Who is our God? Chapter 10

THE HUMANITY OF THE LORD

If we fail to understand aright the humanity of the Lord, we shall never obtain a proper view of the Father. All through the centuries from the time of the Apostles the tendency has been to exaggerate certain features or minimize certain features. It seems to be well-nigh impossible for most human beings to cut a straight course through the Scriptures.

We must take the words of the Lord as we find them, and believe exactly what He says concerning Himself. Should we attempt to place Him higher than He does, we shall only succeed in lowering both Him and His Father.

We cannot get away from the plain fact that the Lord is always depicted during His life on earth as entirely and completely human. He did not come to press His claims as being the Son of God. But He did insist on His claim to be the Son of Humanity.

And it is in the perfection of His humanity that we discover His divinity. Or, to put the matter in other words, we come to realize how impossible it was that anyone but God Himself could ever have become the kind of human being that Christ was. We ought not to search for tokens of His divinity outside of His divinely perfect humanity. "No one has at any time seen GOD" (John 1:18). That is, God AS GOD. It is God as only-begotten who unfolds the Father; it is His humanity, His flawless humanity, which reveals God.

According to 1. Tim. 3:16 the secret of that devoutness which is essential to the saint who is a pillar and base of the truth in God's house consists of Him who was manifested in flesh. The perfection of His devoutness as a human being revealed His divinity.

If it is true that His flesh veiled the majesty of God's power, it is certainly true that it revealed the extraordinary humility of God. Only in His Son's humanity could God reveal His humility and His great love.

Those who believed upon the Lord while He was on earth, did so on the ground of what He was as a human being. His whole appearance was a distinctively human one. Never did He claim respect or allegiance on the ground of being something more than man. Even after His resurrection, Peter could say, "Jesus, the Nazarene, a Man (andra; male) demonstrated to be from God for you by powers and miracles and signs, which God does through Him. . . ." (Acts 2:22). Paul tells us that as death is through a human being, so also resurrection of dead people is through a human being (1. Cor. 15:21). Paul also emphasizes that the one Mediator of God and mankind is a human being, Christ Jesus; one who is wholly or completely human, of our own race (1. Tim. 2:5).

All the accounts of the Lord's actions will demonstrate that He performed them as a human being; a sinless and perfect human being so far as righteousness was concerned. Yet He was not a man who at the same time was living and acting as God. He lived and performed His miracles through His intense faith in the Father. He who is of the faith the inaugurator is also its perfecter or maturer (Heb. 12:2).

No one could say that it is through the obedience of One living as God that the many shall be constituted righteous (Rom. 5:19). Whom could God obey? The obedient One was thoroughly human, Similarly, as it was through one sideslip, reaching all humanity, reaching condemnation, thus also it is through one righteous standard (dikaiOma), reaching all humanity, reaching a declaration of righteousness of life (Rom. 5:18). I have used "reaching" for the Greek eis (unto, for) to endeavour to make the sense more vivid. "The Son of Humanity" after His resurrection. Paul never calls Him this, but calls Him "The Son of God." It is true now, that "in Him is dwelling all the fulness of the Deity, bodily" (Col. 2:9).

It is frequently claimed by those who see only fragments of the truth concerning the Lord, that He only became tbe Son of God at His resurrection. This question is set at rest by Matt. 26:63, 64. Yet it is perfectly true that He then became the Son of God free of His former limitations. Just as we ourselves shall ere long be free from our groaning and travailing, from the slavery of corruption, and rejoice in the freedom of the glory of the children of God, at our unveiling as the sons of God (Rom. 8:19-23).

The Lord must many a time have read the Second Psalm. I sometimes wonder what He thought concerning the seventh verse. The statement seems enigmatic, surrounded as it is with warnings to the nations that lawlessness will only bring them trouble and lostness. Is it a stern warning to the nations that Messiah is now mighty whereas once He was in weakness? What we must do in such cases is to discover the full train of thought in the mind of the writer, and somehow connect up with the whole passage those words which to us seem so out of place.

