Jeff Carter
It struck me in this season of celebrating the incarnation—the event of God becoming man—that it might be helpful to explore what the incarnation is really all about. Unfortunately, this idea brings up so many questions; it can be difficult to know where to begin.
The mystery of God in human flesh. How can Christ be both God and man simultaneously? How can one person have two natures? How do these natures interact? Was it necessary for the Messiah to be God to be able to save us? Why was it necessary for God to become man? These questions and many more surround this challenging word, “incarnation.” Fortunately, the Bible is very clear on these issues. As we will see, Christ is most certainly God, and clearly is also man. Within His one person He has two natures—which are not divided or confused. And the incarnation of God was absolutely necessary in that Messiah had to be God to be able to save us and had to be man to be qualified to redeem us.
First, we will examine the deity of Christ as proved by His claims and also by His names. Christ did not come out and say in so many words, “I am the eternal God,” but He did claim for Himself deity in many ways. Some of the statements He made include: “When you have seen Me, you have seen the Father” (John 14:9), “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30), “…before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58). In this last citation, Jesus is claiming to be the very voice of the burning bush, the eternal God Yahweh. Especially convincing is the fact that on the many occasions when His enemies took up stones to stone Him for blasphemy, He refrained from utilizing these opportune moments to clarify for those threatening to kill Him, that this was all just a big misunderstanding…that He did not really mean to call Himself God. Similarly, when His disciple Thomas clearly worshipped Him as God, Jesus again did not correct Him (John 20:28).
Along with the identity claims made by Jesus, His deity is evident by the prerogatives He claimed. He claimed to have the power to forgive sins (Mark 2:5); the power to give life (John 5:21); the authority to judge the world (John 5:22); and He did the miracles to prove it. Jesus claimed equality with God, the rights of God, and the authority of God. He claimed to be God’s counterpart on earth, and He accepted prayer, praise and worship. He claimed power over all life, space, and time, claimed to determine people’s eternal destiny, claimed to be their savior, and came to make God known.
The ultimate test to determine whether or not Jesus is truly God is to examine how He matches up with the presentation of God in the Old Testament. There are countless examples in the New Testament in which we find Old Testament quotations referring to God, then being attributed to Jesus. The only time God ever identified Himself by name was in Ex. 3:14 wherein He told Moses He should be referred to as “I AM.” As I mentioned, Jesus called Himself by that name in John 8:58. A title used of the Father in the Old Testament and of Jesus in the New Testament was “the first and the last;” in Isa. 44:6, and Rev. 1:7. It was said of God that “every knee should bow,” in Isa. 45:23, and of Jesus in Phil. 2:10-11. These are but a few examples. Jesus is called the Son of Man, the Son of God, the Messiah, Lord, the Alpha and Omega; and is even called God in John 1:1&18; John 20:28; Rom. 9:5; Tit. 2:13; Heb. 1:8; and 2 Pet. 1:1. It is clear from even these few quotations that the Bible unequivocally presents Jesus as deity–the Pre-existent One, the eternal God, Yahweh.
Yet the scripture also presents Jesus as being a man. In Gen. 3:15 and Isa. 9:6, the Old Testament prophesied that the Messiah would be a man. In John 1:14 and Heb. 2:14 it says that Jesus became flesh and partook of flesh. Luke 2:7 indicates that He was born like every other baby. He is consistently referred to as a man, or son of man in Scripture. He is from the line of David (Rom. 1:3), and is a descendant of Abraham (Gal. 3:16). There is nothing in Scripture to even suggest that He was somehow not a man.
It is clear that Jesus had both a human as well as a divine nature but the next question is how do these two natures interact? Was it that the divine element of Jesus did the miracles and the human element did the human things? Jesus had two natures but is always referred to and described as one person (1 Tim. 3:16). There are many references to the works of Jesus that indicate that they were not performed in conjunction with only one of His natures. He is one person and He performed the works. The names and titles referring to Him that underscore His humanity are used when He does divine works (John 6:62). Conversely, His divine names are used in conjunction with His human endeavors (1 Cor. 2:8). So, it is not His Deity that does the miracles and His humanity that engages in mortal enterprises–He is one person and it is the one person that works.
But how can He be both God and man at the same time? In the incarnation, it was necessary for Christ to take upon Himself the limitations of finite humanity. This is described in Phil. 2 which is known as the “kenosis,” or emptying of Christ. Some have taught this entailed Him giving up His deity. What He gave up though, did not include any of the divine attributes, for that would be impossible (God cannot cease to be God)–He merely voluntarily restricted the independent use of those divine attributes, or prerogatives. The incarnation was actually a gaining of human attributes rather than a giving up of divine attributes. He merely added a human nature to His divine nature. The union of the two natures meant that they did not function independently. Yet, this union necessarily placed restrictions on how the divine could operate. He still had the power to be omni-present, but He chose to limit Himself from exercising that prerogative. So, within the person of Jesus, the two natures cannot be divided, and also cannot be confused (or somehow melded together). They are totally distinct and yet work in conjunction with and perfect harmony with one another.
Another dimension is added when looking at the way the Old Testament redemption took place. Because of the law of the “kinsman-redeemer,” the one who paid the price of redemption had to be a kinsman of mankind, and thus had to be a man (Rev. 5:2). Put simply, if Christ was not human then we were not redeemed. It was just as essential for our redeemer to be human as it was for Him to be God. The book of Hebrews presents additional ideas as to why God becoming man was necessary. Jesus had to die to render Satan powerless (Heb 2:15). He had to be human to be qualified to represent us as high priest (Heb 2:17). In addition to being necessary for redemption, His being human is also comforting in that he is able to come to our aid and sympathize with us when we are tempted or when we fail because we know He experienced all that we experience, and was tempted as we are, yet without sin (Heb 2:18, 4:15).
Because of the nature of the human predicament, namely, a life of constant sin terminated by death, with no possible way of reconciling oneself back to God, and no hope of ever dwelling in God’s presence; this perfect solution, that was established from the foundation of the world; the devising of the solution of the God-man was the only viable one. Christianity is superior to all other means or methods man has imagined for reaching up and making himself acceptable to God, because it offers a person, not a system. It is exactly the opposite of all other approaches, it is not man-imagined and it is not man reaching up, it is God reaching down—it is God’s answer to our dilemma. It is not based on human effort, which always, ultimately results in frustration, exhaustion, and failure. No other religion has a solution for the problem of death. We no longer have anything to fear, Jesus conquered death once and for all at the cross. He offers a place and a person wherein we can rest. We can also have confidence of victory–we know how the story ends. Fighting the battle knowing the victory is already won makes all the difference. We not only have assurance of the results, but He also provides power for daily living. Knowing that God became man and understands experientially what we are going through gives us the comfort and encouragement we need to be able to tackle the struggles of life. And it also gives us the confidence that God has indeed conquered sin and provided a way for mankind to be reconciled back to Himself. Have a blessed New Year confident in the saving power of our Meshiach.
-Jeff