Great is the Mystery of Godliness Part 3
“God was manifested in the flesh”
I. The first element in the mystery: A seemingly impossible event. How can the Invisible God, Who Is Spirit, become flesh, take on the humanity of man,(Phil. 2:6-7) yet remain fully God as Col. 2:9 declares?
A. It is plainly declared in Scripture:
Matt. 3:16-17 Our Father in Heaven and His Eternal Spirit proclaim that the Son of God is a man. As Jesus, the Man, came up out of the water, the Father declares Him His Beloved Son, and the Spirit acknowledges Him as God’s Ark of Safety as prefigured in the dove no longer returning to Noah’s ark. (Genesis 8:6-12)
Matt. 17:1-8 Our Father again declares Jesus as His Beloved Son, the One Who exceeds the revelations of Moses and Elijah (the law and the prophets) and adds the all crucial commandment: “Hear Ye Him”.
John 1:1-18; I John 1:1-4, Acts 9:1-6, 13-17; I Peter 1:1-7 The witnesses that Jesus chose (Acts 1:8) testify constantly to this fact! The Apostle John, in the most “touchy feely” description of our Lord says this: “That which was from the beginning (Eternal), which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon (with wonder and awe), AND OUR HANDS HAVE HANDLED, concerning the WORD OF LIFE (see his commentary on this truth in John 1:1-18), the LIFE was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you, THAT ETERNAL LIFE WHICH WAS WITH THE FATHER AND WAS MANIFESTED TO US.”
John 8:17; 10:14-18, 27-33; 14:1-11; 17:20-29 Jesus, Himself, plainly declared that He and His Father are One, meaning that He is fully God. He stated this before His death and resurrection, while He was “in appearance as a man”, so much a man that the Jews sought to kill Him for claiming to be God.
To deny this truth is to deny the whole of Scripture. Without this truth, there is no true Christianity, there is no salvation, we are all dead in our sins, without hope in this evil world.
II. But why was this necessary, why this drastic “method”?
A. God chose to make man in His Own Image.
Gen. 1:26-27 “Let Us make man in Our Image, according to Our Likeness.”....”So god created man in His own Image: in the Image of God He created them: male and female He created them.”
Heb. 2:5-8 This is nearly a direct quote from Psalm 8:4-6: “You (God) made him (man) a little lower than the angels; You crowned him with glory and honor, and set him over the works of Your Hands, You have put all things in subjection under his feet.”
I think there is a lot more to God’s Image in created man than we usually think. We usually look for one thing, but there are several aspects indicated. Man as a relational being created as male and female, and in Heb. 2, his being given the stewardship of all God’s Creation.
Heb. 2:8b But then there is this: “But now we do not see all things put under him.” Created man’s “glory and honor” which requires inseparable union with his Creator, was lost, the Image marred, well nigh unrecognizable. Man is now not much higher than the beasts he was to oversee!
Gen. 3:1-13 The Image well nigh lost, union and communion with the Creator turned into hiding from the Creator.
Gen. 3:16-19 Man no longer the steward of God’s Creation, but now at the mercy of a creation in subjection to his own folly! (Rom. 8:18-22)
Gen. 3:23-24 Man’s doom apparently sealed.
God’s Glory and Honor, built into His Creation, is well nigh destroyed. Glimmers remain, but they are seen now only with they eye of faith.
III. Jobs’ Question
Job 9:1 “But how can a man be righteous before God.”
Job 9:32-33 “For He (God) is not a man, as I, that I may answer Him and that we should go to court together. Nor is there any mediator between us, Who may lay His hand upon us both.”
IV. God’s Mysterious Wonderful Answer!!!
A. Man’s Creator becomes Man, that He might be man’s Mediator, Redeemer.
Heb. 1:1-4 God sends His Own Son Who is so much more than Job’s desire. He doesn’t just lay His Hand on both, Jesus’ Hand IS both (I Jn 1:1-4), and His Will IS both(Heb 10:5-10), and his Mind IS both (Phil. 2:5-11). He is fully God in the likeness of man’s sinful flesh without the sin. (Rom 8:3; II Cor 5:21) He is everything that Adam was not, everything that Adam lost. He is the visibly expressed, exact Image of God. (Heb 1:3)
Heb 2:9 “BUT WE SEE JESUS” now notice–“who was made a little lower than the angels (vs 7), He Who was worshiped by angels (Heb 1:6-14), for the suffering of death (Jesus was made, in His Humanity, for the purpose of dying that He might turn satan’s victory into his defeat [as we will see in vs 14}), crowned with glory and honor (again vs 7). By grace that he might “taste death” for everyone.