It is in the manhood or humanity of the Lord that we see God. He came to exhibit manhood to God. It was through His human faculties that He could be related to any man or woman; that He could suffer and feel the depths of pain, and undergo trial. It was through His manhood that He could undergo death. Some have wondered how "God could die." It was God in human form, God voluntarily come down to a human level, who died.

It is still through the Man Christ Jesus that we approach God.

That is why it is so easy and simple, more than easy, for you, as a sinner, to approach God. It is easier for you to approach God in Christ, than to approach your nearest or dearest friend.
The Incarnation was and is a Theophany; the greatest of all the Theophanies, because it was in the lowliest and humblest form. But the Incarnation was and is also an Anthropophany—Man has appeared, in perfect and sinless form. Surely any human being who can remain at a distance from such a God must be in a most sorry plight, and yet God waits for him with inextinguishable goodwill.

One of our big difficulties in connection with the humanity of the Lord is that very often we are not sufficiently unsophisticated to realize clearly that He was not merely acting a part like an actor in a play. Are we not inclined to picture to ourselves that always in the background there stood by another, bigger, more powerful self, restrained from assisting or interfering in the sufferings of a weaker, limited and frail self?

Do we not look upon the final Agony and Passion with an air of unreality, almost as though it had been rehearsed or at least planned out and thought out long before? Away with such wicked thoughts! It is assuredly not under such circumstances that we should discover a mere similacrum of intense suffering and sorrow.

We who come short so easily and so constantly cannot realize that the Lord, who never missed the mark and came short, had to resist constantly unto blood. The fate of the universe hung upon the result of His lone and weary fight. We do not strive unto blood. We do not realize the evil of every sin as He always did. We are often indifferent as to whether we hit the mark. He always hit the mark and never fell short. Not only so, but into the battle He had to go burdened by our manhood. He had to keep within manhood's capacity. That was the measure of His limitation.

When he exhibited astonishment and wonder, were these real or artificial? Were they "put on" for the occasion? The Lord marvelled at the unbelief in His own native place (Mark 6:6). He marvelled at the faith of the centurion (Matt. 8:10). If the disciples in the boat marvelled at the sudden calm, why should not His wonder have been as real as theirs?

Christ is the TRUE MAN. He is true to manhood, at its very highest and noblest. His human faculties are real. Even now, any act of bold faith on the part of His people must bring Him genuine delight, if not true wonder. Through His self-emptying, Christ Jesus took a place lower than any human being, thus bringing God nearer to us than He could have otherwise come. The lower He stooped; the nearer He brought God to us.

Because the Lord's manhood was so real and true and perfect, His divinity is made real to us. It took the disciples a long time to realize this fact. In Him Man fulfilled Himself, realized Himself, just as in Him as Man, God realized Himself and revealed Himself. In nothing did the Lord ever violate His humanity by acting as though He was God or knowing facts through divine knowledge instead of human knowledge.

Even as a Child of twelve years, He did not display a divine wisdom such as would so astonish His hearers as to cause them to doubt that He was merely a young Child. His wisdom was wonderful, but natural, though not supernatural. His life must be a genuinely human one in all its stages. Only in the consummation of His manhood may we realize in Him the perfect incarnation of God.
So entirely human did the Lord seem to His own brothers that they did not believe in Him (literally, into Him; John 7:5). This would have been impossible had He been living in unlimited exercise of divine powers. It may seem strange to us that John the Baptist in prison should have undergone serious doubts concerning the Christ, but it may be that he was somewhat influenced by the failure of the brothers to recoguize who the Lord really was.

Even the disciples, thoroughly accustomed to hear the Lord speak upon all sorts of topics, with all their experience of His miracles, viewing every day a life which they must have found was spotless, never ceased to regard Him as truly human. When He sought information, they did not reply that He knew the answer already.

