Article II - Of the
Word, or Son of God, Who Was Made Very Man
The Son, who is the
Word of the Father, the very and eternal God, of one substance with the Father,
took man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin; so that two whole
and perfect natures, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood, were joined together
in one person, never to be divided; whereof is one Christ, very God and very
Man, who truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried,
to reconcile his Father to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for
actual sins of men.
Sometime around the end of B.C. or the
beginning of A.D. Jesus was born in
Bethlehem. That was when Jesus was born.
That wasn’t when Jesus BEGAN.
Cause He has always existed. Jesus was, is, and had always been the 2nd
person of the Trinity, better known as the Word of God.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through
Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. (John 1: 1-3)
In Bethlehem, “the Word became flesh
and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten
of the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1: 14)
In the conception and birth of Jesus
(known as the Incarnation), God used
the virgin Mary’s genetic material to create for Himself a physical human
body. This was a unique event, but not
entirely unprecedented.
And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he
slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then
the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He
brought her to the man. (Genesis 2: 21, 22)
See what God
did there?
God reached into a part of Adam’s body,
and without the contribution of a 2nd parent, God used Adam’s genetic material to form a
different physical body for another unique human person. She was named Eve.
And that’s what God did for
Himself. The Nativity story (Christmas)
is about how God reached into Mary’s body, and without the contribution of a 2nd
parent, used Mary’s genetic material to form a unique human body. He was named Jesus.
And BORN into the world, the eternal Word
is the Son of God.
God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past
to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His
Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the
worlds …
For to which of the angels did He ever say: “You are My Son, Today
I have begotten You”?
And again: “I will be to Him a Father, And He shall be to Me a
Son”? (Hebrews 1: 1, 2, 5)
Into Eve’s body, God breathed the
breath of life just as He’d done for Adam.
That breath created a unique living soul and mind that were one with the physical body.
Into the rapidly dividing fetal cells
in Mary’s womb, God breathed HIMSELF.
The Word joined to that flesh and became one with the body.
“The Word became flesh.”
That’s why even when Mary was in her 1st
trimester, the prenatal Jesus’ Divine nature was apparent to those who were
spiritually sensitive enough.
And it happened, when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that
the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Then she spoke out with a loud voice and
said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of
your womb! (Luke 1: 41-42)
The New Testament Incarnation of God in
the flesh was unique, but it wasn’t unprecedented.
In Genesis 18, “the Lord appeared to
Abraham by the terebinth trees of Mamre, as he was sitting in the tent door in
the heat of the day” (Genesis 18: 1).
God appeared as one of three men (Genesis 18: 2, 3). The other two were angels accompanying Him
(Genesis 19: 1.
When God and the angels appeared, Abraham
fell all over himself trying to be a good host.
Abraham said, “Please let a little water be brought, and wash your feet,
and rest yourselves under the tree” (Genesis 18: 4).
You see? This wasn’t just a VISION of the Lord. This was God Himself inside real flesh and
blood. He walked. His feet got dirty. He looked like He could use a drink of
water.
God and His angels reciprocated
Abraham’s hospitality by actually, literally, PHYSICALLY eating Sarah’s
cooking.
Abraham took butter and milk and the calf which he had prepared,
and set it before them; and he stood by them under the tree as they ate
(Genesis 18: 8).
Millennia before the birth of Jesus,
God demonstrated that He is capable and willing to create a physical body for
Himself and walk around in it, interacting with people and the world.
So, we can’t argue ---- from a Biblical
perspective---- that God would NEVER accept the limitations of a literal,
physical form as the New Testament says He did.
We can’t say that, because the Old
Testament shows that God had done it before.
Only in the New Testament, God chose (cause
God can do whatever He wants) to construct that body in Mary’s womb from Mary’s
genetic material, and instead of just taking that form for a few hours, the
Word of the Trinity inhabited that body for 33 or so years and then resurrected
it --- forever.
For more than 3 decades, God lived as
one of us.
While the Word “dwelt among us,” God was
still God, present everywhere, knowing everything, never diminished, never
divided.
Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not
count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking
the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in
human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even
death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5-8)
Jesus, the Christ, the Word made flesh, the Son of God---- was gestated
and birthed. He lived and grew. He experienced all of the reality of human
life, good and bad, just like every human before and since. But He did it with perfection.
Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed
through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our
confession. For we do not have a High
Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points
tempted as we are, yet
without sin (Hebrews 4: 14, 15)
God was a better man than man had ever been. Which was why Jesus, the God-Man, died on the
cross.
God had set up a simple system.
In Genesis, He created Adam and Eve into a perfect world: no sickness,
no sin. And as long as humanity stayed
out of sin, death stayed out of humanity.
The sting of death is sin (1 Corinthians 15: 56)
Of course we screwed that up, which created a genetically
transmitted debt for all and each of humanity.
