How lost was my condition,

Till Jesus made me whole!

There is but one Physician

Can cure a sin-sick soul!

Next door to death He found me,

And snatched me from the grave;

To tell to all around me

His wondrous power to save.

The worst of all diseases

Is light compared with sin;

On every part it seizes,

But rages most within:

‘Tis palsy, dropsy, fear,

And madness—all combined;

And none but a believer,

The least relief can find.

From men great skill professing

I thought a cure to gain;

But this proved more distressing,

And added to my pain:

Some said that nothing ailed me,

Some gave me up for lost;

Their every refuge failed me,

And all my hopes were crossed.

At length this great Physician—

How matchless is His grace!—

Accepted my petition,

And undertook my case:

First gave me sight to view Him,

For sin my sight had sealed;

Then bid me look unto Him;

I looked, and I was healed.

A dying, risen Jesus,

Seen by the eye of faith,

At once from anguish frees us,

And saves the soul from death:

Come then to this Physician,

His help He’ll freely give,

He makes no hard condition,

‘Tis only—look and live.

(From Olney
Hymns, 1811.)

In Parts I-III
of this series we considered Scriptural evidence for the deity of Christ, some
ancient and modern heresies concerning the deity of Christ, and some specific
Scriptures used to support heretical teachings concerning the deity of Christ.
We now move on to consider the Scriptural evidence for

     The Humanity of Christ.

 In all of the
following ways the Lord Jesus showed He was human:

1. He was
conceived in Mary’s womb:“And the angel said unto her … you shall conceive
in your womb and bring forth a son” (Luke 1:31).

2. He was born
in the usual manner for humans:“Mary [was] great with child. And so it was,
that while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be
delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped Him in
swaddling clothes” (Luke 2:5-7). It would be appropriate here to introduce the
theological term, “Incarnation,” which refers to the eternal Son of God taking
on a human form and nature.

3. He was
circumcised:“And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the
child, His name was called Jesus” (Luke 2:21).

4. He grew
physically:“And the child grew … and Jesus increased in wisdom and stature”
(Luke 2:40,52).

5. He advanced
in age:“And when He was 12 years old, they went up to Jerusalem” (Luke 2:42).
“Then said the Jews unto Him, Thou art not yet 50 years old, and hast Thou seen
Abraham?” (John 8:57).

6. He got
hungry and thirsty:“And when He had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, He was
afterward hungry” (Matt. 4:2; 21:18). “After this, Jesus … said, I thirst”
(John 19:28).

7. He ate and
drank:“They gave Him a piece of a broiled fish and of a honeycomb. And He took
it and did eat before them” (Luke 24:43). “When Jesus therefore had received
the vinegar, He said, It is finished” (John 19:30).

8. He got tired
and slept:“Jesus therefore, being wearied with His journey, sat thus on the
well” (John 4:6). “And He was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a
pillow” (Mark 4:38).

9. He
experienced and expressed human emotions such as (a) affection and sympathy:
“Jesus wept. Then said the Jews, Behold how He loved him!” (John 11:35,36); (b)
compassion:“When He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion on them
because they fainted and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd”
(Matt. 9:36); (c) feeling troubled and in mental agony:“And being in an agony
He prayed more earnestly; and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood
falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44; John 12:27); and (d) desiring the
company of others:“And He comes unto the disciples and finds them asleep, and
says unto Peter, What, could you not watch with Me one hour?” (Matt. 26:40).

10. He died and
was buried:“Jesus, when He had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the
ghost” (Matt. 27:50; Mark 14:37; Luke 23:46; John 19:30,33). “And when Joseph
had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his
own new tomb … and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulcher”
(Matt. 27:59,60; Mark 15:46,47; Luke 23:53; John 19:38-42).

 To be sure,
there were miraculous elements in all of this. For example, (1) He was
conceived by the Holy Spirit, not by a man (Luke 1:35); (2) He was born of a
virgin (Matt. 1:23); (3) He rose above His physical needs (John 4:31-34); and
(4) He laid down His life by His own power and will (John 10:18). But this
doesn’t take away from His being fully human. Rather it means that He was more
than human—He was God as well.

In addition to
all of this, we have the clear, distinct statement of Scripture that the Lord
Jesus Christ was, and is, Man:“There is one Mediator between God and men, the
Man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5).