In fact, He was so human to them that when He was arrested by the soldiers, His own disciples forsook Him and fled, deserters (Matt. 26:56).

Perhaps the charm of His perfect humanity, through which He showed complete consideration and kindliness to all whom He encountered, blinded them to the reality and significance of His miracles. It may be that the miracles seemed to them like interferences by God, which disturbed the normality of life. Only after the resurrection did they get their eyes opened wide to recoguize who He was.

Until then the disciples failed to grasp His purpose. They I could never realize that He must die. Human thinking is largely governed by one's wishes. Right up till the Cross they thought He wanted to establish a human, material, political kingdom.

Paul has told us to be putting on the new humanity (Eph. 4:24), literally, to be putting it on for ourselves. The word is in the Greek Middle Voice, and has this meaning. Normally, people put on their own clothes. Others cannot put on our new humanity for us. In Christ we see the true life of man clearly indicated for all men. The true man appeared in Him, The Lord maintained and attained that standard of righteousness as a man entirely dependent upon God, a man who had to resist even unto blood, waging a ceaseless contest against sin (Heb. 12:4). No one would dare to think of God, as God, attaining a righteous standard.

But God, in human form, as Christ Jesus who emptied Himself, for whom a body was adapted when He entered into human society (the kosmos, or world; Heb. 10:5), had to enter into the whole experience of humanity from childhood onwards, living a genuine human life, learning what obedience was through the things He suffered, being made perfect through His sufferings.
The development of His divine life through His humanity had to be progressive. He must have learnt to read the Scriptures of the Hebrews. In course of time His mother must have told Him that Joseph was not actually His father. It is suggested that this probably happened about the time when He reached twelve years of age. Already the Child had attained great understanding (Luke 2:47). But there is not a scrap of evidence to shew that He knew Himself as the Deity. On the other hand, what was uppermost in His mind was the Father. "Had you not perceived that in the things of My Father I must be?" By that time He certainly knew who His Father really was. But Mary and Joseph did not understand what He was talking about. His first recorded utterance is of vast importance, as indicating His true relationship to God, in Sonship.

Then we read in the same passage that Jesus progressed in wisdom and stature, and goodwill (or, favour, agreeableness) with God and human beings. In other words, He, like ourselves, had to pick up all His knowledge as He grew older. Things were revealed to Him at the proper time. He could never have been truly and thoroughly human otherwise. As He read and pondered the Scriptures, He must, many a time, have come upon statements which He realized referred to Himself. One can imagine His feelings as He read the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, and came gradually to realize that it was concerning Himself. So also with hundreds of other passages.

To us Gentiles it is a standing puizle that certain statements appear suddenly in the Hebrew text in quite enigmatical form embedded in context which appears to have no, connection therewith. Such statements may have served some purpose in arresting the attention of the Lord as He read them. For example, Hosea 11:1 "I . . . . called My Son put of Egypt." The Lord was supremely conscious of the fact that He was the Son of the Father.

What must His thoughts have been as He read Psalm 40:7, "Lo, I come; in the volume of the book it is written of Me. I delight to do Thy will, O My God." He must have come to see that the whole book spoke of Him.

No doubt in His early life He must have come to see how He differed notably from all other human beings; He never missed the mark; He both kept and maintained the Law. That does not mean, however, that others recognized His sinlessness. The truly humble soul in this age is seldom recognized. In this world one gets the minimum of credit for any genuine altruism. Sinners are by no means searching for fine characters, but rather excuse their shortcomings by discovering others who are or seem worse than themselves.

But in course of time, when the Lord came publicly before Israel, His spotlessness brought out the full fury of their hatred. Often must He have read, they "hate Me without a cause" (Psalm 35:19), and wondered how this could ever be.

Then again, He must have known and understood the true contents of the name Jehovah, as One ever manifesting Himself and revealing Himself. How was He going to manifest God to Israel or the world? In His sinless human life? Or could it be that the Scriptures said He must die?

