Evil spirits refuse to confess that Jesus Christ is come in flesh (1 John 4:1-3), and these evil spirits make themselves heard through the lips, and in the writings, of those who come under their power. Such deny the full and proper Manhood of the Lord Jesus, and they sought to corrupt with their evil teachings the saints of God at the beginning, as the Apostle John shows. Since that time there have been countless attacks on the Manhood of the Lord Jesus, as also on His deity. True Christians have the word of God as their guide, and the Holy Spirit indwelling them, so as to overcome the antichristian teachers who attack the Person of the Lord Jesus.
“the word became flesh”
The opening words of John’s Gospel leave us in no doubt as to the glory of the Person of Jesus. In eternity He “was the Word,” the One in whom all that God is finds expression; but He is Himself God, for “The Word was God” as also distinct in His personality as being “With God.” This distinction of personality was eternal, for “He was in the beginning with God.” How brightly the divine glory of Jesus shines in this, and in many another, portion of God’s word.
This is the One who “became flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). In Manhood, His divine glory was veiled in the form He had taken, yet the disciples “beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father.” The Manhood of Jesus was as real as His Godhead, for only One who was truly Man could feel as He felt, and suffer as He suffered. In the second chapter of John’s Gospel He said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (verse 19), showing that as Man He would enter into death. Indeed, it was for this purpose He had become Man, as taught in Hebrews 2.
“That Holy Thing”
The virgin birth of the Son of God, as recorded in the Gospel of Luke, teaches that the Manhood of the Lord Jesus was unique, though real. Though born of a woman, it was by the working of the Holy Spirit, for, said the angel announcing His coming, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God” (1:35). Of no other child that has been born could these words be spoken. His manner of coming into this world was unique, for His nature was holy. He did not inherit the sinful nature of Adam, for He was not born of Adam, but was “the Seed of the woman” as had been foretold by God in Genesis 3:15. Every other child born into this world has inherited the fallen, the sinful nature of Adam, but Christ’s nature was holy, He was that HOLY THING. What is written in Romans 5:12, “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” had no reference to Christ, for He was neither born of Adam to inherit his sin, nor was there any charge of sin to be brought against Him.
Indeed, in Romans 5, where the whole human race in under Adam’s headship, sharing His sinnership, and coming under the sentence of judgment and death that came upon their head, Christ is presented as the head of another race. His life, His nature and His place before God were altogether different from Adam’s. Adam was not the head of a race until he was fallen. Christ was not the Head of a race till He came out of death, a death in which the sinless One had borne the guilt and judgment for those who, in resurrection, come under His headship.
“In Him is no sin”
John, in his first epistle tells us, “He was manifested to take away our sins; and in Him is no sin” (3:5). “Pure” (verse 3), having no sin in the nature He had taken in Manhood, the Son of God, in wondrous grace, came to take away “our sins,” the sins of the children of God. How great the contrast between the Son of God and those who opposed and hated Him while in this world. He said to them, “Ye are of your father the devil…he was a murderer from the beginning…there is no truth in him…for he is a liar, and the father of it…which of you convinces me of sin?” (John 8:44-46).
In His sinless perfection, Jesus was entirely apart from every other man, as the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews wrote, “Such an High Priest became us who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners” (7:26). Holy as born into the world, harmless even when provoked and insulted by sinners, undefiled though eating with sinners in His compassion for them, but separate in life and nature from the sinners who opposed Him and from those who were privileged to be found in His presence.
The Corn of Wheat
Entering into the public scene, the Lord Jesus came to be baptized of John, “But John forbad Him, saying, I have need to be baptized of Thee, and comest Thou to me?” (Matt. 3:14). John knew well that the holy Son of God had no need of his baptism as a baptism of repentance, but the Lord came to him to be identified with those whom God accounted righteous. In this way, the Righteous One, would “fulfil all righteousness.” As a Man, He identified Himself before God with those who pleased Him; it was the right thing for Man to do. But He remained apart in the purity and holiness of His nature: He identified Himself with them, not in their sin, but in their place before God as righteous.
The separate place of Jesus is brought out in His own words, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone: but if it die, it brings forth much fruit” (John 12:24). In the holiness of His nature, in His life of purity and relationship with God, He was alone while in this world. Peter might say, “Thou hast the words of eternal life,” but how often he, with the rest of the disciples, is unable to enter into the thoughts, feelings, and desires of the blessed Lord. He was alone with God in all that He wrought for the pleasure of His Father, the Father only being able to understand what He was passing through.
Yet, if alone in Manhood here, He was not to be alone, for He was about to enter into death that His own might be with Him in His place before the Father in resurrection. There would be many grains as the fruit of His death, every one having the life and nature of Him who had “fallen into the ground” and died. There will be a great harvest from the death of God’s Son. Even now there are the many who have His life, with its holiness and purity, but soon they “shall be like Him,” when He comes to give them bodies of glory like unto His body of glory.
