This is the season when we celebrate the incarnation of
Christ. Our culture, of course, has deliberately rejected (and
therefore almost completely forgotten) what Christmas
originally signifiedCthe coming of Christ to earth. In fact,
Christ has been systematically excluded from the public
celebration of His birth. I'm amazed at the number of stores
and other businessesCincluding some of the largest
corporations in AmericaCthat officially instruct their
employees not to mention the name of Christ during
Christmas. It's such an absurd thing no one would have
imagined it 50 years ago. In those days, public expressions of
religion were officially forbidden behind the so-called iron
curtain, and Americans were appalled at the tyranny that
tried to control people's minds and suppress their spiritual
convictions that way. But here we are, in a supposedly
democratic culture ruled by courts that hate the God who
first gave them the law they exist to uphold. It's an irony you
should think about if you haven't.
But nevertheless, this time of year, we still hear a lot of
talk about peace and goodwill toward men; it just has
nothing to do with Christ anymore. There's still a vague
recollection that Christmas is supposed to have something to
Luke 2:52 2
do with giving, and joy, and love. But in a culture devoid of
any true love for Christ, all those things have basically been
re-imagined as disembodied virtues. Love, joy, peace, and
goodwill all sound sweet and nice when people talk about
them, but no one has any idea what they really look like
anymoreCbecause Christ was the embodiment of every
virtue, and once you set aside His incarnation, you lose
perspective on virtue itself.
Hollywood and the major media like to illustrate love,
joy, and goodwill towards men with cartoon
charactersCreindeers, elves, snowmen, Grinches, and
whatever. And that robs virtue of reality. No wonder our
culture is so lacking in true virtueCand doesn't really
appreciate virtue any more.
I was listening to a mix of Christmas music not long ago.
And these days, most of the Christmas music played in
public places consist of warm-sounding pagan songs like
"Chestnuts roasting on an Open Fire," and "Grandma got run
over by a Reindeer," and stuff like that.
But (I can't remember if it was a radio station or a
Starbucks store), but suddenly I realized they were actually
playing "Hark the Herald Angels." And it was a pretty
jazzed-up version, and I got to thinking about how totally
incongruous it is to hear a modern secular jazz orchestra
playing an arrangement of a song that has these words:
The Glory of the Incarnation 3
"Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, Hail the Incarnate deity.
Pleased as man with men to dwell, Jesus our Immanuel."
Well, that got me to pondering the theology of the
incarnation. We're thinking about the incarnation of Christ
this month, so let's turn back to Luke 2 and take another look
at Jesus' humanity this morning.
Since we worship Christ as God, I suppose we naturally
think of Him as God more easily than we think of Him as a
man. Some of you have probably defended the deity of
Christ when Jehovah's Witnesses come knocking at your
door.
But Jesus' humanity is an equally important doctrine. It's
amazing to realize that Jesus was God, and it is important to
defend His deity against those who attack that truth. But it's
equally amazing to realize that eternal God became a real
man, and that He was every bit as human as you and me.
Historically, the heretics who have denied the humanity of
Christ have made shipwreck of the faith just as badly as
those who err in the matter of His deity. The twin truths of
Jesus' deity and His humanity truths are both vital. It is
important, but extremely difficult, to keep them both in
balance.
Both Jesus' deity and His humanity are stressed in
Scripture. Just as surely as Scripture teaches that Jesus is
God, it also declares plainly that He is human. Nothing
anywhere in Scripture can be construed as a denial of the
truly
a
Luke 2:52 4
humanity of Christ. Nowhere does the Bible ever declare that
Jesus' deity makes Him something more than a man, or
something other than human. Scripture never allows the
divine nature of Christ to overshadow or diminish the human
nature. On the contrary, everything Scripture says about
Jesus' role as our Savior depends on the fact that He is fully
and completely a man.
First Timothy 2:5 makes this as clear as it can possibly be:
"There is one God, and one mediator also between God and
men, the man Christ Jesus." Hebrews 2:17 also suggests Jesus'
humanity was essential to His saving work: "He had to be
made like His brethren in all things, that He might become a
merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to
make propitiation for the sins of the people."