Human, yet
without sin. “We have not a high priest who cannot be touched with the
feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet
without sin [or sin apart]” (Heb. 4:15). Jesus was, and is, fully
God and fully man. He is human in every way that you and I are, but with one
exception:He is without sin. The New Testament abounds with testimonies to the
sinlessness of the Man Christ Jesus:He “did no sin, neither was guile found in
His mouth” (1 Pet. 2:22). He challenged the skeptics, “Which of you convinces
[or convicts] Me of sin?” (John 8:46). He passed the severe temptations of
Satan during 40 days of fasting in the wilderness, as well as the agony in the
Garden of Gethsemane, without sinning by asserting His own will or by
disobeying the Word of God (Matt. 4:1-10; 26:39). Others, including Pilate and
the thief on the cross, could not find fault in Him (Luke 23:41; John 18:38).

But could
Jesus have sinned? Practically every student of the Word of God would agree
that the Lord Jesus Christ did not sin during His life here on earth. But a
debate has been going on for centuries as to whether the Lord Jesus could
have sinned. Some teach that just as the first Adam had the capability of
sinning, so the Last Adam, Jesus Christ, in order to be fully Man, had this
same capability.

What does the
Bible say about this? First, not only does it say that Christ “did no sin” (1
Pet. 2:22), but that He “knew no sin” (2 Cor. 5:21) and “in Him is no sin” (1
John 3:5).

Second, in
several places Christ is called “holy” (Luke 1:35; 4:34; Acts 2:27; 3:14; 4:27;
Heb. 7:26). Holiness supposes the knowledge of good and evil and total
separation from the evil (2 Tim. 2:21). Adam is never referred to as “holy.”

Third, Christ
was and is fully God as well as fully Man. If it were possible for Him to sin,
then it would also be possible for God to sin.

Fourth, some
argue that Christ’s temptation in the wilderness by Satan had no meaning if
Christ was incapable of yielding to that temptation. But that is not a valid
argument. If one tests a bright metal to see if it is gold and it turns out to
be pure gold, was it foolish to do the test in the first place? Just so,
Christ’s temptation by Satan only helped to prove His sinless perfection.

Fifth, in 1
John 3:9 we read, “Whosoever is born of God … cannot sin, because he
is born of God.” If the believer possesses a new, Christ-like nature that
“cannot sin,” then surely Christ Himself, whose nature we possess, could not
sin.

Sixth, we are
taught in the Scriptures that heaven is a holy place (Isa. 6:3; Rev. 4:8), that
all of the results of sin—death, sorrow, crying, and pain—will be a thing of
the past (Rev. 21:4), that nothing sinful or unholy can enter therein (Rev.
21:8,27; 22:15), and that believers in Christ look forward to being “conformed
to the image of [God’s] Son” (Rom. 8:29; 1 John 3:2). So when we are caught up
to heaven, our old, sinful nature will be taken away and all we will have left
is our new, Christ-like nature. At the same time, we will still be human
beings. So the argument that for Christ to be fully human He had to be capable
of sinning like Adam, does not carry any weight. Or else, if Christ Himself and
our new, Christ-like nature will forever be capable of sinning, how can we even
look forward to heaven?

Christ the
Son of Man. This is the title by which Jesus most often referred to
Himself. For example, “Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?” (Matt.
16:13). Every man, wom­an, and child born into this world is a son (or
daughter) of man. But none of us would dare refer to ourselves as ”the
son of man.” The Old Testament tells us of one called “the Son of Man” who is
coming to set up an everlasting kingdom over the earth (Dan. 7:13,14). When
Jesus rightfully applied this title to Himself, the Jewish leaders resented it
(see Matt. 26:64). It is an expression of His being fully Man, but in a totally
unique way, that is, being also fully God at the same time.

The doctrine
of the kenosis. “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but
made Himself of no reputation [or emptied Himself], and took upon Him the form
of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men; and being found in fashion
as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of
the cross” (Phil. 2:5-8).

“Kenosis” is a
theological term that refers to the self-emptying of the Son of God in coming
down to earth to be “made in the likeness of men.” It comes from the Greek word
kenos meaning “empty.” The Jews in Christ’s day (like many people today)
objected to the idea of a man making himself God:“The Jews answered Him,
saying, For a good work we stone Thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that
Thou, being a man, makest Thyself God” (John 10:33). But they had it all
backward! The Man Christ Jesus wasn’t elevating Himself to be God. Rather, the
eternal Son of God humbled Himself to become a man! He existed from all eternity
“in the form of God” (Phil. 2:5), that is, He was truly, fully God. No created
being could exist in the form of God. Lucifer attempted to elevate himself:“I
will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God … I
will be like the Most High” (Isa. 14:12-14). In so doing he was cast down from
his position of probably the highest, or one of the highest, of all the angels
(see Ezek. 28:12-17). Eve ate the fruit so that she might be elevated to be “as
God [JND], knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5), and we know the far-reaching
consequences of that act of pride. But the eternal Son of God was in the full
enjoyment of this by right. “He thought it not robbery to be equal with God,”
that is, He thought equality with God was not a thing to be held on to at all
costs. He chose voluntarily to leave “the glory which [He] had with [the
Father] before the world was” (John 17:5) to take a place of subjection and
lowliness, and then rejection, reproach, pain, suffering, and the most awful
kind of death imaginable!