Heb 2:10-13 Notice that our Jesus’ purpose is to “bring many sons to glory”. By uniting His Son to the “children whom God has given to me”, Jesus, the Creator/Savior restores the glory and honor that man was given in the original creation. But now it is secure and inseparable because God’s chosen ones (Eph. 1:3-7) are united to and in the Son of His Love!!!
Heb. 2:14 Here is the incredible summary of this great mystery of the Incarnation. Satan sought to destroy God’s glory and honor in His highest creation, man–God’s Image bearer. The Son of Man, Son of God, came and destroyed satan, in the weakness of our flesh (we die) by satans own weapon–death!
Heb. 2:15 In this Glorious Person and the Truth in Him is the freedom from death, its shaping bondage. Here is the Liberty of the sons of God. Here is the end of death’s sting.
Heb. 2:16 Now note! Jesus doesn’t give this “aid” (margin-take hold of) angels in this way. This is why they desire to look into this grand work of redemption. (I Peter 1:12) But notice that Jesus gives this aid, draws these people into this relationship) the seed of Abraham. It doesn’t say, “seed of Adam”. This establishes that Righteousness that Job longed for is the possession of those who are of faith, that is, “those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of is all.”
Heb. 17-18 Take note: “Therefore, in ALL THINGS He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a Merciful and Faithful Higg Priest in things that pertain to God, to make a propitiation for the sins of the peopel.
“FOR IN THAT HE HIMSELF SUFFERED, BEING TEMPTED, HE IS ABLE TO AID (TAKE HOLD OF) THOSE WHO ARE TEMPTED.”
Beloved, this is why God was manifested in the flesh: To bring you into His Glory and Honor, that the glory and honor of His Creation might be restored. That you might be liberated from the fear of death and the innumerable evidences of it in your existence, past-present-and future. To live in the Hope of Eternity, in a new heaven and new earth where Righteousness dwells (II Pet 3:13. To live in this Liberty requires only one “thing”. “Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith.” (Heb 12:1-2) And of course, “this is the work of God, that you believe in Him Whom He has sent.”
“God was manifested in the flesh”
I. The first element in the mystery: A seemingly impossible event. How can the Invisible God, Who Is Spirit, become flesh, take on the humanity of man,(Phil. 2:6-7) yet remain fully God as Col. 2:9 declares?
A. It is plainly declared in Scripture:
Matt. 3:16-17 Our Father in Heaven and His Eternal Spirit proclaim that the Son of God is a man. As Jesus, the Man, came up out of the water, the Father declares Him His Beloved Son, and the Spirit acknowledges Him as God’s Ark of Safety as prefigured in the dove no longer returning to Noah’s ark. (Genesis 8:6-12)
Matt. 17:1-8 Our Father again declares Jesus as His Beloved Son, the One Who exceeds the revelations of Moses and Elijah (the law and the prophets) and adds the all crucial commandment: “Hear Ye Him”.
John 1:1-18; I John 1:1-4, Acts 9:1-6, 13-17; I Peter 1:1-7 The witnesses that Jesus chose (Acts 1:8) testify constantly to this fact! The Apostle John, in the most “touchy feely” description of our Lord says this: “That which was from the beginning (Eternal), which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon (with wonder and awe), AND OUR HANDS HAVE HANDLED, concerning the WORD OF LIFE (see his commentary on this truth in John 1:1-18), the LIFE was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you, THAT ETERNAL LIFE WHICH WAS WITH THE FATHER AND WAS MANIFESTED TO US.”
John 8:17; 10:14-18, 27-33; 14:1-11; 17:20-29 Jesus, Himself, plainly declared that He and His Father are One, meaning that He is fully God. He stated this before His death and resurrection, while He was “in appearance as a man”, so much a man that the Jews sought to kill Him for claiming to be God.
To deny this truth is to deny the whole of Scripture. Without this truth, there is no true Christianity, there is no salvation, we are all dead in our sins, without hope in this evil world.
II. But why was this necessary, why this drastic “method”?
A. God chose to make man in His Own Image.
Gen. 1:26-27 “Let Us make man in Our Image, according to Our Likeness.”....”So god created man in His own Image: in the Image of God He created them: male and female He created them.”