You'll find a particular stress on Jesus' humanity in the
later epistles, because even during the apostolic era, the
earliest gnostics were already beginning to deny the true
humanity of Christ. That's why the apostle John wrote, "Many
deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not
acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the
deceiver and the antichrist" (2 John 7).
So Scripture says this is a crucial doctrine, and not some
minor point. Don't become so singularly focused on the deity
of Christ that you begin to think of His humanity as
something secondary or optional. The doctrine if Christ's
humanity is no less important than His deity.
The Glory of the Incarnation 5
And let me give this word of caution, too: Don't ever
think of these truths as contradictory. Jesus is fully God and
fully man. Some people regard those as contradictory ideas.
You'll occasionally hear a well-meaning Christian say
Christ's deity contradicts His humanity, but we need to
affirm both truths anyway. I say this a lot, but it's worth
repeating: Don't ever think of difficult truths like these as
contradictions. By definition truth cannot be
self-contradictory. And we are not supposed to think of
Jesus' deity and His Humanity as antithetical ideas. The truth
of one does not and cannot exclude the reality of the other. If
you start to imagine these things as contradictory, you'll
either become imbalanced in your Christology, or end up
thinking that truth itself is irrational.
Jesus' deity and His humanity are both true, and perfectly
compatible with one another.
That's not to suggest that we are capable of fully
comprehending these truths and explaining to everyone's
satisfaction how Jesus can be both God and man
simultaneously. Let's be honest: the Person of Christ is a
doctrine that cannot easily be explained in a way that
satisfies the human mind. This is difficult stuff. The Person
of Christ fits in the category of truths like infinity, or
timelessness. In the words of Psalm 139:6, such truth is "is
too wonderful for [us]; it is too high, [we] cannot attain to it" (Ps.
139:6). The incarnation is like nothing else in our
Luke 2:52 6
experience. There is nothing else to compare it to or illustrate
it with.
We are in the presence of mystery. Paul, quoting what
seems to have been one of the hymns of the early church,
calls it "the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the
flesh" (1 Tim. 3:16). This doctrine is inscrutable,
unfathomable, beyond our ability to comprehend. Yet it is
taught with utmost clarity in the Word of God, and we must
affirm it as true.
Now it won't do biblically to give lip service to the
humanity of Christ, but then try to place him in a
superhuman category that renders His humanity
meaningless. You hear people do this all the time: "How can
I follow Christ's example? After all, He was perfect because
He was God. That can't be the standard God holds me to, can
it?"
But it is the standard God holds us to. First Peter 2:21-23
says,
For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ
also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to
follow in His steps, who committed no sin, nor was any
deceit found in His mouth; and while being reviled, He did
not revile in return; while suffering, He uttered no threats,
but kept entrusting Himself to Him who judges
righteously.
There's no analogy for it.
The Glory of the Incarnation 7
Don't miss what Peter is saying: Jesus is our example in His
humanity, not in His deity. He revealed to us what God
designed the human race to be. Yes, He was sinless. But He
was "tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin" (Heb.
4:15). Because "He Himself was tempted in that which He has
suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted"
(Heb. 2:18). And this is what makes His humanity such a
glorious truth.
Now, if you have turned to Luke 2, we're going to look at
one of the few verses about the childhood of Christ, and it is
one of the most difficult verses in all of Scripture: Luke 2:52.
This verse, speaking of Jesus in his boyhood, says "[He] kept
increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and
men."
That verse teaches several vital truths about the humanity
of Christ. First of all, it emphasizes how utterly normal Jesus'
childhood and youth were. There is no hint of anything
spectacular or atypical about Him. Of course He behaved
perfectly. If you think about it, He must have been a parent's
dream. Verse 51 says He was continually in subjection to His
earthly parents.
But aside from His sinlessness, there was nothing
extraordinary or miraculous about Jesus' childhood. Some of
the apocryphal books tell fanciful stories about the child
Jesus and silly miracles he supposedly did as a child. (By the
way, how do we know those tales are false? Because John
Luke 2:52 8
2:11 says the miracle at the wedding in Cana was the first
miracle He ever performed.) Jesus' childhood was
unremarkable except for the fact of His sinlessness.