“In the likeness of men”
With lowly mind, the Lord Jesus is viewed in Philippians 2 emptying Himself of the form of God, and taking upon Him the form of a servant, and He was “made in the likeness of men” (verses 6, 7). The Spirit of God safeguards the Person and separateness in manhood of the Son of God. He was a Man, perfect in His human nature, and in everything that pertained to manhood, but it does not say here that He became Man, though that is what is meant, but it surely means that though He became Man He was a Man as no other was. He was like man, for He was Man, but He was more than Man, He was God.
But the Scripture also says that God sent “His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Rom. 8:3). He was not here in sinful flesh as every other man was, His flesh, His holy nature, was sinless, but in outward appearance He was like other men. The brazen serpent that Moses lifted up was in the likeness of a serpent, but it had not the nature of the venomous serpents that bit the people. So was it on the cross, so that in His death God might condemn the sin that was in the flesh of every other man, and tell out His great love in making life available for all who believe in His Son.
“Tempted like as we…without sin”
Passing through a sinful world, the holy Son of God knew what it was to suffer trials; but all His temptations were from without. With us there is sin within that answers to temptations, but there was nothing of this with the Son of God. Satan tempted Him, offering Him the kingdoms of the world, but His holy nature refused to be seduced. He did not desire the glory of this world, nor would He even alleviate the pangs of hunger without a word from God.
All the trials to which we are subject, suffering, pain, grief, sorrow, bereavement, thirst, weariness and very much more, the Lord Jesus passed through. There is nothing that the saints of God are called to meet but Jesus knows, having traversed the whole way before us. Every testing but brought out the perfections of the Lord, for He sought not His own will but the will of His God and Father. His was a life of unbroken obedience, even unto death, and this ascended as a constant fragrance to the Father.
He Took Part of Flesh and Blood
Flesh and blood describes the condition of man in this world, and this was the condition of those the Lord Jesus came to bless (Hebrews 2:13-14), the children that God had given Him. This was the condition into which the Lord Jesus came. His Manhood was real, and He subjected Himself to the limitations imposed by flesh and blood, feeling hunger when He did not eat, and wearied when He journeyed; but He came into this condition with death in view, that He might through death deliver His own from the fear of death, and in death annul the devil who had wielded the power to death to bring the saints into the bondage of fear.
Jesus did not espouse the cause of fallen angels, or take the nature of angels, but He espoused the caused of those who, like Abraham, were marked by faith in Him. Their nature too He took, man’s nature, but “apart from sin;” and “in all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren” (Heb. 2:17). He had flesh and blood, He was a real Man, entering into all that was proper to man, and sinless in nature and in very thought, word and action; knowing in all the practical details of His holy life what “His brethren” passed through in the path of faith.
The Sanctifier and Sanctified All of One
If it was impossible for the Son of God to unite Himself with the sinful nature of the children of Adam, how blessed it is that He has united with Himself those to whom He has communicated His own life. As having His life, the life of Christ risen from the dead, it can be said, “For both He that sanctifies and they who are sanctified are all of one; for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren” (Heb. 2:11). We have this prophetically in Psalm 22:22, where Christ, who has just been heard from the horns of the unicorns, from the place where He has exhausted the fulness of death’s power. There is the fulfilment of it in John 20, where the risen Lord says to Mary, “Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto My Father and your Father; and to My God, and your God” (verse 17).
The disciples were never called “My brethren” till the Lord came out of death. He was alone, the corn of wheat, till He entered into death; but as soon as He rises, He hastens to tell them the good news of the place His death had secured for them. Having come to them, the Lord “breathed on them, and says unto them, Receive ye the Holy Spirit” (verse 22). In resurrection, the last Adam communicated His own life, life in the Holy Spirit, to those who were His. This is the life that belongs to every true saint of God. Even as God breathed into Adam the breath of life, so Christ breathed into His own His own Spirit, so that it can be written, “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His” (Rom. 8:9).
Before the cross, the Lord often spoke of “the Father” and “My Father,” but consequent on His resurrection He could add “Your Father.” This is the relationship that belongs to the new life that the Son of God has imparted to His own, and in which they are united to Him where He is in the presence of the Father; the life in which are known and enjoyed all the deep affections that have been made known in the Son of God come in flesh.
Believers in the Son of God owe their every blessing to His coming in flesh. In Him in Manhood there has been the full revelation of God in His nature, and of the Father’s Name. In grace, we are associated with Him beyond death, and in holy and blessed intimacy, but although we are “all of one with Him,” we must ever remember who He is in His own Person, our Lord and our God; never saying our Father, but “My Father and your Father,” for He ever remains, even in His Manhood, the Second Man, the Last Adam, the Head of the race to whom He has communicated His own life. And when we are with Him in the Father’s presence, He will be the object of our adoration and worship, and “The Firstborn among many brethren,” every one there because He died for them.
R. 8.11.66.