We shall understand the Gospels much better if we read them over again in the understanding that He came to perceive coming events just at the proper time. It may be that even for a time He thought the Nation would repent and accept Him. Probably only at His baptism did He fully realize that He was Israel's Messiah. Then He came to realize that He Was to be wounded in the house of His friends, and slain by His own race. These are thoughts that one seeks to put out of mind as long as possible. No one willingly relishes the thought of being wounded in the house of his friends. Over the past fifty years much has been written concerning the Kenosis doctrine of Phil. 2:7. Christ Jesus, existing all along (huparchOn) in God's form, did not deem the being equal to God (in certain respects; Gk. isa, plural) as an act of usurpation, but on the other hand, He empties Himself, taking slave form. It must be noted that it is not stated that God emptied Him. It was a voluntary act; He empties Himself. In order to avoid the truth of these simple and plain words, budding expositors have tried to make the whole passage mean anything but what it says. We must warn readers of the writings of such lawless people, who are really communistic at heart, that is, lawless. Freedom to worship God as you may please is being taken to mean freedom to make His word mean anything you please. We would urge readers to reject any novel and exotic claims made by those who think they can possess superior knowledge while they are totally deficient of a sound acquaintance with the Greek language.

Let it be noted that the term Kenosis is not a scriptural one. We are not informed whether the emptying was a process (kenosis) or a resulting condition (kenoma), and it does not really matter, so long as we recognize that the Lord Jesus, up till His resurrection, was in that condition.

The case of King Nebuchadnezzar is anything but a parallel. Yet it helps us to see how a great human king, who certainly did not empty himself, was emptied and humbled by God, becoming like one of the beasts of the field for seven years (Dan. 4:30-33). It will be noted that his understanding returned to him, while he got back the glory and dignity of his former position.
Scripture is most useful in explaining Scripture. It has long been pointed out that the lack of knowledge shewn by the Lord regarding a certain coming day (Mark 13:32) is easily explained by His having emptied Himself (Phil. 2:7). Perhaps, another statement will also help us. Acts 13:33 (and also Heb. 1:5; 5:5) tells us "Son of Mine art THOU; I to-day have begotten Thee."

Each time the words in the Greek are identical, and each time the statement refers to the resurrection of the Lord. I have sometimes been told by men who pride themselves upon their love of concordance that the emphasis in Greek is of no importance. Yet these same people, when talking, use emphatic words almost in every mouthful and do not perceive they are doing so. The emphasis in the Greek or Hebrew is of the utmost importance. We might understand the statement thus, "It is Son of Mine that THOU art; it is I to-day that have begotten Thee (and I alone)." When the Son ot Humanity was born as a Child, His Father was Holy Spirit, and His mother was Mary. Two parties. But now at His resurrection, the Father alone begets Him. He rises wholly human, but now He is no longer under the restraints and limitations of old, as "All authority is given Me in heaven and on earth" (Matt. 28:18). No longer is His special name "The Son of Humanity", no longer according to "the flesh," but according to "the spirit." For our sakes the Lord had to be a True Man, fully Man, living the life of a human being, not the life of God.
We have sought to shew that Christ was God in human form. At the very least He could not have been less than that. If He was God, even under limitations and restrictions, the problem of pre-existence, so difficult to many, is already settled. If Christ "came out from God" (John 16:27), He must have had the same pre-existence as His Father had. Just here, in this passage, we find that the disciples at last seem to be grasping whence the Lord had come. But the question may be asked, Did they fully understand what the Lord told them? The Lord said, "I came out from the Father, and have come into the world" (v. 28). Here the word for from is not the common apo, but para, which means beside or alongside. Yet in verse 30 the disciples express this somewhat differently, "In this we are believing that from God Thou camest out." Here the word for from is apo, which usually indicates distance or space, out from or away from. Nicodemus said much the same, "We are aware that from God (apo Theou) Thou hast come, a teacher." The little word para, however, so common in English, has a much more intimate meaning, when followed by a genitive case. It would seem to stand for the idea contained in our word "personally." I would suggest that what the Lord told the disciples in John 16:28 may have been "I came out from the Person of the Father," or, "I came out from the Father directly." Para is used almost entirely in connection with persons. Anyone who will go to the happy trouble of making a close examination of these two Greek prepositions with a concordance will be amply rewarded, and will acquire volumes of useful information. None of our modern versions has been able to express the difference suitably. Thus, in John 17:7, "Now they have got to know that everything whatever Thou hast given Me is from (para) Thee." That is, the disciples and all believers were a personal gift to the Lord from His Father.