I'm glad Luke 2:52 is in Scripture, because it answers a lot
of questions I would have asked about the humanity of
Christ. Look at the verse again: He "kept increasing in wisdom
[that's intellectual growth] and stature [that's physical
growth] . . . in favor with God [that's spiritual growth] [and in
favor with] men [that's social growth].
Intellectually, physically, spiritually, and socially, Christ
was fully human, and Luke expressly says that He grew and
matured in those areas. Let's look at His humanity from those
four perspectives. First, considerC
1. HIS HUMANITY FROM AN INTELLECTUAL PERSPECTIVE
Did you ever wonder how Jesus could grow in wisdom?
How could an omniscient being gain any knowledge or
wisdom?
The answer is that during His earthly ministry, Jesus laid
aside the free, independent exercise of His divine
omniscience. There were things Jesus did not know in the
realm of His human consciousness. Would it offend you if I
said the earthly Jesus was ordinarily subject to the normal
limits of human ignorance? Leon Morris was an Australian
Bible scholar who wrote a number of very helpful books. His
best-known book, perhaps was The Apostolic Preaching of
the Cross, and he is one of the best when it comes to
The Glory of the Incarnation 9
understanding the cross and the biblical meaning of
atonement. But he also wrote an excellent book on the
incarnation of Christ, titled The Lord from Heaven. Here's
what He wrote about the limitations of Jesus' conscious
human knowledge:
Often [Jesus] asked questions. We are not unfamiliar with
the person who asks questions when he already knows the
answers, e.g. a schoolteacher; but Jesus does not appear to be
acting like this. When, for example, He asked the father of
the epileptic, "How long is it ago since this came unto him?"
(Mk. ix. 21) the impression we get is that He wanted the
information.1
In other words, Scripture gives us every indication that Jesus'
mind normally worked the same as any human mind. His
human brain did not perpetually contain the fullness of all
truth that was available to Him in his infinite and omniscient
mind as God. He had access to that knowledge, of course,
but He normally kept it veiled even to His own human mind.
Now there were times, of course, when Jesus knew things
it would have been humanly impossible to know. Luke 9:47
tells us He knew what the disciples were thinking in their
hearts. He knew the marital history of the woman at the well
in John 4. He knew the precise moment when Lazarus died
1. Morris, 45.
Luke 2:52 10
(Jn. 11:11-14). And John 2:25 tells us "He did not need
anyone to bear witness concerning man for He Himself knew
what was in man."
Those were times when the window of divine knowledge
was open to Him. He knew those things because it was
essential to His saving work to know them. He knew those
things because the Father willed that He should know them.
Jesus Himself explained His relationship with the Father
during His time on earth: "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can
do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father
doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also
does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows
Him all things that He Himself is doing" (Jn. 5:19-20).
So when we see Jesus asking questions, the most natural
way to interpret the biblical text is to assume that He
genuinely did not know the answer and He was asking in
order to get it. Sometimes we see His divine knowledge and
His human limitations displayed side by side. When a
woman in the crowd touched the hem of His garment and He
asked, "Who is the one who touched Me?" (Lk. 8:45-46), Peter
said, "Master, the multitudes are crowding and pressing upon
You." But Jesus said, "Someone did touch Me, for I was aware
that power had gone out of Me." It is certainly consistent with
what Scripture teaches about the incarnation of Christ to
interpret that passage in its natural sense. Although Jesus
seemed to know that a miracle had occurred. Someone had
The Glory of the Incarnation 11
touched Him, and power went out of Him. But He did not
seem know who it was that touched him.
It is no slight on the character of the savior to say that
there were things He did not know while He was on earth.
He Himself explicitly stated that He did not know when His
second advent would be. Mark 13:32-33 says this: "Of that
day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor
the Son, but the Father alone. Take heed, keep on the alert; for
you do not know when the appointed time is."
The limitations in His human knowledge were fully
consistent with the plan of God. They didn't make Jesus less
than God. They were temporary, purposeful, and deliberate.
