When God Became Man
Big Idea: God the Son became human in Jesus Christ to show divine love, understand our struggles, and offer the only way to salvation.
If you haven't heard the recent debate about Jesus, you've obviously had your radios and televisions turned off. Reverend Bill Phipps, the new moderator of the United Church, believes that Jesus is not God and did not rise physically from the dead. About Christmas he says, "All the biblical stories surrounding the birth of Jesus evoke wonder and awe and majesty. But as soon as you want to reduce them to literal fact, they lose their power."
Hearing a religious leader question Jesus' divinity is becoming more common, which is concerning. It reminds us of the boldness of the Christmas story: that God came to Earth as his Son. In this enlightened age, who can really believe such a story? It's outrageous! We forget how startling a claim the Bible makes when it talks about Jesus being the Son of God, lying in a manger. And yet, I believe it's true.
One of the most startling verses in the Bible is found in John.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)
What a verse! That God became flesh and dwelt among us. No wonder some people have a hard time understanding and believing this! Another verse says:
Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great: He appeared in a body, was vindicated by the Spirit, was seen by angels, was preached among the nations, was believed on in the world, was taken up in glory. (1 Timothy 3:16)
That God the Son took upon himself a real human nature is a crucial doctrine of historic Christianity. From very early periods in the church, people struggled with this idea? How could Jesus Christ be both fully man and fully God? Some questioned his divinity. But some began to teach that Jesus did not have a real physical body or a true human nature. They argued that Jesus only "seemed" to have a body, but in reality, he was a phantom sort of being. But do you remember what John argued?
Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world. Any such person is the deceiver and the antichrist. (2 John 1:7)
In other words, if you deny that Jesus came in the flesh, you're of the antichrist. That's pretty strong language!
Others began teaching another falsehood: that Jesus did not have two natures, but rather one nature. This single nature was neither truly divine nor truly human, but a mixture of the two. This heresy is subtle, as it allows people to claim that Jesus was either a deified human or a humanized deity. G. Campbell Morgan, wrestling with the mystery of Christ's incarnation, wrote:
He was the God-man. Not God dwelling in a man. Of such there have been many. Not a man Deified. Of such there have been none save in the myths of pagan systems of thought; but God and man, combining in one. Personality of the two natures, a perpetual enigma and mystery, baffling the possibility of explanation.
In AD451, the great ecumenical Council of Chalcedon met and affirmed that:
...Jesus is truly man and truly God and that the two natures of Christ are so united as to be without mixture, confusion, separation, or division, each nature retaining its own attributes" (R.C. Sproul, Essential Truths of the Christian Faith)
Never forget: Jesus Christ was fully God and fully man in one person, and will be so forever. Did you get that last part? Jesus is still fully man today, and will remain so forever! For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. (1 Timothy 2:5) When Jesus left the earth, he ascended as a man into heaven, and he remains a man today. Now, if your circuits are overloaded, I'm not surprised. This truth is indeed mind-boggling and wonderful.
That's what we celebrate at Christmas. The real mystery of Christmas is that God became flesh and dwelt among us. God who created us became one of us. The God of infinite power and wisdom became human, experiencing human thoughts, emotions, and a soul. As Mary held and nursed that little boy, she must have been filled with awe: this was no ordinary child; he was God incarnate. Emmanuel means "God is with us."
What the Incarnation Means
The truth of the incarnation is something that we could not exhaust if we devoted years to it. But let me tell you what it means to us today. I'm going to start very simple, but simple truths are often the best truths.
God loves us.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
Most religions share the premise that an angry deity requires appeasement through human effort to earn divine favor. Christianity is unique in that it teaches God loved us deeply, giving his only Son, even while we were still sinners.
But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)
Think of the sacrifice that Jesus made in becoming a man. It boggles the mind to think that the creator of the universe became a baby in need of care. That he took upon himself a human body and thought with a human mind. That he worked as a builder for a living; that he was subjected to the attack of his own creatures. Ultimately, that the very source of life died for our sins. What love! What a sacrifice!
It means that God loves us. What else does it mean?
God knows what it's like to be human.
I really believe that in our zeal to emphasize the deity of Christ, many of us minimize his humanity. The Christmas hymn says,
The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes;
But little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes.