Yes, He emptied
Himself—but of what? Not of His deity, surely, nor of His divine attributes; He
could never stop being God. He was ever and always the Son of God and thus
co-equal with God. Of what, then, did He empty Himself? He emptied Himself of
His divine prerogatives, His rights and privileges, we might say, of exercising
His divine attributes such as omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. As a
Man on earth, He often manifested His divine power in the miracles that He
wrought, and His divine omniscience in knowing people’s  thoughts (John
2:24,25; 16:30; 21:17). However, He only drew upon His divine powers when given
permission to do so by the Father. This is why we find the Lord Jesus so often
praying to the Father (Luke 3:21; 5:16; 6:12; 9:18; 11:1; 22:32,41,44). When
tempted by the devil to make the stones bread, while He had the divine power to
do so, He did not have the permission of His Father to do so (Matt. 4:4). When
speaking of “the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory” He
intimated that He was dependent upon the Father for knowing all of the
details:“But of that day and that hour knows no man, not the angels which are
in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father” (Mark 13:32).

In summary,
Christ never gave up His personal equality with God, but He gave up His positional
equality with the Father by coming down from that scene of glory and honor. The
hymn writers express it in these ways:“Came from Godhead’s fullest glory down
to Calvary’s depth of woe” (Robert Robinson) and “O what wondrous love and
mercy! Thou didst lay Thy glory by, and for us didst come from heaven as the
Lamb of God to die” (J.G. Deck).

It is often
failure to understand the doctrine of the kenosis that leads people to question
the deity of Christ. They point to verses that speak of His submission to the
Father as evidence that He is lower than the Father. (See also the final
section of Part III of this series concerning the verse, “My Father is greater
than I.”)

The doctrine of
the kenosis is not merely a statement of theology. It is given to Christians as
a challenge:“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Phil.
2:5). The hymn-writer expresses it so pointedly:“When we survey the wondrous
cross on which the Lord of glory died, our richest gain we count but loss, and
pour contempt on all our pride” (Isaac Watts).

Why did the
Son of God become a Man? At the risk of being a bit repetitive, here are a
few of the reasons:

1. He came to reveal
God to man and help man to communicate with God (1 Tim. 2:5).

2. He came to
provide a sacrifice for man’s sin by dying on the cross (Matt. 1:21; Heb.
9:26). (He could not have represented us on the cross if He had not been fully
human.)

3. As a Man He
experienced trials and troubles so that He might be able fully to understand
us, sympathize with us, and help us (Heb. 2:17,18; 4:15,16).

4. He came to
be an example for those who believe in Him and follow Him (John 13:15; Phil. 2:5;
1 Pet. 2:21).

What is the
difference between a theophany and the Incarnation? A theophany (meaning,
“appearance of God”) is a manifestation of God in visible and bodily form
before the Incarnation. Sometimes the theophany is spoken of as “the LORD” (Gen.
18:1-15), sometimes as “the angel of the LORD” (Judg. 13:3-23), and sometimes
as “a man” (Gen. 32:24-30). These theophanies are usually considered to be the
Second Person of the Trinity, God the Son in visible form. The difference
between a theophany and the Incarnation is that a theophany had the appearance
of a man but was not truly human, whereas in the Incarnation, the Son of God
became truly human while remaining truly God.

The theophany
was abrupt and temporary. God appeared to different people at different times
for specific purposes. When the purpose was accomplished, the theophany
disappeared until the next time. There was no organic link between the
appearances.

