“And confessedly the
mystery of piety is great. God has been manifested in flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16 JND).
“And the Word became flesh,
and dwelt among us” (John 1:14 JND).
“Awake, O sword, against My
Shepherd, even against the Man that is My Fellow, saith Jehovah of hosts”
(Zech. 13:7).
Only three times in the
account in Genesis 1 is creation spoken of:the heavens and the earth (verse
1); the living SOUL—the animal creation (verse 21); and man, who is SPIRIT, as
well as soul (verse 27).
Man was created in the
image of God and is HUMAN spirit, soul and body (see 1 Thess. 5:23). He is a
PERSON, or human being. It is the possession of a spirit that sets man apart
from animal life as created in the image and likeness of God. By virtue of his
spirit man has reasoning power, creativity, conscience, responsibility, moral
qualities, and ability to know and believe the invisible God.
How far above plants and
animals in the scale of being is a man! And how infinitely far above a man is
THE Man, Christ Jesus! Man—Adam—was a figure of Him who was to come. He who
came after Adam is God’s final realization of what THE ideal Man is according
to His thoughts and eternal purpose. We look at ourselves among all of God’s
creatures and ask:Is this the most that God had in mind when He created man in
His own image—man, who brought only dishonor and reproach upon Him? But when we
look at Christ we have the answer that silences every question and satisfies
the longing of every heart. Then we look at the redeemed ones who stand upon
the foundation of His atoning work, and see the glory of His grace. We see THE
man “come of David’s seed according to flesh, marked out Son of God in power” (Rom. 1:3,4 JND). We see God and Man thus brought together in eternal union in His One
glorious Person, and God’s new creatures in eternal relationship with Him,
Christ Jesus, in whom they have been created and with whom they are identified
in “new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17).
1 Corinthians 15 plainly
teaches that the spiritual was not first, “but that which is natural, and
AFTERWARD that which is spiritual” (verse 46). Adam was the first man, and head
of the first race of man. He was first in order of time, NOT in position and
preeminence. The second Man was after Adam in order of time, the preeminent Man. He is the “Last Adam,” a “Quickening Spirit” (verse 45), Head of the second race of
men that will live and abide in Him eternally. His humanity had beginning in
time:“The Word became flesh.” He took part (Greek, metecho—see Heb. 2:14)
in it in incarnation. He was born, HUMAN spirit (Luke 23:46), soul (John
12:27), and body (1 Pet. 2:24).
There are many evidences in
Scripture that our blessed Lord Jesus was fully human. He was conceived (Luke
1:31); He was born (Luke 2:7); He was circumcised (Luke 2:21); He increased in
wisdom and stature (Luke 2:52); He slept (which He could not do if He were God
alone and not Man; see Psa. 121:4 and Mark 4:38); He hungered (Matt. 4:2); He
thirsted (John 4:7; 19:28); He ate (Luke 24:43); He drank (John 19:30); He was
weary (John 4:6); He wept (John 11:35); He died (Matt. 27:50); He was buried
(Matt. 27:60). He was, and is now and eternally, perfectly human; and without a
question or doubt He is God at the same time. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday
[His beginning as Man], and today, and to the ages to come.” (Heb. 13:8 JND).
Then we have the words of
Jesus Christ Himself:“He who overcomes, to him will I give to sit with Me in
My throne; as I also have overcome and have sat down with My Father in His
throne” (Rev. 3:21). Why the distinction between His throne and His Father’s
throne? The answer is clear. Jesus Christ alone in His absolute deity has the
right to sit down in the Father’s throne with Him, something we creatures can
never do. But we who are identified with Christ in new creation will sit with
Him, the Man, Christ Jesus, in His throne. The Son of Man has linked Himself
with humanity:the divine-human One of the Scriptures will establish His throne
in righteousness on the earth and will give us the right to sit with Him in His
throne and share His reign. He is not upon HIS throne apart from being God, but
does that exclude His being a real Man, perfectly human, with whom we share the
glory of His reign?
Our blessed Lord is not
truly God apart from being Man, in the human, personal sense. It is His Person.
We cannot divide Him. If you take away His true humanity you also take away His
true divinity. He is one Person, one personality, both divine and human. As Man
He is God; as God He is Man. You cannot have His true divinity without His
humanity. Therefore, it is just as wicked not to bring the doctrine of the true
humanity of Christ as it is not to bring the doctrine of His deity (1 John 4:2;
2 John 7).
The great enemy, Satan,
whom our Lord, in Manhood, met and defeated in the power of the words, “Man
shall not live by bread alone, but by EVERY WORD that proceedeth out of the
mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4), still seeks to deceive by a one-sided teaching and
wrong emphasis on the deity of Christ. How much, in fact, would he cleverly
concede on this side, if by so doing he could destroy the proper balance of
truth and take away the humanity of Christ—and with it the atonement, and every
fundamental aspect of the Christian faith that subsists in the essential and
surpassing truth of God and Man in one Person. Without both the deity and true
humanity of Christ the Throne of God falls and the framework of the universe
collapses. Serious indeed is the error of such a doctrine that does not confess
“Jesus Christ come in flesh” (1 John 4:2).
Who shall deny Him the
place it has pleased Him to take for the glory of God and the eternal blessing
of men:“Christ Jesus, who, subsisting in the form (Greek, morphe) of
God … emptied Himself, taking a bondman’s form (same Greek word, morphe).”
Behold the radiance of His incarnation, the glory of His humility, and
condescending grace in taking His place among us, sin apart. He is our
Kinsman-Redeemer who has brought us back to God, with our sins washed away, as
new creatures patterned after Himself, in the new creation which stands
eternally in Him, the Creator and Head—the Man Christ Jesus.
When we contemplate the
glory of the humanity of Christ we are filled with deep reverence and holy
worship. The infinite God has come so near. He has won the confidence of our
hearts. There is a feeling of being in the presence of God in perfect peace and
security. We are conscious of His perfection, His deity; still He is a Man, and
we say, this is what God the Son is like. God is not far away:He is right
here, and, in the Person of His Son, He is just the Man in whose presence we
feel perfectly at home. There is no timidity, no fear, but rather the freedom
of love and holy intimacy. Does this closeness to Him produce a sense of
equality? Does it lower Him? Far be the thought! But neither does it produce a
sense of inferiority that would cause us to shrink from the greatness of His
Person. When Thomas put his hand into the side of the Lord Jesus was there a
doubt in his mind that the loving, tender, compassionate Person before him was
perfectly human, with feelings and inclinations proper to a (sinless) Man? Was
there a shadow of unbelief that He was God? Was there the faintest suggestion
of a thought that He was two Persons, as his overflowing heart responded in
worship, and acknowledged Him, “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28)? Thomas saw
and believed. Ours is the blessed portion of those “who have not seen and have
believed,” and who “exult with joy unspeakable” in the presence, through faith,
of the same divine-human Person, who loved us and gave Himself for us.
(Adapted By Edwin C. Read
from an article written by his father, Edwin M. Read, in New York City in
1928.)