“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.)

 

  The glories of the Lord
Jesus are threefold—personal, official, and moral. His personal glory He
veiled, save where faith discovered it, or an occasion demanded it. His
official glory He veiled likewise; He did not walk through the land as either
the divine Son from the bosom of the Father, or as the authoritative Son of
David. Such glories were commonly hid as He passed through the circumstances of
life day by day. But His moral glory could not be hid:He could not be less
than perfect in every thing. From its intense excellency it was too bright for
the eye of man; and man was under constant exposure and rebuke from it. But
there it shone, whether man could bear it or not. It now illuminates every page
of the four Gospels, as it once did every path which the Lord Himself trod on
this earth of ours.

  It is the assemblage or
combination of virtues which forms moral glory. For example, the Lord Jesus
knew, as the apostle Paul speaks, “how to be abased, and … how to abound”
(Phil. 4:12)—how to use moments of prosperity, so to call them, and also times
of depression. In His passage through life, He was introduced to each of these.

  At the time of His
transfiguration, the Lord was introduced for a moment in His personal glory,
and a very bright moment it was. As the sun, the source of all brightness, He
shone there. But as He descended the hill, He charged those who had been with
Him not to speak of it. And when the people, on His reaching the foot of the
hill, ran to salute Him (Mark 9:15), He did not linger among them to receive
their homage, but at once addressed Himself to His common service, for He knew
“how to abound.” He was not exalted by His prosperity. He sought not a place among
men, but emptied Himself and quickly veiled the glory that He might be the
Servant.

  But He knew “how to be
abased” also. Look at Him with the Samaritan villagers in Luke 9. At the outset
of that action, in the sense of His personal glory, He anticipated His being
“received [or raised] up.” And in the common, well-known style of one who would
have it known that a person of distinction was coming that way, He sent
messengers before Him. But the unbelief of the Samaritans changed the scene.
They would not receive Him. They refused to cast up a highway for the feet of
this glorious One, but forced Him to find out for Himself the best path He
could as the rejected One. But He accepted this place at once, without a murmur
in His heart. He immediately became again the Nazarene, seeing He was refused
as the Bethlehemite (the heir to David’s throne). Thus He knew “how to be
abased” as well as “how to abound.”

  There are other
combinations in the Lord’s character that we must look at. Another has said of
Him, “He was the most gracious and accessible of men.” We observe in His ways a
tenderness and a kindness never seen in man, yet we always feel that He was a
stranger. How true this is! He was a stranger as far as the rebelliousness
of man dominated the scene, but intimately near as far as the misery and
need of man made demands upon Him. The distance He took, and the intimacy
He expressed, were perfect. He did more than look on the misery that was around
Him; He entered into it with a sympathy that was all His own. And He did more
than refuse the pollution that was around Him; He kept the very distance of
holiness itself from every touch or stain of it.

  Notice how He exhibited
this combination of distance and intimacy in Mark 6. The disciples returned to
Him after a long day’s service. He cared for them. He brought their weariness
very near to Him, saying to them, “Come ye yourselves apart into a desert
place, and rest awhile” (Mark 6:31). But when the multitude followed Him, He
turned with the same readiness to them, acquainting Himself with their
condition. And having taken knowledge of them, as sheep that had no shepherd,
He began to teach them. In all this we see Him very near to the varied need of
the scene around Him, whether that need be the fatigue of the disciples, or the
hunger and ignorance of the multitude. But the disciples soon resented His
attention to the multitude, and urged Him to send them away. However, this
would in no wise do for Him. There was immediate estrangement between Him and
them which shortly afterwards expressed itself by His telling them to get into
the ship while He sent the multitude away. But this separation from Him only
worked fresh trouble for them. Winds and waves were against them on the lake;
and then in their distress He was again near at hand to help and secure them!

  How consistent in the
combination of holiness and grace is all this. He is near in our weariness, our
hunger, or our danger. He is apart from our tempers and our selfishness. His
holiness made Him an utter stranger in such a polluted world; His grace kept
Him ever active in such a needy and afflicted world. And this sets off His
life, I may say, in great moral glory:for though forced, by the quality of the
scene around Him, to be a lonely One, yet was He drawn forth by the need and
sorrow of it to be the active One.