In contrast,
the Incarnation began with a conception (not an ordinary conception, to be
sure) in the body of a human mother. Christ was born a human infant in the
normal process of childbirth. (There is no Scriptural basis for the medieval
idea that Christ was born in some miraculous way so that Mary’s physical
virginity remained intact and she experienced no pain.) Christ had a real
genealogy with real people in it. Had He abruptly appeared as a full-grown man
in the manner of the theophanies, His true humanity could have been questioned
along with His ability to be the Mediator between God and man and the High
Priest who was tried in all ways as His people were. Only as a true descendant
of Adam, Abraham, and David could He be the Last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45), the seed
of Abraham through whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed (Gen.
22:18; Gal. 3:16), and the Son of David who would occupy the throne of David
forever (Matt. 21:9; 22:42; Rev. 22:16).

In the next
issue, Lord willing, we shall consider some of the heresies, past and present,
relating to the humanity of Christ.

“Blessed is the
man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of
sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of
the LORD; and in His law does he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a
tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth his fruit in his season;
his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he does shall prosper” (Psa.
1:1-3).

“Jesus stood
and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink. He who
believes on Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers
of living water” (John 7:38).

As to the
connection between these two passages, I think that Psalm 1 is a delineation of
the character, walk, and fruitfulness of the Lord Himself, the Man of God’s
delight. He never walked in the counsels of the ungodly, etc., but His delight
was in the law of the Lord. In Him God saw—and sets before us for our
imitation—a Man whose delight it was to do His will as revealed in His Word.
Hence His fruitfulness, for the secret and power of fruitfulness is subjection
to God (John 15:4,5).

Psalm 1
presents the Son of Man as the tree planted by the river of water, that is, in
constant, unbroken communion with God, whose leaf does not wither, and who
brings forth His fruit in season.

Everything in
the Lord Jesus delighted God. He said the right thing at the right time and in
the right place. God says to us, “See the Man who always pleases Me; and see how
He does it. He knows how and when to speak, how and when to be silent, even
though He Himself is defamed. He knows what to do and what not to do, when to
go and when not to go, what to say and what not to say. He is neither an
enthusiast nor a mere reasoner, neither elated by acclamations of praise nor
dejected by the scorn and contempt of those who felt His majesty and their own
inferiority. He is superior to the world, to man, to Satan; and without sin,
His branches are richly loaded with the fruit in which God delights. This is the
Man whose strength and sufficiency are in God, and in whom God delights.
But in all this strength and majesty, this rich fruitfulness in living
connection with its source for man (that is, God), He stood alone. He could
drink to the full from the fountain of all joy and strength, and through Him
indeed came blessing to others. Still He was pent up, straightened, because He
had a baptism with which to be baptized. Yet so fixed was His purpose to do the
will of Him who sent Him and to finish His work, that He could anticipate that
work in its blessed results to others. So He stood up in the last great day of
the feast (strange feast where there were those who were thirsty!), in which
there was indeed the outward form of approach to the source of blessing and refreshment,
but no real approach. And He cried, “If any man thirst, let him come
unto Me and drink.” If I mistake not, it is the only occasion (besides that on
the cross) in which He cried, as if the vehemence of His desire to impart
blessing to the spiritually needy was only equaled by the intensity of His
suffering on the cross.

“He who
believes on Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers
of living water.” I think the allusion here is to Isa. 32:2, “A Man shall be
… as rivers of water in a dry place,” along with Isa. 44:3, “I will pour
water upon him who is thirsty … I will pour My Spirit upon your seed.” In
Psalm 1 we have more the effect of the river on the fruitfulness of the Tree.
It is planted by the water that nourishes it. In John 7 it is the waters that
are to flow out unchecked. Christ was fruitful there, but who else? The rivers
of living water flowing out of the belly is what God does in grace for man and
through man. It never existed before the exaltation of Christ. “This spake He
of the Spirit, which they who believe on Him should receive; for the Holy
Spirit was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified” (John
7:39). It had never been before. It was God opening up all the floodgates of
blessing through the obedient, humbled, and now exalted Man to all those who
believe. He says, “If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink,” and he
shall not only have what he needs for himself, but shall become a channel of
richest blessing to others.

(From Help
and Food, Vol. 5.)

Let us
reverently consider the lowliness of the Son of God in self-abasement and
perfection of obedience to God when here as a Man among men. While Adam’s first
act, after being surrounded here with blessing, was to seek his own will,
involving his posterity in ruin and misery, Christ came into this world of
misery devoting Himself in love to do His Father’s will.

Coming down
here, the Son of God emptied Himself of all that was His by right. He came here
in devotedness to His Father, at all cost to Himself, that God might be
glorified. He was in the world, the obedient man, whose will was to do His
Father’s will and bring glory to God. It is impossible to read John’s Gospel,
or indeed any of the Gospels, without meeting at every moment this blessed
fragrance of loving obedience and self-renunciation. The wickedness of man all
around Him only gave force and blessedness to the self-abasement which never
faltered. The “I AM” who was here in perfectness of human obedience.

