for Him (118:5-7), that He could be trusted (118:8-9), that there would be total victory in the name of the Lord (118:10-12), that the cross and the bearing of our sins was the gate of the Lord through which the righteous shall enter (118:20).

So should we sing the praise of 118:24 early in the morning, at the start of every day?  Sure!  Absolutely!  But keep it Christ-centered.  It is the day of the cross that after three days would issue in the resurrection and after 40 days would take Him to the Father’s right hand.  If that day resulted in eternal goodness from God then certainly your day can count on no less.  Sing it at the outset of a day that you anticipate will be filled with trouble; your troubles will be nothing compared to those of the day of the death of our Lord.  Face today rejoicing over the day the Stone was rejected.  This was the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes (118:23).  As Christ was the willing sacrifice, bound to the altar of His cross (118:27) so you enter this day by willingly presenting your body as a living sacrifice, bound on the altar of the cross you have taken up as you follow Christ!

Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!  For His mercy endures forever.

Jn. 1:1-14, What do ya’ know: Jesus is the God-Man (1)

Let’s begin with a chart of Scripture that depicts Jesus as God and Man.

GOD	SCRIPTURE	MAN
Son of Highest	Lk. 1:32,35; 2:7	Son of Mary
Word was God	John 1:1,14	Word became flesh
Creator of the World	John 1:10	In the world
Son of God	Rom. 1:3-4	Son of David
God blessed forever	Rom. 9:5	Jew acc. to the flesh
Lord from heaven	1 Cor. 15:47	2nd Man (2nd Adam)
Son of God	Gal. 4:4	Made of a woman, born under the Law
Equal with God	Phil. 2:6-8	Became a man
Cleanses us	Heb. 2:11	Brother of those cleansed
God	Heb. 1:8; 2:14-17	Took part of flesh, seed of Abraham
God	1 Tim. 3:16	Manifest in flesh
Jesus Christ	1 John 4:2-3; 3 Jn. 7	Come in the flesh

“We believe that Jesus Christ was begotten by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary, and is true God and true man.”

1)    What do we mean that Jesus is the “God-Man”?

a)    Negative: here is what we do not mean:

i)      He was not fully Man but partly God, the doctrine of Jehovah’s Witnesses and the early Ebionites (Christ was a representation of God).

ii)   He was not fully God but partly man, the Apollinarian doctrine (that God was the soul of Christ.  The Arians taught that God was the human intellect or spiritual principle of Christ.)

iii)            He was not half God and half man, sometimes acting like God and other times like man.

iv) He was not God for part of His earthly life, also the Witnesses and Ebionites teach this (Christ came on the man Jesus at his baptism, left him at the cross).

b)    Positive: here is what we mean, taken from an early Church writing, The Tome of Leo, written June 13, 449.

Thus the properties of each nature and substance were preserved entire, and came together to form one person.  Humility was assumed by majesty, weakness by strength, mortality by eternity; and to pay the debt that we had incurred, an inviolable (unbreakable) nature was united to a nature that can suffer … For that ‘emptying of Himself,’ whereby the invisible rendered Himself visible, and the Creator and Lord of all willed to be a mortal, was a condescension of compassion, not a failure of power.

Eph. 1:3-14, What do ya’ know: God is Triune (5)

d)    A few of the many references to the Trinity in the NT.

i)      Let me mention a few passages that refer by “title” to the three Persons of the Trinity.  In Mt. 28:19 Jesus referred to the Trinity in the command to make disciples, baptizing them “in the name (singular) of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”  Paul’s benedictory prayer in 2 Cor. 13:14 spoke of the “grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit.” 

ii)   There is a wealth of Scripture in the NT that show the Trinity at work.  Remember that God is always at work doing His will in His people (e.g. Rom. 8:28; Phil. 2:13).

(1)                        Eph. 1:3-14: The Trinity is at work in our salvation.  The Father planned it (v3-6); the Son provided what was necessary for the plan to be fulfilled (v7-12), the and Holy Spirit applied the work of Christ to the believers (v13-14).

(2)                        1 Cor. 12:4-6: In ministry, we have gifts by the Spirit; ministry as appointed by the Lord, the head of the Church; and we bear fruit by the work of God who works all in all.

(3)                        In prayer we have access through the Lord Jesus Christ to the Father by the Spirit’s work in us (Eph. 2:18).

(4)                        We noted in yesterday’s post that all three were involved in Creation (Gen. 1:1-3; John 1:2).

(5)                        The Trinity was at work in the Crucifixion.  God sent the Son, His Son (John 3:16).  Jesus laid down His own life for the sheep (Jn. 10:18).  Christ offered Himself through the “eternal Spirit” to God (Hb. 9:14).

(6)                        And the Trinity was at work in the Resurrection.  God raised up Christ (Ac. 2:24).  Jesus not only had power to lay down His life; He had power to raise it up again (Jn. 10:18).  Christ was made alive by the Spirit (1 Pt. 3:18).

Let me close with a quote concerning the Trinity from J. Gresham Machen. 