They are no blemish on His divine character. It helps to
remember that ignorance per se is not sinful. Part of our
humanity involves limited knowledge. Ignorance. It's not a
sinful ignorance, but a natural human limitation. And it is
therefore part of what Christ assumed when He took on
humanity.
That is how Christ could grow in knowledge like any
other person. If He had retained full use of His omniscience,
it is hard to see how He could have suffered all that we
suffer. Some degree of ignorance is at the very essence of
our humanness.
Leon Morris wrote,
Think how very different life would be for the student if he
knew from the beginning of the year what questions
Luke 2:52 12
would turn up in His examination paper! What vistas of
bliss and ease the prospect opens up! . . . Ignorance is an
inevitable accompaniment of the only human life that we
know . . . . If this was the manner of it {if Jesus lived life
knowing all the secrets of the universe], then the life Jesus
lived was not a human life."2
Now, I'm going to say something that runs the risk of
confusing you, but I need to say this as plainly as possible
lest anyone goes out of here with a wrong idea: None of this
denies Jesus' omniscience. He did not divest Himself of His
omniscience when He took on humanity. Christ's deity
means He is immutable. He cannot change. Hebrews 13:8
says "He is the same yesterday, and today, and forever." He
could never give up His essential attributes.
So how is it that there were things He did not know in His
humanity? Right away, we have hit upon one of the most
tricky mysteries of the incarnation. Don't ever get the idea
that Christ's humanity means He gave up His deity, or even
some of the attributes of deity. The language of Philippians
2:7 can be misleading if you're not extremely careful. It uses
a Greek verb that is sometimes translated "empty"Cin fact,
the New American Standard version translates Philippians
2. Morris, 46-47.
The Glory of the Incarnation 13
2:7 this way: "[He] emptied Himself, taking the form of a
bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men."
But that does not mean he emptied Himself of His deity.
He willingly made Himself nothingCor in the words of the
King James Version, "He made Himself of no reputation." But
He certainly did not empty himself of his divine attributes.
Peter Lewis is a pastor in Nottingham, England, and has
written a very helpful book called The Glory of Christ. In it,
he says this:
We must be very careful here not to imagine, as some have
done, that at the incarnation our Lord "left behind"
something of his Godhead or its attributes. God exists in the
perfection of his attributes. Take away any of his perfections
and you no longer have God. You cannot have reduced
Godhead. There is God and there is not-God: but there is
nothing in-between!3
Here's a helpful way to think of it: Notice that Philippians
2:7 says that Christ emptied himself by "taking the form of a
servant," not by losing the form of God. The form of a
servant was added; the form of God was not set aside. The
nature of man was added; but equality with God was in no
sense diminished. He gave up the independent use of His
divine attributes, and took on a human nature. It was not the
3. Peter Lewis, The Glory of Christ, 233.
Luke 2:52 14
subtraction of His divinity, but the addition of a human
nature that made Him who He is.
And in some way that we cannot fully understand, Christ
voluntarily limited the use of His omniscience while on
earth. That's the only way to understand Mark 13:32, where
Jesus says He did not at that time know the timing of His
second coming. We cannot say that He gave up His
omniscience. But we can't insist that He always made full use
of His omniscience, either, because Scripture clearly tells us
he did not.
As God, Jesus retained all the divine attributes, but as
man, he voluntarily laid aside the free, independent exercise
of those attributes. How that worked is not explained in any
detail for us, but we don't need to understand it to know that
Scripture plainly teaches it is so. Christ clearly did not
simply "give up" His deity or "empty Himself" of any of the
divine attributes. In fact, we see all of them manifested from
time to time by Christ. But normally He did not use them. He
lived His life voluntarily subject to the normal limitations of
humanity. His humanity was a kind of veil for His deity, and
he only pulled back that veil when it suited the Father's
purposes.
But for the most part, it pleased the Father that Christ
should be truly like us in every sense, fully human. He
shared every aspect of our humanity except for our sin. And
The Glory of the Incarnation 15
that means that in some mysterious way, he was subject to
the normal limitations human knowledge.
