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The
Savior – The Person of Jesus Christ
The Two
Natures of Christ
The God-Man
The fact that Jesus Christ of Nazareth was a man is a fact
that is widely known. The historical
record of Jesus life and ministry is clear for all to see. In fact
there have been more books
written about Him, more pictures painted of Him and
more attention focused on Him down
through ages than any other man who has ever lived. He is the most famous
person who lived
in the history of mankind without dispute. But look closer at
the person of Jesus and you find
Him to be the most unique person who has
ever lived as well. He was a man of amazing supernatural powers unlike any other person who has existed. In the Bible, the life, ministry
and supernatural power of Christ are seen to be the result of the fact that He is actually the very
Son of God. In the Bible, Jesus Christ is presented as God incarnate in the flesh. This fact
is
known as “the deity of Christ”, or “the divinity of Christ.”
John
1:14 -14 And the Word became flesh,
and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory
as of
the only begotten from
the Father, full of grace and truth. NASB
So when we consider the
biblical Jesus, we find Him to be this unique person in history in
which God became a man and lived
in the flesh as a man, the God-man. In the history of the
world, no other claim as this has
been the center of more controversy, study, and focus of theologians and
religious worshippers as the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. More
than this, the claims of this man Jesus Christ
and the supernatural powers he bore, witnessed by thousands, makes Him a
wonderful and fearful man indeed. Consider just a few of His claims
and works…
·
He claimed
to be God in the flesh (Matt 26:64, John 8:23, 58, 10:36, 11:25, Rev 1:17,
22:13)
·
He claimed
to be the promised Messiah of the Jews (John 4:25, 6:35-40, 51)
·
He claimed
to have pre-existed his life on earth in Heavenly Glory (John 3:13, 6:41, 17:5)
·
He claimed
to be the final judge of all people at the end of the ages (Matt 16:27,
25:31-46)
·
He claimed
to give eternal life to those who embrace His message (Matt 19:29, John 11:25)
·
He taught
with supernatural wisdom never heard of in history (Luke 6:20-49, 12:1-18:33)
·
He did
miracles of healing lame, blind and deaf people (John 9:1-41, Matt 9:18-35)
·
He raised
people from the dead (John 11:40-46, Luke 7:11-17, 8:49-56)
·
He walked on water and fed 5000 people with a few loaves and fish
(Matt 14:15-32)
·
He made
prophecies of future events with pinpoint accuracy (Matt 17:22, 24:2, Luke
21:24)
When you combine these
claims and works of Jesus, along with the amazing story of His birth, and His
Passion and resurrection from the dead, He is an amazing person indeed.
Acts 10:37-41 -38 "You know of Jesus of
Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and
with power,
and how He went about doing good, and healing all who were oppressed by
the devil;
for God was
with Him. 39 "And we are witnesses of all the things He did both in the land of
the
Jews and
in Jerusalem. And they also put Him to death by hanging Him on a cross. 40 "God
raised
Him
up on the
third day, and granted that
He should become visible, NASB
One does not have to think real hard to realize that no one person
who has ever lived even
resembles the person of Jesus Christ. He is in fact the most
amazing person of wonder, power
and wisdom. Even those who embrace His message today, some 2000
years later, claim to have
their lives completely transformed in a supernatural way that
brings inner peace, joy and a desire
to love and do good like no other thing
that has ever happened to them. Consider that if all of
this be true about this man Jesus Christ, His person and His message is one
that we should give close scrutiny to. Jesus answers all the great concerns about our lives
and our world. He claims
to hold the keys of death, promises immortality and has manifested God to
us in most profound manner. Upon close examination, we are left in awe and
wonder, proclaiming with doubting Thomas…..
John 20:28 -28 Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord
and my God!" NASB
One Being Two Natures
Being both the Son of God and the son of man is unprecedented in the world. When
Jesus the
Christ came into the world, born of a virgin, having been conceived by God
Himself, the eternal
Son of God manifested Himself as a man.
Luke 1:35
-35 And the angel answered and said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and
the
power of the Most High
will overshadow you; and for that reason
the
holy offspring shall be
called
the
Son of
God. NASB
Here we have an idea, or a concept which the human mind can hardly grasp, God in
the flesh of
a man. In the passages below, we will examine the Deity and
the Humanity of Jesus Christ in
the
Bible. But here we will give a brief definition of what it means that Jesus
Christ had two
natures. In
the 5th
Century, the Church finally resolved a long struggle to understand
this unique
idea that
Jesus possessed two natures. This happened when a large church council convened
for this very purpose in Chalcedon in 451 A.D. The statement on Christ’s two
natures that was produced is
very comprehensive and is referred to as the Chalcedonian Definition. It
reads as follows...“We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one
consent, teach men to confess
one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ,
the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect
in
manhood; truly God and truly man, of a reasonable [rational]
soul and body; consubstantial [coessential]
with the Father
according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood;
in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before
all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter
days, for us and for
our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God,
according to the Manhood;
one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten,
to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly,
unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by
no
means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being
preserved and concurring
in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or
divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God, the
Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets from the beginning [have declared]
concerning him, and the Lord Jesus Christ himself has taught us, and the Creed
of the holy Fathers has been handed down to us.”