Heb. 2:5-8 This is nearly a direct quote from Psalm 8:4-6: “You (God) made him (man) a little lower than the angels; You crowned him with glory and honor, and set him over the works of Your Hands, You have put all things in subjection under his feet.”
I think there is a lot more to God’s Image in created man than we usually think. We usually look for one thing, but there are several aspects indicated. Man as a relational being created as male and female, and in Heb. 2, his being given the stewardship of all God’s Creation.
Heb. 2:8b But then there is this: “But now we do not see all things put under him.” Created man’s “glory and honor” which requires inseparable union with his Creator, was lost, the Image marred, well nigh unrecognizable. Man is now not much higher than the beasts he was to oversee!
Gen. 3:1-13 The Image well nigh lost, union and communion with the Creator turned into hiding from the Creator.
Gen. 3:16-19 Man no longer the steward of God’s Creation, but now at the mercy of a creation in subjection to his own folly! (Rom. 8:18-22)
Gen. 3:23-24 Man’s doom apparently sealed.
God’s Glory and Honor, built into His Creation, is well nigh destroyed. Glimmers remain, but they are seen now only with they eye of faith.
III. Jobs’ Question
Job 9:1 “But how can a man be righteous before God.”
Job 9:32-33 “For He (God) is not a man, as I, that I may answer Him and that we should go to court together. Nor is there any mediator between us, Who may lay His hand upon us both.”
IV. God’s Mysterious Wonderful Answer!!!
A. Man’s Creator becomes Man, that He might be man’s Mediator, Redeemer.
Heb. 1:1-4 God sends His Own Son Who is so much more than Job’s desire. He doesn’t just lay His Hand on both, Jesus’ Hand IS both (I Jn 1:1-4), and His Will IS both(Heb 10:5-10), and his Mind IS both (Phil. 2:5-11). He is fully God in the likeness of man’s sinful flesh without the sin. (Rom 8:3; II Cor 5:21) He is everything that Adam was not, everything that Adam lost. He is the visibly expressed, exact Image of God. (Heb 1:3)
Heb 2:9 “BUT WE SEE JESUS” now notice–“who was made a little lower than the angels (vs 7), He Who was worshiped by angels (Heb 1:6-14), for the suffering of death (Jesus was made, in His Humanity, for the purpose of dying that He might turn satan’s victory into his defeat [as we will see in vs 14}), crowned with glory and honor (again vs 7). By grace that he might “taste death” for everyone.
Heb 2:10-13 Notice that our Jesus’ purpose is to “bring many sons to glory”. By uniting His Son to the “children whom God has given to me”, Jesus, the Creator/Savior restores the glory and honor that man was given in the original creation. But now it is secure and inseparable because God’s chosen ones (Eph. 1:3-7) are united to and in the Son of His Love!!!
Heb. 2:14 Here is the incredible summary of this great mystery of the Incarnation. Satan sought to destroy God’s glory and honor in His highest creation, man–God’s Image bearer. The Son of Man, Son of God, came and destroyed satan, in the weakness of our flesh (we die) by satans own weapon–death!
Heb. 2:15 In this Glorious Person and the Truth in Him is the freedom from death, its shaping bondage. Here is the Liberty of the sons of God. Here is the end of death’s sting.
Heb. 2:16 Now note! Jesus doesn’t give this “aid” (margin-take hold of) angels in this way. This is why they desire to look into this grand work of redemption. (I Peter 1:12) But notice that Jesus gives this aid, draws these people into this relationship) the seed of Abraham. It doesn’t say, “seed of Adam”. This establishes that Righteousness that Job longed for is the possession of those who are of faith, that is, “those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of is all.”
Heb. 17-18 Take note: “Therefore, in ALL THINGS He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a Merciful and Faithful Higg Priest in things that pertain to God, to make a propitiation for the sins of the peopel.
“FOR IN THAT HE HIMSELF SUFFERED, BEING TEMPTED, HE IS ABLE TO AID (TAKE HOLD OF) THOSE WHO ARE TEMPTED.”
Beloved, this is why God was manifested in the flesh: To bring you into His Glory and Honor, that the glory and honor of His Creation might be restored. That you might be liberated from the fear of death and the innumerable evidences of it in your existence, past-present-and future. To live in the Hope of Eternity, in a new heaven and new earth where Righteousness dwells (II Pet 3:13. To live in this Liberty requires only one “thing”. “Looking unto Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith.” (Heb 12:1-2) And of course, “this is the work of God, that you believe in Him Whom He has sent.”