This is
revealed everywhere. Replying to the devil He answers, “It is written, Man
shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth
of God” (Matt. 4:4). “It is written” was His constant reply. “Suffer it to be
so now,” He says to John the Baptist, “Thus it becomes us to fulfill all
righteousness” (Matt. 3:15). To Peter He said, with regard to the question
about paying tribute, “Then are the children free. Notwithstanding, lest we
should offend them … take, and give unto them for Me and you” (Matt. 17:24-27).
In John’s Gospel we read, “The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees
the Father do” (5:19). “As the Father gave Me commandment, even so I do”
(14:31). “I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love” (15:10).
Oh, humble, lowly Man! God’s beloved Son, in whom the Father found His delight!

All that was
pure, separate, and lovely in human nature was found in Jesus. There was no
unevenness in Him, no predominant quality to produce the effect of giving Him a
distinctive character. He was, though despised and rejected of men, the
perfection of human nature. The sensibilities, firmness, elevation, and calm
meekness that belong to human nature all found their perfect place in Him. In a
Paul we find energy and zeal; in a Peter, impetuousness and ardent affection;
in a John, tender sensibilities united with a desire to vindicate the One He
loved. But the qualities that we observe in Peter predominate and characterize
him (Matt. 16:22; 17:3; John 18:10,11). In a Paul, blessed servant though he
was, he tries to go into Bithynia but the Spirit does not let him (Acts 16:7).
He has no rest in his spirit when he does not find Titus, his brother, and goes
off to Macedonia, though a door was opened in Troas (2 Cor. 2:12,13). John, who
would have vindicated Jesus in His zeal, knew not what manner of spirit He was
of, and would have forbidden the work of God if a man walked not with them
(Luke 9:49-56). Such were Paul and Peter and John.

But in Jesus,
even as Man, there was none of this unevenness. There was nothing prominent in
His character because all was in perfect subjection to God in His humanity; all
had its place and did exactly its service, then disappeared. God was glorified
in it and all was in harmony. When meekness became Him, He was meek; when
indignation, who could stand before His overwhelming rebuke! He was gracious,
merciful and longsuffering to the chief of sinners (1 Tim. 2:13-16), but
unmoved by the heartless haughtiness of the cold Pharisee who was curious to
judge who He was (Luke 7:36-50). On the cross He was tender to His mother:in
human care He entrusted her to one who learned on His bosom; but He had no ear
to recognize her word or claim when His service occupied Him for God (Matt.
12:46-50). What calmness which disconcerted His adversaries! What moral power
which dismayed them at times! What meekness which drew out the hearts of all
not steeled by willful opposition! What keenness of spirit to separate between
the evil and the good!

In a word,
then, the humanity of Christ was perfect—all subject to God, all in immediate
answer to His will. “Praise His name!”

(From Help
and Food, Vol. 38.)

“But we all,
with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into
the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” 2 Cor.
3:18).

God’s thought
is to have a people on this earth walking in the steps of His own Son, the Lord
Jesus Christ, who is now in the heavens. If God is seeking to have a people who
are heavenly in their practices, ways, walk, character, and relationships, then
we cannot possibly go on with the world. When I read in the Scriptures of God’s
beloved Son cast out of this earth, rejected, refused, despised, and spit upon,
and then see the glory of God put in the face of that blessed Man up there, I
have no question whatever about the character of the ministry that God has for
me here on earth. The very rejection of Christ upon the earth and the very
glory of Christ in the heavens opens my heart to all the liberty that is up
there, but equally shuts me up to the narrowness of His path down here. Do we
really want to be governed in our ways by the thoughts of God? May He give you
and me a firmer grasp in our conscience as to the relationship that is ours
with the glorified Man in heaven! His purpose is to find down here on this
earth a people who live after the fashion of that blessed One who is in glory.