  Along with exhibiting these
beautiful combinations of virtues, with equal perfectness the Lord Jesus
manifested wisdom in distinguishing things. For example, He was not
drawn into softness when the occasion demanded faithfulness, and yet He passed
by many circumstances which the human moral sense would have judged it well to
resent. He did not attempt to win the hearts of His disciples by means of an
amiable nature. Honey was excluded as well as leaven from the meal offering
(Lev. 2:11); neither was Jesus, the true meal offering, characterized by that
honey of human civility and friendliness any more than He manifested that
leaven of sin in His holy life. It was not merely civil, amiable treatment that
the disciples got from their Master. He did not gratify, and yet He bound them
to Him very closely; and this is power. There is always moral power when the
confidence of another is gained without its being sought; for the heart so won
has then become conscious of the reality of love. Another has written:“We all
know how to distinguish love and attention, and that there may be a great deal
of the latter without any of the former. Some might say, attention must win our
confidence; but we know ourselves that nothing but love does.” This is so true.
Attention, if it be mere attention, is honey, and how much of this poor
material is found with us! If we are amiable, perform our part well in the
civil, courteous social scene, pleasing others, and doing what we can to keep
people on good terms with us, then we are satisfied with ourselves and others
with us also. But is this service to God? Is this a meal offering? Is this
found as part of the moral glory of perfect man? Indeed it is not! It is one of
the secrets of the sanctuary that honey was not used to give a sweet savor to
the offering (Lev. 2:11).

  Further, the Lord did not
pass judgments on persons in relation to Himself—a common fault with us all. We
naturally judge others according as they treat ourselves, and we make their
interest in us the measure of their character and worth. But this was not the
Lord. God is a God of knowledge, and by Him actions are weighed. He understands
every action fully. In all its moral meaning He understands it, and
according to that He weighs it.

  In this regard let us refer
to Luke 11. There was the air of courtesy and good feeling towards Him in the
Pharisee who invited Him to dine. But the Lord was “the God of knowledge,” and
as such He weighed this action in its full moral character. The honey of
courtesy, which is the best ingredient in social life in this world, did not
pervert His taste or judgment. He approved things that are excellent. The
civility which invited Him to dinner was not to determine the judgment of Him
who carried the weights and measures of the sanctuary of God. As soon as the
Lord entered the house, the host acted the Pharisee, and not the host. He
marveled that his guest had not washed before dinner. And the character he thus
assumed at the beginning showed itself in full force at the end. The Lord dealt
with the whole scene accordingly, for He weighed it as the God of knowledge.
Some may say that the courtesy He had received might have kept Him silent. But
He could not look on this man simply as in relation to Himself. He was not to
be flattered out of a just judgment. He exposed and rebuked, and the end of the
scene justified Him:“And as He said these things unto them, the scribes and
the Pharisees began to urge Him vehemently, and to provoke Him to speak of many
things, laying wait for Him, and seeking to catch something out of His mouth,
that they might accuse Him” (Luke 11:53,54).

  Very different, however,
was His way in the house of another Pharisee who in like manner had asked Him
to dine (Luke 7). This man, like the one in Luke 11, displayed pharisaical
tendencies. He silently accused the poor sinner of the city, and his guest for
allowing her to approach Him. But appearances are not the ground of righteous
judgments. Often the very same words, on different lips, have a very different
mind in them. And therefore the Lord, the perfect weigh master according to
God, though He rebuked Simon and exposed him to himself, knew Simon by name and
left his house as a guest should leave it. He distinguished the Pharisee of
Luke 7 from the one of Luke 11, though He dined with both of them.

  As another aspect of the
moral glory of the Lord Jesus, He knew how to answer every man with words which
were always to his soul’s profit. He perfectly fulfilled that which the apostle
Paul urged upon the Colossian believers:“Let your speech be always with grace,
seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man” (4:6).
Thus, in answering inquiries, He did not so much purpose to satisfy them as to
reach the conscience or the condition of the inquirer.

  In His silence, or refusal
to answer at all, when He stood before the Jew or the Gentile at the end,
before either the priests, or Pilate, or Herod, we can trace the same perfect
fitness as we do in His words or answers. He witnessed to God that at least One
among the sons of men knew “a time to keep silence, and a time to speak” (Eccl.
3:7).

  Great variety in His very
tone and manner also presents itself in all this; and all this variety added to
the fragrance of His perfect life before God. Sometimes His word was gentle,
and sometimes peremptory; sometimes He reasoned, and sometimes He rebuked at
once; sometimes He conducted calm reasoning up to the heated point of solemn
condemnation. It was the moral aspect of the occasion He always weighed.