"That doctrine is a mystery.  No human mind can fathom it.  Yet what a blessed mystery it is!  The Christian’s heart melts within him in gratitude and joy when he things of the divine love and condescension that has thus lifted the veil and allowed us sinful creatures a look into the very depths of the being of God."

Amen!

Isaiah 40:12-26, What do ya’ know: God is Triune (4)

c)    There are references to the “trinity” in the Old Testament, not to the specific term but to the concept of a “Triune Godhead.”

(1)            First, note the term “Elohim” translated “God” throughout the OT.  As you should be able to tell (since “im” at the end of a Hebrew term makes it plural), “Elohim” is a plural term.  It is similar (remember: there are no exact pictures of the Godhead on earth) to the word “team” or “family.”  These are  “singular” terms that imply plurality.  Now before we go any further, let me say I understand this by itself does not “prove” the Trinity.  “Mighty men” on earth are referred to as “elohim” (Ps. 82:6; quoted by Jesus in Jn. 10:34).  However, the Bible is clear: when used of the true and living God, “Elohim” is always used with a singular verb.  One God who is a plurality.  While the name itself does not prove “Triune” we would say emphatically that the Triune God would have a title just like this, one that states His plurality within His unity.  Please, read on.

(2)            Gen. 1:26: The Trinity was involved in Creation.  Let Us make man in Our image.  Remember: God created the heavens and the earth (Gen. 1:1).  It was not created by angels.  And the Trinity was present: God created, the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters (Gen. 1:2), and when God spoke everything into existence (Gen. 1:3) we see that the Word who was God and was with God and who created all things, Jesus Christ, was there (John 1:1-2,14).

(3)            Hosea 12:3-4: Here is a passage, like many in the OT, that equate God and the Angel of the LORD.  We have spoken of this often.  Go back and read the stories of Gideon and Samson in Judges and God’s conversation with Moses on Mt. Sinai (Ex. 32-33).  Here, Jacob struggled with God and with the Angel (Gen. 35:9-15).

(4)            Isa. 48:12-16: According to 48:12-15 the speaker is the Creator of heaven and earth.  Of this One it says “the LORD loved him” (v14) and “the LORD God and His Spirit have sent Me” (v16).

(5)            Zechariah 2:8-9: The context appears to be the same as in the Isaiah passage above.  “The LORD of hosts” is speaking (v8) and has been sent by “the LORD of hosts.”  This is repeated in Zech. 4:8-9: “the LORD” said, “the LORD of hosts has sent Me.”  These are references to the Messiah who is Immanuel, God with or among us!

Yes, I believe that readers of the OT should have known that the Messiah would be God in the flesh.  For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulder.  And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace (Isa. 9:6).

Isaiah 40:12-26, What do ya’ know: God is Triune (3)

b)    Another way we see the Triune God in Scripture is in the way each of them share attributes, actions and names that can only be attributed to God.  Our hope is that you will spend days studying the following passages as each is rich with important truth about God.  We have also shared a few application points concerning these “perfections of God.”

Attribute/ Act/Name	FATHER	SON	SPIRIT	Application
Eternal	Isa. 44:6	Rev. 1:17	Heb. 9:14	Dt. 33:27: Refuge
Creator	Ps. 100:3	Col. 1:16	Job 33:4	1 Peter 4:19
Omnipresent	Jer. 23:24	Mt. 28:20	Ps. 139:7	Ac. 17:27-28
Incomprehensible	Mt. 11:27	Mt. 11:27	Isa. 40:13
Omniscient	Ac. 15:18	Jn. 21:17	1 Co. 2:10	Hb. 4:13
Truth	Jn. 7:28	Jn. 14:6	1 Jn. 5:6	Rev. 15:4
Holy	Jn. 17:11,25	Ac. 3:14	Jn. 14:26
Good	Ps. 34:8	Jn. 10:11	Ps. 143:10
Sovereign	Eph. 1:11	Mt. 11:27	1 Co 12:11	Ac. 21:14:
Life	Ps. 36:9	Jn. 1:4	Ro. 8:10	Dt. 30:20
Gives life	Eph. 2:4-5	Jn. 5:21	Jn. 3:8
Strengthens	Ps. 138:3	Phil. 4:13	Eph. 3:16	Ps. 18:2
Comforts	Isa. 66:13	Phil. 2:1	Jn. 14:26
Sanctifies	Jude 1	1 Co. 1:2	Ro. 15:16
Love	1 Jn. 2:15	2 Co. 5:14	Ro. 15:30	Dt. 6:5
Speaks to us	Ezek. 2:4	Rev. 2:18	Ac. 13:2	Jas. 4:12
Indwells	1 Co 14:25	Col. 1:27	Jn. 14:17	Isa. 57:15
Fellowship with us	1 Jn. 1:3	1 Jn. 1:3	2 Co 13:14
YAHWEH	Ex. 20:2	Isa. 40:3/ Mt. 3:3	Ezek. 8:1,3	Dt. 6:4
God Most High	Ps. 92:8	Lk. 1:76/ Mt. 11:10	Lk. 1:35