“We all, with
unveiled face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord” is in contrast
with Moses who had his face covered that the children of Israel could not look
upon it. You will recall that Moses went up to the mount to receive the tables
of testimony, and when he came down the second time his face shone. The shining
of Moses’ face as he came down was the reflection of the condemning power of
that law which man could not stand, and therefore he covered his face when he
came out to man. Man could not look at him because every ray that shone from
that face made a demand upon man which he could not meet. But here is a more
brilliant glory:a glory that shines, not from the face of a poor weak man like
Moses, but the whole glory of God itself shining forth in the face of His own
Son. Is not that a wonderful thing, that you and I are positively capable of
looking at the radiancy of the glory of God as it streams from that blessed
face? Capable of gazing at it! Why? Because we have received righteousness
instead of condemnation, and the Holy Spirit in us instead of our being in
bondage; and every ray of glory that shines from that blessed face in the
heavens is the reflection to our soul of the completeness, sufficiency, and
fullness of His finished work.

But there is
more than this. As I look at that glory it has a formative power in me.
What we all need is to be long enough in the presence of that blessed,
glorified Christ to catch the features of that Christ, and so have Him engraved
upon the “fleshly tables of the heart” (2 Cor. 3:3). It is not an effort.
You might try to be like Christ in glory until you are worn out trying, and you
would not catch one feature of His. The very fact of your striving proves your
inability. But what is it? It is a thing that nobody can explain. I do not
believe you can ever convey to another what it is to sit engrossed with that
blessed One who is there in glory. Who could explain it? It is impossible to
describe it, and yet it is a reality that the person who sits in the
company and presence of the glorified Christ contracts moral likeness to Him.

Where did Moses
get the glory that was streaming from his face? He was alone with God in the
mount, and the glory, though it was connected with the ministry of
condemnation, was reflected upon his face when he went down. You and I, with
unveiled face no veil either on us or on that blessed One up there (for I think
the passage will bear the thought of that), everything is open, unveiled; so as
we by faith look at that blessed One, He is engraved on our hearts by the
Spirit, and when we come down there is the reflection upon us.

You know
perfectly well what it is to meet a person who gives your heart the sense that
he has been with Christ. But how seldom is it the case! Sadly, we leave so much
the impress of ourselves upon them, instead of Christ. What we should
long for is to be just like clay in the hands of the potter, absolutely
passive, so that the potter might leave the mark of His own beautiful hands
upon us. (Ed. note:No doubt the author means “passive” in the sense of a
moving wheel that is propelled by the power of the engine and directed by the
hands on the steering wheel rather than in the sense of one lying in bed
asleep.) How wonderful it would be for us, as we move through these scenes of
sorrow, difficulty, trial, and temptation, and sin, to be distinguished not so
much by what we say and do as by the way the Potter’s hand governs us, controls
us, guides us. That is the meaning of 2 Cor. 3:18.

It is a
wonderful thing that God should take such a thing as clay in which to reflect
His glory. Instead of demanding or seeking for anything from us, it brings to
us from the heavens the thing we could not give, and besides that, it
transforms us into the image and likeness of Christ as we are sufficiently like
clay in His hands.

Now, may I ask
you affectionately—and I do not want to make anybody depressed—how much of your
time do you really sit down in the Lord’s presence? How much time and leisure
have you, not merely from the business of this world, but even supposing your
service is for the Lord:how much time have you for this that I am speaking of?
Do you not know that in order for there to be great outgoings there must be
great incomings? There will be no out shining if there is no in shining. We
need to take time out from the things without and within to sit down in the
solitude of the presence of that blessed, holy, glorious Man who is in heaven,
finding our delight in Him for His own sake.

Someone once
said to me, speaking of another, “I like to be in the company of So-and-so.” I
replied, “Why?” The answer was, “Because he always reminds me of a third
person.” “Who is that?” “The blessed One in glory.” Oh, what a blessed thing it
is to walk through this world, and as we meet each other in our business, our
households, our domestic relationships, to remind each other of that One in
glory, to have the fullness of that Christ in measure reproduced in poor,
wretched creatures like you and me! It is a most blessed thing—the most
marvelous ministry that could be conceived!

How little our
hearts are really up to God’s wonderful purpose in giving such a ministry as
this from those opened heavens! How little affection there is in our hearts to
enter into the purpose of God and into His thought, that, in a world that
rejected His Son, cast Him out, despised Him, nailed Him to the cross, there
should be those who are the expression and manifestation of that blessed,
wonderful One whom the world rejected, but whom God glorified. Do your hearts
desire that? Is that what you long for? Is that your purpose and object? God
will help you if you have such purpose of heart.