Now considerC
2. HIS HUMANITY FROM A PHYSICAL PERSPECTIVE
Just as our Lord relinquished the independent use of His
omniscience, so He temporarily laid aside the autonomous
use of His omnipotence. He was subject to the same physical
limitations you and I feel. John 4:6 tells us He grew weary.
Matthew 21:18 says, "He became hungry." When He fasted,
He had the same gnawing hunger you and I would have. We
know He experienced thirst, because we remember that
moment on the cross when He asked for something to drink.
If Jesus had not assumed those physical limitations, He
would not have been fully human. More important, if He had
not had a normal human body, He would have been unable to
die for us. That's why He said in Hebrews 10:5, "A body Thou
hast prepared for Me."
Physically, He was exactly like every other person.
Here we face a similar issue that helps shed light on how
Christ as God could retain His omniscience, yet as a man be
subject to normal human ignorance. As God, He is
omnipresent, right? But as a man, He could not be in Jericho
and Jerusalem at the same time.
But was there a sense in Which Christ was spiritually
omnipresent, even during His earthly incarnation? Yes.
Luke 2:52 16
Remember Matthew 18:20, "For where two or three are
gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." I
believe that was true in some sense even while Christ was
here on earth. Notice His use of the present tense. He
remained God, even while He walked on earth. Colossians
1:17 says, "he is before all things, and by him all things hold
together." And Hebrews 1:3 says He is "the radiance of
[God's] glory and the exact representation of His nature, and
upholds all things by the word of His power"Cso that even
while Christ was on earth, He was simultaneously holding all
the universe together.
John Calvin wrote this:
[Although] the Word in his immeasurable essence united
with the nature of man into one person, we do not imagine
that he was confined therein. Here is something marvelous:
the Son of God descended from heaven in such a way that,
without leaving heaven, he willed to be home in the virgin's
womb, to go about the earth, and to hang upon the cross; yet
he continuously filled the world even as he had done from
the beginning!4
Again, this is an incredible mystery, but it does not
diminish the real humanity of Jesus, who could grow tired,
4. John Calvin, Institutes, 2:13:4.
The Glory of the Incarnation 17
and hungry, and even be so utterly exhausted that He would
sleep through a tempest on the sea of Galilee.
In His humanity, He was subject to the same physical
limitations as you and me. That means the exhaustion that
kept Him from being able to bear His own cross all the way
to Calvary was a genuine bone-weariness. He felt it in its
fullness. And the pain he felt from the tortures of the
crucifixion was real, excruciating agony. He felt that, too in
all its fullness.
But I have to move on. Let's talk aboutC
3. HIS HUMANITY FROM A SPIRITUAL PERSPECTIVE
When tells us Jesus grew "in favor with God," he certainly
cannot mean that God's love for the Son increased as He
matured. It simply means that the Father was well-pleased
with the growth and spiritual maturity of the Son. Luke 4:16
tells us it was His custom to observe the Sabbath by
worshiping in the synagogue. He was faithful in His prayer
life, often even rising before sunup to pray in solitude (Mark
1:35), and sometimes even praying all night (Luke 6:12).
Prayer was characteristic of His life.
As we noted earlier, Jesus underwent the most acute
temptation. He was tempted in the wilderness at the
beginning of His ministry, after a forty-day fast, when He
was in a weakened and hungry condition. He nevertheless
defeated Satan by using the Word of God.
Luke 2:52 18
He was tempted just as intensely at the end of His
ministry in the garden, when His soul was in utter agony.
We'll look at that account more closely in a moment.
But for now, the point is this: Jesus' temptations were real,
earnest, passionate struggles. It makes nonsense of Scripture
to suggest otherwise. These temptations were powerful
spiritual wrestlings: He was tempted in all points like we are.
People always want to know the answer to the
hypothetical question of whether Christ could have sinned. I
believe He could not, because He would not, because He is
totally pure and there is nothing in Him that would incline
Him to sin. Perhaps someday we'll have time to delve into
this question more fully.