This definition sought to correct several false teachings about the
nature of Jesus Christ, which it did, and has been accepted by orthodox
churches ever since its inception. Wayne Grudem comments on this, “When the
Chalcedonian Definition says that the two natures of Christ occur together “in
one Person and one Subsistence,” the Greek word translated as “Subsistence” is
the word hypostasis,
ὑπόστασις(G5712) “being.” Hence the
union of Christ’s human and divine natures in
one person is sometimes called the hypostatic union. This phrase
simply means the union of Christ’s human and divine natures in one being.”
The Bible makes very clear statements about the
fact that Jesus was both human and divine,
and this miracle is a precious
treasure for us to embrace as we worship our Lord Jesus Christ.
Romans 1:3-4
-concerning His Son, who was born of a
descendant of David according to the flesh,
4 who
was
declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead,
according to the
Spirit
of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord,
NASB
Galatians 4:4 – 4 But when the fulness of the time came,
God sent forth His Son, born of a woman,
born
under the Law, NASB
Many times as we read
through the Bible, we will encounter various passages which may stress
one or the other nature of
Jesus. When this happens we must remember that we understand the
verses in the Bible in
their larger context of the passage, chapter, book, and even in the context
of the whole Bible.
Therefore we must understand these difficulties in the light of what the entire
Bible teaches about each
one. As we see Jesus revealed in the pages of Scripture, let us worship
Him with reverence and
awe, and with the hymn writer say “hail the incarnate Deity!” “Christ,
by
highest heav'n adored: -Christ, the everlasting Lord; Late in time behold him
come,
Offspring of the
favored one. Veil'd in flesh, the Godhead see; Hail, th'incarnate Deity:
Pleased, as man, with men to dwell, Jesus, our Emmanuel! Hark! the herald angels
sing, "Glory to the newborn King!”
The Savior –
The Person of Jesus Christ
The Incarnation and Virgin Birth
The Incarnation – What
Does the Bible Say?
When considering the person of Jesus Christ from the Bible,
one soon learns that Jesus is extraordinary. This is because He is the One
unique person in all of history in whom God became “incarnate.”
This is to say that God became “incarnated” as a man in the person of Jesus
Christ by the agency of the virgin birth.
John 1:14 -
14 And the Word became flesh, and
dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only
begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. NASB
So when we consider the nature of Jesus from Scripture, we
find that He is “fully man and fully God.” The Bible teaches that He is
God in the flesh.
1 John 4:2-3
- 2 By this you know the Spirit of God:
every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ
has come in the flesh is from God; 3 and every spirit that does not
confess Jesus is not from God; and this is the spirit of the antichrist,
of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.
NASB
This is what distinguishes Jesus Christ from every other
religious leader, Jesus is in fact God Himself, come into the world to be with
us and manifest God to us in a way that we can understand clearly by taking on
our very nature. The name Immanuel is a title for Jesus meaning “God with
us.” God took on a human nature in Jesus Christ.
Matthew 1:23 - 23
"Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and shall bear a Son, and
they shall call His name Immanuel," which translated means,
"God with us." NASB
The Virgin Birth
The Bible clearly speaks of the fact that Jesus was
conceived in the womb of Mary by the Holy Spirit and that He did not have a
human father.
Matthew 1:18-20
- 18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was
as follows. When His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph,
before they came together she was found to be
with child by the Holy Spirit.
19 And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man, and not wanting to disgrace
her, desired to put her away secretly. 20
But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to
him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of
David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for that which
has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit."
NASB
This divine miracle is remarkable indeed. It clearly speaks
of the nature of the baby to be born, that it will be divine. This child will be
Holy and without the iniquity of an earthly father being passed to Him. He will
be the very Son of God!
Luke 1:35 – 35 And the angel answered
and said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most
High will overshadow you; and for that reason
the holy offspring shall be called the Son of
God. NASB
So we see that Jesus not only had a human mother, Mary, but
His father is God Himself. This is a thing of wonder indeed. The humanity
and the deity of Christ are clearly seen in the fact that Jesus is the
son of man, being born of Mary, and the Son of God, being conceived of the Holy
Spirit. Thus, God took on a human nature and became a man.
Galatians 4:4
– 4 But when the fulness of the time came,
God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law, NASB
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