  Matthew 15 has struck me as
a chapter in which this perfection may be seen. In the course of it the Lord
was called to answer the Pharisees, the multitude, the poor afflicted stranger
from the coasts of Tyre, and His own disciples, again and again, in their
manifestation of either stupidity or selfishness. And we may notice His
different style of rebuke and of reasoning, of calm, patient teaching, and of
faithful, wise, and gracious training of the soul. We cannot help but feel how
fitting all this variety was to the place or occasion that called it forth.

  In a similar way we marvel
at the beauty and the fitness of His neither teaching nor learning in
Luke 2:46, but only hearing and asking questions. To have taught then would
not have been in season since He was a child in the midst of His elders. To
have learned would not have been in full fidelity to the light which He
knew He carried in Himself, for we may surely say that He was wiser than the
ancients and had more understanding than His teachers (Psa. 119:99,100). He
knew in the perfection of grace how to use this fullness of wisdom. Strong in
spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God upon Him, is the description
of Him then as He grew up in tender years; and when a man conversing in the
world, His speech was always with grace, seasoned with salt, as of One who knew
how to answer every man. What perfection and beauty suited to the different
seasons of childhood and manhood are displayed in this!

  Let me close by saying that
it is blessed and happy for us, as well as part of our worship, to mark the
characteristics of the Lord’s way and ministry here on the earth. All that He
did and said, all His service, whether in the substance or the style of it, is
the witness of what He was, and He is the witness to us of what God is. And
thus we reach God, the blessed One, through the paths of the Lord Jesus
recorded in the pages of the four evangelists. Every step of that way becomes
important to us. All that He did and said was a real, truthful expression of
Himself, as He Himself was a real, truthful expression of God. If we can
understand the character of His ministry, or read the moral glory that attaches
to each moment and each particular of His walk and service here on earth, and
so learn what He is, and thus learn what God is, we reach God in certain and
unclouded knowledge of Him. We reach God through the ordinary paths and
activities of the life of this divine Son of Man.

 

 

Dealing with the Problem

of Sinful Anger

  It is easy to say, “Stop
your sinful anger,” but many people, including Christians, really struggle with
the problem of uncontrolled anger. It may seem like the anger just flashes out
before the person knows it is happening. What advice can we give to such
people?

  1. First of all, take an
inventory of all the excuses you have given yourself for your anger problem. Do
you say, “That’s just the way I am,” or “That’s the way God made me,” or “I’m
only human,” or “I’m just a sinner like everyone else,” or “All the males in my
family have anger,” or “I have a short fuse but I get over it quickly,” “I
often wake up on the wrong side of the bed”? Not a single one of these excuses
is valid, because as a Christian you are a new creation in Christ:“old things
are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Cor. 5:17).

  2. Check your thought life.
Do you often have angry thoughts toward certain people? Does your mind go
through scenarios in which you are engaged in an angry argument with someone?
When this happens, do you catch yourself, confess your sin to God, and ask Him
to help you to deal with that person in a loving, Christ-like way? “Be not
hasty in your spirit to be angry” (Eccl. 7:9).

  3. Do you have a “gunny
sack” problem? First of all, confess as sin your letting “the sun go down upon
your wrath.” Then memorize Prov. 19:11, “It is a glory to pass over a
transgression.” Commit all of the items that used to fill your gunny sack to the
Lord. Pray that the Lord will help you to accept your spouse or child or parent
for what he/she is—warts and all—and that the Lord will help him/her to be more
considerate of you. Meanwhile, count it as an opportunity to show love to the
offending person by overlooking the transgressions and, where possible, finding
creative solutions to the problems. By creative solution I mean, for example,
getting all the persons in the house their own individual tube of toothpaste
which each one can squeeze however he or she likes.

  4. Memorize Matt. 5:44:
“Love your enemies, bless those who curse you, etc.” We may not think of
applying this verse to the present situation of a family member who has
irritating habits and behaviors. But if we are to love and bless and do good to
those who are our sworn enemies, how much more ought we to do these
things to those who are our close friends and loved ones!