But don't underestimate the reality of Jesus' temptations,
just because He was without sin. The temptations He faced
were no less powerful than the ones you face. If anything,
they were more powerful. Yielding to temptation is easy;
resisting is the real torture. The person who yields to sin's
enticement never feels full force of it. Only the person who
resists knows the full extent of temptation. Jesus experienced
a degree of temptation that is unparalleled, unfathomable to
us. Yet He held steadfast, sinless, pure through it all. He
experienced the full force of temptation precisely because He
did not yield.
Leon Morris wrote this,
The Glory of the Incarnation 19
To think of Jesus as going serenely through life's way with
never a ripple of real temptation to disturb His even course is
to empty His moral life of real worth, and to prevent us from
seeing in Him our Example. His sinlessness did not result
from some automatic necessity of His nature as much as
from His moment-by-moment committal of Himself to the
Father. He overcame. But it was a real victory, over real
temptation.5
Hebrews 5:7-9 explains a little more what Luke meant when
he wrote that Jesus grew in favor with God. It says,
In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and
supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to
save Him from death, and He was heard because of His
piety. Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from
the things which He suffered. And having been made
perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source
of eternal salvation.
That's a quick look at Jesus' humanity from a spiritual
perspective. So He grew intellectually, physically, and
spiritually. Now considerC
5. Morris, 52.
Luke 2:52 20
4. HIS HUMANITY FROM A SOCIAL PERSPECTIVE
Jesus loved people. He called His disciples "friends" (Jn.
15:13-15). The apostle John described himself as "the
disciple whom Jesus loved" four times in his gospel (19:26;
20:2; 21:17; 21:20). He had all the social cravings that are
natural to humanity. The scene in the garden on the night of
His betrayal shows this aspect of His humanity in a
fascinating way. He clearly wanted the disciples nearby. He
took all eleven of them with him to the garden, leaving them
within a stone's throw of where He was praying. He brought
Peter, James, and John even closer, though He actually
moved far enough away that He could pray in solitude (Luke
22:41). He obviously wanted them to be nearby, praying
with Him.
Jesus had all the appetites and passions inherent in sinless
humanity. It is clear that He experienced the full range of
human emotions. Scripture never dwells on images of Jesus
laughing or merrymaking with the disciples, but He certainly
knew what is to be joyful. We would expect that. He had
normal, healthy social relationships, and there are times in
His words where flashes of real humor show through. He
was by no means a morose or melancholy personality type.
In John 15:11, He told the disciples, "These things I have
spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may
be full."
The Glory of the Incarnation 21
On the other hand, Scripture does stress the fact that Jesus
experienced all the same kinds of negative feelings we often
go through in this life. Matthew 26:37 records that He was
"grieved and distressed." And when Lazarus died, "He was
deeply moved in spirit, and was troubled" (John 11:33).
Scripture tells us He wept (v. 35). It was real sorrow. He was
"a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief," according to
Isaiah 53:3.
He was also clearly troubled by the prospect of His own
death. Luke 12:50 records this statement, spoken long before
the time of His death arrived: "I have a baptism to undergo,
and how distressed I am until it is accomplished!"
His final night in the garden of Gethsemane shows us His
humanity as starkly as any other account recorded in the
gospels. He told His disciples, "My soul is deeply grieved, to
the point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me" (Matt.
26:38), then "He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face"
to pray (v. 39). Luke 22:44 tells us that "being in agony He
was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of
blood, falling down upon the ground."
What was He praying for? Matthew 26:39 records the
words of His prayer. This is an honest prayer of human
agony: "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me."
Scripture is giving us a very human picture. This is a glimpse
of His humanityCfearful, troubled, in deep distress, longing
to be released from His ordeal. But this is no wavering of His
Luke 2:52 22
divine intent. He is not backing out from the cross. Notice
that the ultimate desire of His prayer was not expressed in
the words "let this cup pass," but in the words that
immediately follow that phrase: "yet not as I will, but as Thou
wilt."
I said He was fearful, and perhaps that makes you uneasy.
But this was not a sinful, faithless fear. It was very natural,
human dread of what He knew He was about to undergo. It is
crucial that we see this. Not until we realize the depth of
human passion He felt does the reality of His agony and
suffering make its full impact on us.