For the wages of sin is death (Romans 6: 23)
This is what we call “Original Sin.”
Notice that death is the WAGE of sin, not the fine or penalty. The 100% fatality rate among human beings is
not so much the judgment for each person’s sin as it is our well-earned compensation. It’s a flat rate pay system. No matter when you enter the market, how long
you stay, how well or badly your colleagues scale your performance as a sinner,
you get what we all get: death.
Think about the parable of the laborers in Matthew
20.
So we all get to die, and then our lives are judged in the penalty
phase of eternal judgment.
And as it is appointed for men to die once, but AFTER this
the judgment (Hebrews 9: 27)
In the Old Testament law, God codified a system by which sacrificial
death could atone for sin. The problem is my own physical death is an
insufficient sacrifice to pay off my sin account.
For my sins to be cleared, something or someone must die FOR me.
But what or Who has enough life in them that their death could
cover the wages of their sin AND satisfy the penalty phase of mine.
Look at it geometrically.
A human life is a line segment.
Our mortal lives have a distinct beginning and a distinct end.
The life or an angel or other spiritual creature would be graphed
as a ray.
A definite beginning (because they are created) but no
definite end (because they are immortal).
God has neither end nor beginning. God began the beginning and ends the
end. Like a line.
More accurately, God is infinite, transcending even the
concepts of beginning and end.
∞
Get it?
No other normal human being can die for MY sins. A human life is too short, too limited to cover
somebody else.
Each person’s death is covered under the wages of their own
sin. And even if someone else’s death-wages
were applied to me, it would first have to go toward their own sin, and would
still be insufficient for the debt.
Let’s say that God let a holy, sinless angel die in my place.
After all, the life of an angel can extend indefinitely. Surely that would be enough to cover me. Perhaps, but angels are created beings,
confined to time as well. The angel
would only be able to die for one person at a time. Which means that a separate angel would have
to die for each person, or the same angel would have to be crucified over and
over and over each time some new human was born or died or sinned.
The sacrificial system of a life for each sin or sinful life
is fair but untenable.
For the law, having a
shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the
things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually
year by year, make those who approach perfect. For then would they
not have ceased to be offered? For the worshipers, once purified, would have
had no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices there
is a reminder of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take
away sins. (Hebrews 10: 1-4)
So, to bring salvation from sin to EVERYBODY; living, dead, not
yet born, present at the sacrifice, somewhere else when the sacrifice was made----
everybody, then the sacrificial offering would have to be perfect and transcendent. The
sacrifice must have life that extends to all places and all times at the same
time. In other words, the sacrifice had
to be omnipresent.
The sacrifice has to be of the same sinful genetic flesh common to
all humans but without any sins of His own.
The sacrifice had to be perfect, eternal, and infinite.
∞
Such a sacrifice would have to be man and God at the same
time.
The only possible sacrifice for the sins of the world had to be
Jesus.
And as it is
appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment, so
Christ was offered once to bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly
wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation. (Hebrews 9: 27, 28;)
And every priest
stands ministering daily and offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which
can never take away sins. But this Man, after He had offered one
sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God, from
that time waiting till His enemies are made His footstool. For by
one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified. (Hebrews 10: 11-14)
And that is why Jesus died, literally, physically died on a Roman
cross during a Jewish festival.
Salvation is not a figure of speech. It is a literal reality. Jesus’ death was not a spiritual passing
away, a figurative faint, or a Divine sleight of hand. Jesus’ heart stopped beating, his brain
activity went to zero, his respiration ceased.
He biologically DIED, just like every other human has or will.
Jesus’ death was not a myth, a publicity stunt, or a
mistranslation. At least you and I
should hope it wasn’t because if Jesus did not die in the way prophesied in the
Old Testament and recorded in the New, then we are all eternally screwed.
Without the death and resurrection of Jesus, we are all stranded
in sin without a sacrifice sufficient to pay the sin debt we owe after our sin wages
are collected.
Fortunately, the Bible is true.
For unto us a Child is born; unto us a Son is given. And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9: 6)
The Bible is so deep that it can blow
your mind, but it’s also mind-blowingly true.
And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness:
God was manifested in the flesh,
Justified in the Spirit,
Seen by angels,
Preached among the Gentiles,
Believed on in the world,
Received up in glory. (1 Timothy 3: 16)
That’s deep.
That’s wonderful. That’s Jesus.
And these are just the fundamentals.
Anderson T. Graves II is a writer,
community organizer and consultant for education, ministry, and rural
leadership development.
Rev. Anderson T. Graves II is pastor
of Miles Chapel CME Church (5220 Myron Massey Boulevard) in
Fairfield, Alabama; executive director of the Substance Abuse Youth
Networking Organization (SAYNO); and director of rural
leadership development for the National Institute for Human Development (NIHD).
Friend me
at www.facebook.com/rev.a.t.graves
