The Deity Of Christ Part Four

"But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law" (Gal. 4:4).

The last recorded appearance of the preincarnate Christ took place during night visions given to the prophet Zechariah in 520 B.C. (Zech. 1:1, 11-12; 3:1-7). The last two manuscripts of the Old Testament, Nehemiah and Malachi, were written around 430 B.C. The completion of these books was followed by 400 years of silence. Sometime between 6 and 4 B.C. the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus issued a decree “that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth” (Luke 2:1). Joseph brought Mary to Bethlehem, the city of his Davidic ancestry, to register for the census. While in Bethlehem, “the days were completed” for Mary to give “birth to her firstborn son” who she named Jesus (Luke 1:31; 2:2-7). God incarnate was born – “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).

What an incredible statement! The Word who was with God in the beginning when the heavens and the earth were created (Gen. 1:1; John 1:2-3) became flesh. The Greek rendering of flesh refers to the physical material out of which a human body is composed. Thus, the second person of the triune Godhead, not the Father and not the Holy Spirit, stepped out of eternity and took on human flesh. The preincarnate Christ appeared as a man but without human flesh. If He appeared in a human body then there would be no need for Jesus to be conceived in the womb of Mary. Anyone who asserts that Jesus did not come in the flesh is not from God (1 John 4:2-3).

The Hypostatic Union

The hypostatic union is the joining of two distinct natures, human and divine, in one person without mixing or losing the distinct properties of each nature. Jesus’ divine nature hypostatically joined with His human nature when He was conceived in the womb of Mary by the Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:20). His virgin birth constituted the means by which the eternal God manifested Himself in human flesh. Jesus did not exist as two distinct persons nor was He a mixture of two natures. He did not receive His divine nature at His baptism nor did His divine nature depart from Him before His crucifixion.

Jesus is fully human. He was conceived in the womb of Mary (Luke 1:31) and was “born a descendant of David according to the flesh” (Matt. 2:1; Rom. 1:3). Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day in accordance with the Law (Lev. 12:3; Luke 2:21). He experienced distress (Matt. 26:37–38), grief (John 11:33–35), hunger (Matt. 4:2), joy (John 15:11), sleep (Matt. 8:24), solitude (Matt. 14:23), sorrow (Luke 19:41), temptation (Mark 1:13, Heb. 4:15), thirst (John 4:7), and weariness (John 4:6). Jesus was beaten (Matt. 26:67), mocked (Matt. 27:29), and scourged (Mark 15:15) before enduring the most excruciating and humiliating form of execution known to man – crucifixion and death on a Roman cross (Luke 23:33-46). When one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, blood and water immediately came out (John 19:34).

Jesus is fully divine. He instructed His disciples to pray in His name (John 14:14; 15:16). Jesus claimed with absolute authority that He is God (John 8:18, 22-24, 58) and is one with the Father (John 10:30, 14:7). Jesus was acknowledged as the Holy One of God (Luke 4:34; 6:69). He is called the Son of God (Luke 1:35) and was recognized as the Son of God (Mark 3:11; 15:39; John 1:34, 49). Jesus possessed divine glory (John 17:5). He had authority to forgive sins on earth, something only God alone can do (Luke 5:20-24). When Thomas finally believed that He was looking at the resurrected body of Jesus, he said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:26-28).

Jesus is fully God and fully man. “For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form” (Col. 2:9). If this was not true, then Jesus could not have “offered Himself without blemish to God” as the “one sacrifice for sins for all time” (Heb. 9:14; 10:12). “For the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23). There would be no free gift of eternal life from God.

The Kenosis

“Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:5-8).

Kenosis is a verb that means to empty out. Jesus, who eternally preexisted in the “form of God,” emptied Himself by taking “the form of a bondservant” – He took on the essential characteristics of a servant. Jesus said, “the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Matt. 20:28). “Being made in the likeness of men” denotes that Jesus was genuinely human. “Being found in appearance as a man” signifies that Jesus appeared to others as a man by his physical features and anything else that characterizes Him as an ordinary man. When Jesus was presented to the Jews wearing a crown of thorns and a purple robe, Pilate said to them, "Behold, the Man!" (John 19:5). Paul referred to Him as “the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). After His resurrection, Jesus appeared to His disciples and said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? “See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:38-39).

Jesus never stopped being God nor did He ever empty Himself of His divine attributes (omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, self-existence, sovereignty, etc.). He voluntarily yielded the independent exercise of His divine attributes to the will of the Father. He was still omniscient (John 2:25; 6:64; 21:17), omnipotent (Luke 4:28-30; 8:46), and omnipresent (Matt. 18:20). The Son of God humbly and obediently submitted Himself to the will of the Father to the point of drinking the cup of His divine wrath as He “bore our sins in His body on the cross” (Luke 22:42; 1 Pet. 2:24).

One of the favorite verses used by those who deny the deity of Christ is Mark 13:32 – “But of that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.” Since God is omniscient (unlimited knowledge) and Jesus did not know the “day or hour” of His return, He was not omniscient and therefore could not have been God. However, Jesus knew that the angels in heaven didn’t know and He knew that only the Father knows. Jesus had knowledge about the angels in heaven and the Father that no finite human mind could possibly have acquired. The Father veiled this knowledge from the Son because we must always be on the alert for His return, “for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not think He will” (Matt. 24:42, 44). Similarly, just before Jesus ascended into heaven His disciples asked, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority” (Acts 1:6-7).

“Though equal with God, the Son of God submitted voluntarily to humanity and death as One who fully possessed the sovereign, free, holy, and loving will to be limited by his choice to obey the Father for the purpose of the program of redemption and the glory of the Godhead” (Biblical Doctrine: A Systematic Summary of Bible Truth; John MacArthur and Richard Mayhue).

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations cited in this post are taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.