I want to ask Martin Luther, who wrote this beautiful hymn, "Don't you think the baby Jesus ever cried? Maybe Mary remembers!" I hope you don’t find it disrespectful to view Jesus as a crying baby who felt hunger and fatigue, and as a young child learning to walk and occasionally falling. If Christina could understand, I would tell her that Jesus knows what it's like to be a three-year-old child. Imagine! God, the one who created this world, knows from firsthand experience what it's like to be a three-year-old child.
But Jesus also knows what it's like to be an adult. Jesus prayed as we do. He felt compassion for people; he slept; he grieved over the death of a friend; he wept. He experienced the rejection of friends; he knows what it's like to experience excruciating pain. When we are hungry, weary, or lonely, he understands, for he has gone through it all himself.
As our great High Priest, the Bible teaches that Jesus is able to sympathize with us.
Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. (Hebrews 2:18)
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Hebrews 4:15-16)
Jesus experienced every kind of temptation a person can have, and yet was without sin. When you're tempted, your High Priest understands your struggle and can help you overcome it.
God loves us, and he knows what it is like to be human.
It allowed Jesus to become our great High Priest.
The concept of high priest is removed from us, but Hebrews describes who a high priest is and what he does:
Every high priest is selected from among men and is appointed to represent them in matters related to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. (Hebrews 5:1)
A high priest represents us in matters related to God, and he offers gifts and sacrifices for sins. A high priest needed to be chosen from among men to represent them before God. And he had to be called by God. To truly represent us, he had to be one of us.
The Bible teaches that men and women are alienated from God by sin. We needed someone to come between God and ourselves and to bring us back to him. The ideal candidate must represent us to God and God to us. Now who would be able to do both? Only one person has ever fulfilled this requirement. "For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5).
To act as our mediator, Jesus had to be fully man as well as fully God.
Can you see what would happen if these things weren't true? Can you imagine what would happen if God didn't love us enough to die for us? Can you imagine if Jesus wasn't able to sympathize with our struggles and temptations? Can you imagine if we didn't have Jesus to represent us to God?
The incarnation means that God loves us, that he knows what it is like to be human, and that Jesus could become our High Priest.
It means a lot of other things, too.
The Bible teaches that Jesus fulfilled God's original purpose to rule over creation. That he lived as a human to be our example and pattern in life – to show us how we should live our lives. He showed us that human life is not inherently bad—that physical nature is not something we should look down on. He demonstrated the pattern for our resurrected bodies by rising from the dead in an imperishable and glorious new body.
Here's the most important thing that Jesus' incarnation means:
It means that Jesus is able to save us.
I went to a funeral yesterday. I've never seen this happen before, but the son of the deceased gave a theological lecture on his church's teachings. One thing he said is that Adam's sin has nothing to do with us today – that we're not guilty because Adam sinned thousands of years ago. I was surprised because I had never heard that topic mentioned during a funeral service before. But I was also surprised for another reason.
The Bible teaches that we are counted guilty because of Adam's sin.
Therefore…sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned. (Romans 5:12)
This might be hard to understand, but God thought of us all as having sinned when Adam sinned.
Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous. (Romans 5:18-19)
When Adam sinned, God thought of all who would descend from Adam as sinners. In a sense, Adam was our representative in the Garden of Eden. We inherited not only guilt from Adam, but also a sinful nature. And don't worry. You might think it's unfair that God holds you responsible for Adam's sin. But trust me, you've sinned a few times yourself, for which God holds you personally responsible.
Jesus became our representative and obeyed for us where Adam had failed and disobeyed.
Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous. (Romans 5:18-19)
Jesus became the second Adam. Just as we inherited guilt and sin from Adam, we inherit righteousness from Christ.
In becoming a man, Jesus became the perfect substitute sacrifice. If Jesus hadn't have been a man, he couldn't have died in our place and paid the penalty that was due to us.
For this reason he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. (Hebrews 2:17)
Unless Jesus was fully man, he could not have died to pay the penalty for man's sins. He couldn't have been a substitute sacrifice for us.
Think of it this morning. Think of what it means that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. It means that God loves us. It means that God the Son knows exactly what it's like to live the human life. It means that he is perfectly qualified to act as our great high priest. That he was able to cancel the power of Adam's sin. That he was the perfect substitute sacrifice for us.
This is what it means that God became man.