  5. If you have a problem
with angry words “popping out” before you know it, pay attention to whether
this ever happens when you have company over or are in the presence of other
Christians in the assembly or your next door neighbor or your boss at work or
while you are talking on the telephone with the head of the local gossip
society. If you can control yourself under certain circumstances, then you can
control yourself under all circumstances by simply keeping in mind that
the entire Trinity dwells in us if we are God’s children (Rom. 8:9,11; 1 Cor.
3:16; Eph. 3:17; 2 Tim. 1:4; 1 John 4:12,15,16). Surely we want to have self-control
in the presence of our blessed Saviour. The “fruit of the Spirit is …
temperance [or self-control]” (Gal. 5:22,23), so we are not slaves to the lack
of self-control that is part of our old, sinful nature.

  6. Memorize Phil. 4:8 and
meditate upon it often. If you find a tendency to have angry, vengeful thoughts
concerning a particular person, whenever you find yourself thinking such
thoughts about a person, replace those thoughts with thoughts of that which is
true, honest, just, pure, lovely, of good report, virtuous, and praiseworthy
about the person. For example, instead of thinking about spreading falsehoods
or evil reports in vengeance against that person, think rather about that
person’s character traits that are virtuous or worthy of praise. “Whatsoever
things are lovely” means those things that tend toward making friends. so
replace your angry thoughts with thoughts about how you and the other person
can become better friends.

  7. Just keeping the anger
bottled up inside us is not the solution to our problem. This will tend
to create other problems such as depression, stress, and physical illness. You
need either to turn the whole thing over to the Lord and let Him deal with it,
or else in a prayerful, loving, Christ-like manner go to the person with whom
you are angry and seek to resolve the problem. “Be not overcome of evil, but
overcome evil with good” (Rom. 12:21). J.N. Darby wrote, in connection with
this verse, “Let not my bad temper put you in a bad temper.” And George
Washington Carver said once, “I will never let another man ruin my life by
making me hate him.”

  8. “Surely the wrath of man
shall praise Thee:the remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain” (Psa. 76:10).
What does this mean? God turns man’s wrathful fury into ultimate blessing for
man. Nowhere is this better seen than at the Cross of Calvary. Also, there is a
saying that goes something like:“The persecution of the saints is the seed of
the Church.” Satan and man have joined together in repeated attempts to destroy
God’s people from off the face of the earth. But the Scriptures assure us that
God puts great limitations upon man’s wrath. He will only permit that which
will ultimately bring praise and glory to Himself; the rest He will restrain.
One of the implications of this verse is that God, as part of His program of
discipline for His children, permits the anger and sinful behaviors of men and
women as tests of faith for His own people, just as the unjust charges that
Job’s so-called “comforters” brought against him turned out to be a bigger
challenge to Job’s faith than the loss of all things brought about by Satan’s
hand. When the Lord tests His own, it is in view of our passing the test
in the strength and ability that He gives to us. So, let us consider those
people or things that cause us to become angry to be tests from God. And let us
remember that “God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tested above that
you are able; but will with the testing also make a way to escape, that you may
be able to bear it” (1 Cor. 10:13).

Concluding Comments

  Let us summarize the chief
lessons to be drawn from this treatise on anger:

 

1. The Christian is commanded
to “be angry” at serious sin against God or other people, following the example
of Christ.

  2. The energy from this
“righteous indignation” is to be directed toward helping the sinning one to be
delivered from the sin, and must not degenerate into a sinful anger.

  3. We should seek in prayer
and study of God’s Word to be very clear as to the difference between righteous
anger and sinful anger.

   4. Most sinful anger
centers around me—people not doing what I want them to do, or
treating me unfairly, or disrespecting me, or daring to criticize
me.

   5. Sometimes our sinful
anger is directed toward those who are consciously seeking to carry out God’s
will.

   6. We sometimes use our
anger as a tool for controlling others.

   7. Anger may be expressed
in ways other than “blowing up,” such as using the silent treatment, taking
vengeance by spreading false reports, making fun of the person, or “gunny
sacking.”

   8. We must be in prayer
about the appropriate occasions for passing over a transgression.

   9. We must become aware of
ways in which we provoke others to anger.

  10. We must throw away all
of our excuses for our anger problem.

  11. We must bring under
control and judge anger in our thought life and replace the angry thoughts with
what we find in Phil. 4:8.

  12. We must realize that “the
fruit of the Spirit is … self-control,” and depend upon the Holy Spirit to
give us the victory through continually refocusing our heart and mind on the
Person of Christ.

     13. It may help us to
know that things or people that make us angry are a part of God’s tests in
disciplining and chastening us, and He will give us all the power we need to
pass the tests.