The Humanity and Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ
Part A: The Humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ, 1 Jn 4:2-3
The import of acknowledging that Jesus Christ came in the flesh is so important that the Apostle John view this as a cardinal belief. It does not mean that when you agree with this question you are automatically a Christian as there are other matters to believe and follow before one is qualified to be termed a Christian. However, if anyone does not believe in the fact that the Lord Jesus was fully man when He came to earth, that person is definitely not a Christian but is against the truth.
When the Lord Jesus was on earth 2020 years ago, he took on the form of man. The following records in the Bible will help us to understand that He was fully man when He was on earth.
• Jn 4:6, He can be weary. Unlike God who cannot be tired, man can be weary when we are overworked.
• Mark 4:38: He needs to sleep just like you and me.
• Matt 4:2: He needs to eat, a characteristic of man.
• Luke 2:52: He needs to develop intellectually and increase in wisdom. His intellect and wisdom was accumulated over time like us.
• Lk 22:42-44: He fears and was in mental agony
It was further mentioned in Romans 8:3 that he was made in the likeness of sinful flesh and was like us in flesh and blood (Hebrews 2:14).
The Lord Jesus needed to be a man like us because of the righteousness of God. When Adam sinned at the garden of Eden, death separated him from God. That was the rule set by God and God cannot change this rule arbitrarily. Therefore death was the outcome for Adam’s race and in Romans 5:12 “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned”.
Unfortunately, there is no totally righteous man to pay the price for sin. The antidote for this is for a sinless man to die and pay the price on our behalf. Therefore, as there is no totally righteous man on earth, God sent His Son to pay the penalty, as mentioned in Galatians 4:4, “But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law”. Jesus Christ was fully man when He came to die for our sins (1 Jn 2:2), “And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world”.
Other than the doctrinal teaching above, what is the purpose of this knowledge that the Lord was fully man when He was on earth?
Understanding a person or a fact is a very important precedent to appreciating the person or a thing. For example, most of us born after 2 Sept 1945 in Malaysia have not experienced a world war or even a national war. We will never appreciate what it meant to be deprived of food for a prolonged period unless you learn it from history. But how many of us study history with such passion?
When I visited Japan many years ago for business, I met some old Japanese men for lunch. The table was full of food and it was obvious that we could not finish all of it. An old Japanese man took all the remaining rice and ate all of it! I was quite surprised by his actions as the norm would be to finish off the beef and fish and leave the rice. Later I was informed of the rationale. The country faced severe scarcity of rice during the Second World War and through this extreme experience, they value rice more than any other thing. This rice scarcity experience left a deep impression on them and they do not waste even a grain.
The humanity of the Lord Jesus is a reminder to us that our salvation was not purchased by someone who does not feel and suffer pain like us. When we can grasp the fact that the Lord was like us, we can truly feel how the Lord endured the sufferings and pain to make the offer of salvation available to all of us who believe in Him.
As a human, how do you feel when someone criticizes you unfairly? How do you feel when the soldiers whip you with a leather strap laced with sharp metal? How do you feel when the nails pierce your hands and feet? Despite all these, the Lord was sinless (1 Pet 2:22). What we fear, the Lord suffers in our room, and the appreciation of this fact will help us see why we should pay the deepest reverence to Him who suffers for ‘me’.
In Hebrews 4:15, “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin”. What is your response to this love? Shouldn’t our response be like the verse written in this hymn?
Did the Lord a man become
That He might the law fulfill,
Bleed and suffer in my room,
And canst thou, my tongue, be still?
No, I must my praises bring,
Though they worthless are, and weak;
For should I refuse to sing
Sure the very stones would speak.
Part B: The Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ
Isaiah 52:7 How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!
Good tidings mean good news! God incarnate as the man Jesus Christ on earth is the good news.
Christmas is the time of the year which reminds us of this astounding fact. The Gospel of John declared in the first verse: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In verse 14 of the same chapter: “And the Word was made 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”.
God became flesh and this man name is called Emmanuel which means God with us (Matt 1:23).
The deity of the Lord Jesus is shown to us clearly in the scriptures when He was on earth.
• He accepts our worship: And when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased. Then they that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, of a truth thou art the Son of God (Matt 14:32-33).
• He forgives sins and heals miraculously: And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee (Matthew 9:2-6).
• The centurion declared that the Lord Jesus was God: When they were watching Jesus at the cross, they saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, “truly this was the Son of God (Matthew 27:54).
• He was declared to be fully God (Colossians 2:9)
Christian theologians in AD 325 gathered in the town of Nicaea under the auspice of Constantine, Emperor of Rome to settle the heresy of Arianism. Arius, the advocate of this error, taught that Christ was more than human but something less than God. He said that God originally lived alone and had no Son. Then he created the Son, who in turn created everything else. The heresy rears its ugly head even today. In the Council of Nicaea it was determined that Christ was “begotten, not made,” that he was therefore not a creature but the Creator. It also asserted that he was “of the same substance as the Father” (homoousios to patri). Further clarification was made at the Council at Chalcedon in AD 451 in Turkey. It was declared that the Lord Jesus Christ was “perfect in deity and perfect in humanity…in two natures, without being mixed, transmuted, divided, or separated. The distinction between the natures is by no means done away with through the union, but rather the identity of each nature is preserved and concurs into one person and being”.
Why was the deity of the Lord Jesus such an important cardinal truth in our faith? Kings and Bishops over the years have spent much time to define it. In the earlier sermon, we declared His humanity. He needs to be fully man to atone for our sins. In settling the sin question, He must also be fully God as only He has the omnipresence power to fully atone for the sins of every individual in the past, present and future. If the man on the cross is not fully God, there is no forgiveness for mankind. Only when the Son of God died on the cross, forgiveness for sins can have retroactive, present and prospective effects. We are indeed indebted to our great God and Lord for His amazing grace (Galatians 2:20).
In the teaching on the humanity of the Lord we learn to appreciate how the Lord Jesus suffers for us. In the deity of Lord, we learn to pay Him the utmost respect. The best way to respect the great God of heaven is to obey and trust His words ―every word. Do not dismiss any word spoken by Him.
1 Corinthians 1:25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
With God’s blessings,
CL
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