Suppose I see
one turning his back upon everything in this world, who looks for nothing in
it, who has no interests here, who does not expect anything, and would not take
anything from the world. I say, “What surpassing power is displayed in that
man!” If I see a poor, feeble creature lying on a bed of sickness, racked with
pain, the poor body pressed down with disease morning, noon, and night, and one
who might be tempted to say, “What good am I, a trial to everyone about me and
a burden to myself?” Yet if I see, amid all the weariness and pain,
satisfaction and quietness instead of complaint, and instead of quickness of
temper, the blessed manifestation of Christ in meekness and endurance, I say,
“What surpassing power is there!”

That is what
this ministry is able to do, beloved friends, and that is God’s thought about
us in relation to it. This is the testimony that is really lacking at this
moment. Every one has heard us speak of doctrines, and we are supposed
to be clear about them. But other people do not understand these doctrines
because they fail to see anything that corresponds to them in our lives! Oh,
for the manifestation of the truth, the exhibition of Christ that would stop
the mouth of the rejecter and commend itself to the consciences of men! “By
manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in
the sight of God” (2 Cor. 4:2). Oh, may our hearts prize more than ever this
blessed ministry, characterized as it is by such glories as we have had before
us!

(From
“Surpassing Glory and Surpassing Power” in Christ:His People’s Portion and
Object.)

It is needful
in all considerations of the truth of the Person of the Son of God to remember
that no one but the Father has full knowledge of Him. This is true whether we
speak of His deity or His humanity. Only the Father knows the full perfections
of what He is in His essential nature as one of the Godhead, and He only fully
understands the absolute perfection of the manhood He was pleased to assume. On
all questions concerning the Person of the Son of God we are dependent
altogether on the revelation of the Word of God.

The simple
remembrance of this will check any tendency to engage in speculation on what
has not been revealed. At the same time, we ought not to be deterred by the
greatness of the subject from entering the fields of inquiry which God invites
us to search out. It will not be forbidden knowledge that we are seeking, but
knowledge that is intended for us to possess.

Much has been
said of late in many quarters of the human limitations of the Lord Jesus. In a
good deal that is current teaching on the subject there is manifest error as to
His Person. He is robbed of His true glory as a divine Person. In fact, the
human limitations He so graciously entered into are used to deny that He was
divine, and thus, in such minds, the Christ of God is destroyed.

That He is God,
in the true and real sense of the term, revelation abundantly asserts. He is
Immanuel—God with us. If He were not divine in the highest sense, this could
not be true. But to be true He must also be man in the true sense of what
humanity is. He is then both God and Man.

Now it ought to
be evident that, as God, He knew no limitations that Deity is not subject to.
He had full divine power, could and did use it. He possessed full divine
wisdom. He knew all things. he knew them divinely. It was in Him as absolute,
essential knowledge. It was the power and wisdom of the Godhead.

Before He
became incarnate He was equal with God. It was not a usurped equality. It
belonged to Him by a divine right. But though being in the essential form of
God, He was pleased to assume the form of a servant, to enter into the human
conditions and limitations of men. In this place which He took, human
conditions and limitations applied to Him. It was not as God that He grew in stature
and wisdom, but as man. Both these things are said of Him, but it was only true
of Him as man, as being in man’s human conditions.

Now He is set
before us in Scripture as perfectly fulfilling these human conditions. He never
drew on His divine power and wisdom merely for Himself, however freely He used
them for others. Having entered upon the path of men, He trod the path as men
have to tread it. Men need the counsel and wisdom of God. They need to seek
these where God has given them. In man’s path the Son of God sought the wisdom
of God, sought it where God had put it for me, and found it. He could say, “I
will bless the LORD, who has given Me counsel” (Psa. 16:7). In all His human
conflicts He used only the means which God has provided for men to gain their
triumphs—the written Word of God. He did not meet the devil with His divine
knowledge, but turned to what God had written for men to live by. “It is
written” was His oft-repeated answer.

There is no
need of denying His deity in order to explain His dependence on the Father.
While thus we preserve the truth of His divine Person, which Scripture again
and again asserts, at the same time we get a more exalted view of the
absolutely perfect obedience and dependence of the blessed Lord. If the very
Son of God Himself could come down into our human path of dependence, and there
perfectly fulfill the human conditions of that path, what honor has He thus put
upon the path! If He could put aside His absolute, perfect, divine knowledge,
and tread the path as if He were not a divine Person but a mere man, and then
say as in Psalm 16, “The lines are fallen unto Me in pleasant places; yea, I
have a goodly heritage,” does He not thus teach us the perfect blessedness of
the path it is our privilege to tread—a path of submission to God, of
dependence upon His will, of obedience to His written Word?