We've covered this before, and perhaps we'll look at Jesus'
agony in the garden more closely one of these days.
But before we close let me quickly note how important it
is to be precise in our thinking about the person of Christ and
His humanity. The pages of church history are strewn with
the corpses of heretics who decided what the church really
needed was some novel explanation of the person of Christ.
These are not areas where theological novices ought to feel
free to experiment. This is one area where the people of God
have shared a common understanding for hundreds and
hundreds of years.
If you study church history, particularly early church
history, you learn that during the first three or four centuries
after Christ, the church was racked with doctrinal
controversy about the person of Christ. Early heretics all
The Glory of the Incarnation 23
seemed to fall into error at this crucial point. Some denied
the deity of Christ, some denied his humanity. Others
concocted strange, complex explanations of who He is and
how He relates to the Father.
A wide array of different teachings caused a tremendous
amount of confusion and discord among early Christians.
The Ebionites insisted that Jesus was a mere manCthe holiest
of all men, but no more than that. The Apollinarians
acknowledged His deity but denied that He had a human
soul. The Nestorians made Him both God and man, but in
doing so made Him two persons in one bodyCa man in
whom the divine Logos dwelt rather than a single person
who was both human and divine. The Eutichians, the
monophysites, and the monothelites went to the opposite
extreme. They all found various ways to fuse the divine and
human natures of Christ into one new nature. The Arians
claimed He was not God, but the highest of all created
beings. And most of the gnostics taught that Jesus' human
body was only an illusionCwhich was a denial that He was
truly human.
Church councils were repeatedly called to decide between
these differing views. As soon as one issue was settled,
another would surface and need to be dealt with. Finally, in
451, the council of Chalcedon issued a statement about the
Person of Christ that has stood as the definitive test of
orthodoxy from that time until now. In that statement they
Luke 2:52 24
said that Christ is "to be acknowledged in two natures
without confusion, without change, without division, and
without separation". They said that "the distinction of
[Christ's two] natures [is] by no means taken away by the
union, but rather the property of each nature [is] preserved,
and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted
or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and
only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ."
The genius of that statementCthe element that put an end
to incessant heresies on the nature of ChristCis found in the
phrase "two natures without confusion, without change,
without division, and without separation." Those four
negative statements forever defined and delimited how the
person of Christ is to be understood. G. C. Berkhouwer
called those four negatives "a double row of light-beacons
which mark off the navigable water in between and warn
against the dangers which threaten to the left and to the
right."6
The fact is that every heresy that has ever surfaced with
regard to the person of Christ either fuses or separates the
deity and the humanity of Christ. Chalcedon declared that the
two natures can be neither merged nor disconnected. Christ
is both God and man. Truly God and truly man.
6. Berkhouwer, 85.
The Glory of the Incarnation 25
Here's an interesting fact you may never have considered:
Jesus will be forever exalted as the God-man. He ascended
into heaven in human form, and He sits today at the right
hand of God the Father in human form. From there He
ministers as our Great High priest, ever making intercession
for us, one who is fully touched by the feeling of our
infirmity, because He was in all points made just as we
areCyet without sin.
He is not a mere man, or He could only be in one place at
one time. The limitations of His earthly existence are now
cast off, and the free and full exercise of His divine attributes
is unhindered by His glorified humanity. As A. A. Hodge
wrote, "in the wholeness and fullness of both natures, he is
inexhaustible and accessible by all believers in heaven and
on earth, at once and for ever."7
He is still both God and man, so when we pray to Him
even now, we are praying to someone who knows our
struggles and shared our infirmities and even was tempted in
all points like as we are. Hebrews 2:18: "Since He Himself was
tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the
aid of those who are tempted."
So isn't that an encouragement?
7. A. A. Hodge, Evangelical Theology, 199.
Luke 2:52 26
These are precious truths. I can't think of any truth that
makes my heart more glad. Hebrews 4:15 says something
similar: "We do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize
with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all
things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with
confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy
and find grace to help in time of need."