May the Lord
help us to abide in the truth, and above all, the truth of His Person—to
realize that He was very God and very Man. And while we trace His human path,
may we realize how perfectly human He was without losing the divine glory that
everywhere shone forth as manifesting Him to be One who had in grace assumed
the human.

(From Help
and Food, Vol. 22.)

There is such a
thing as becoming one-sided in regard to the truth of God. This is true in
regard to the doctrine of “Faith Healing.” The Scriptures surely do teach us
that it is our privilege to go to God with all our difficulties and needs,
spiritual and physical. Many a child of God has had the answer to believing
prayer in the form of renewed health or deliverance from diseases of various
forms. Far be it from us to weaken in anyone the sense of dependence upon God
for the healing of the body, for we believe that did Christians trust the Lord
more and man less about such matters it would be more honoring to God.

While it is
certainly true that God does answer faith, we desire to present another side to
the Scriptural teaching as to divine healing. It is hoped that this will
provide our readers with a balanced view of this topic.

Let us note,
first of all, that sickness is sometimes the result of sin:“He who eats and
drinks unworthily, eats and drinks damnation to himself, not discerning the
Lord’s body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.
For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged” (1 Cor. 11:29-31).
Unjudged sin was bringing weakness, sickness, and even death upon the
Corinthian Christians. God’s reason for sending death to them was that they
“should not be condemned with the world” (verse 32). In Jas. 5:14,15 as well we
find that it may be sins that caused the sickness:“If he have committed sins,
they shall be forgiven him.”

This is not to
say that all ill health and sickness is caused by sin. In fact, we are
plainly given to understand that earnest, faithful work for the Lord Jesus
Christ may be the cause of ill health which nearly terminates in death. The
apostle Paul says of Epaphroditus, “Indeed he was sick nigh unto death, but God
had mercy on him…. For the work of Christ he was nigh unto death, not
regarding his life, to supply your lack of service toward me” (Phil. 2:27-30).

Let us now turn
our thoughts to the one whom the apostle Paul calls his own son in the faith.
Would that more of the Christian young men of our day were filled with the same
faith and love as was Timothy! Paul says of Timothy, “I have no man like-minded
who will naturally care for your state” (Phil. 2:21). Yet, though Timothy was
faithful to the Lord, to His people in general, and to the apostle Paul in
particular, he was one who had often infirmities and stomach
difficulties. This being the case, should he not exercise faith and thus be
cured of his trouble? Will the apostle not write recommending him to do so?
This is what the apostle did write through the leading of the Holy
Spirit:“Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for your stomach’s sake
and your often infirmities” (1 Tim. 5:23). Paul advised Timothy to take a
little medicine, in the form of wine. True, it was a little he was to
use, and as a medicine; and being in the habit of taking water, he had to be told
to take wine.

The apostle
Paul had power to heal persons of diseases. Is it not strange that he should
leave one of his helpers at Miletum sick? “Trophimus have I left at Miletum
sick” (2 Tim. 4:20). Neither Trophimus nor Paul exercised faith as to the
restoration to health. Has the Lord nothing to teach us by this fact? Can we
not learn by it that it is not always the Lord’s will that His children should
receive faith for the healing of disease?

Once more, the
apostle speaks of “Luke the beloved physician” (Col. 4:14). Here was one
of the Lord’s people who was a physician; not only so, he was a beloved one to
Paul. If sickness is always a sign of unjudged sin in the one who is sick, and
it is sinful to take medicine for relief, would Paul refer to one whose
profession was to administer medicine as the “beloved” physician, when he
knew that his was a profession whose very nature led him to prescribe a
course of treatment which would then be actually sinful? Thus we see that the
Word of God does not lead us to suppose that one who is a physician is
following a profession which is contrary to the will of God, seeing the word
“beloved” is a term of special affection.

On the one
hand, the Scriptures teach that the One who, while upon the earth, said,
“According to your faith be it unto you” (Matt. 9:29), is still able to give
faith to trust Him about bodily ailments, and in response to faith is able to
heal the disease. On the other hand, it is well to remember that, in wisdom
that no man can rightly question, God’s will may be that one who is sick not
be healed in a miraculous way, or perhaps not at all (as in 2 Cor.
12:7-9). The object in writing the foregoing is not to weaken in any degree a
humble dependence upon God for the healing of the body, but to bring out the
other side of truth from the Word of God which seems to be passed over by many.

Should God
enable any to trust Him for healing, be sure to give God the glory, and do not
think of it as though it were a thing of merit to man that God healed
the sick.

(From Help
and Food, Vol. 13.)