Some have said that The Differentiator has become a publication for scholars. Well, let God be true, and every leader more or less a scholar. We are all disciples, that is, learners.
Another big difficulty with some is the natural question, Why did the Lord seem to have no recollection of having created the universe? Why is it that only John contains brief references to that glory which the Lord had with the Father intimately or personally (para) before human society (the world) was (John 17:5)?

Might it not be, that when He emptied Himself, He deliberately excluded from His mind all recollection of the past, so that He could descend to the level of the race among whom He came to live? We repeat, He lived upon earth as a humble human being, entirely dependent upon God. As a Babe, He could have been no true human Babe had He possessed recollections of a former life in glory, reigning as the All-Wielder of the universe. One would not naturally speak of a King emptying himself of his glory; rather would he abandon it or renounce it. The Lord must have emptied Himself of something more than glory or rank. He must have commenced life with an ordinary human outlook, so far as education and learning went. This He could never have done had He from the beginning possessed all knowledge.

Whence then did He gain His knowledge of a previous state of glory? Might I humbly and reverently suggest, that just as perhaps He only saw clearly and fully at His baptism that He must be Israel's Messiah, so probably at a certain point must He have recognized that He who appeared in ancient times as representing God in the theophanies could have been no other than Himself, in different form.

Similarly, in John 8:58, the Lord had come to see that it must have been He who stood face to face with Abraham, when Abraham shewed exultation that he would see Christ's own personal Day. It could have been no other being. The Jews knew perfectly well what the Lord meant when He said, "Ere Abraham is coming into being, I am."

He, however, whom Abraham encountered, in human form, was named Jehovah, which is peculiarly the name of God.

But can we find any proof in the Gospels that the Lord was ever conscious of Himself as being God? This question may Beem very revolutionary, nay, staggering. Could the Lord have been really God (in human form) without being consciously so? He was conscious of His right to exact from men complete surrender and devotion to Himself. But towards His Father He was as humble and full of real awe as we should be, being for us a perfect pattern of true humanity.
We recognize that others called Him the Son of God. He did not disown this title, as it was true, but it was very seldom on His lips, as compared with His own common title, the Son of Humanity. As God's Logos He had become Flesh and was completely human. When He emptied Himself, it was certainly not of manhood; it must have been of certain Divine qualities or features.

It may be that the truth of His complete Divinity was temporarily veiled from His knowledge. That, however, would only enhance the wonder of His life, revealing in the miracle of that life as a humble human being the distinguishing features of very God. Possibly, to us, who recognize His Divinity, His Cross shines in a clearer light than it did to Him, then perhaps dark with mystery.
Steeped deeply in youth in the Hebrew Scriptures, He could hardly have been unconscious of the possibility that God's Kingdom could only come into being at the cost of such an awesome tragedy as is outlined in Isaiah fifty-three that His own nation, God's Chosen People, should murder their own Messiah. From the possibility of such a devilish national crime He must have shrunk. Can that be in part the reason why He veiled His teaching in parables, why He was reserved in regard to His claims, so that He might not provoke Israel into that frightful crime by repelling them?

Yet He came to recognize that He must die. There was no other way. Israel might have attained the Kingdom through simple faith, but now He surrenders voluntarily and gives Himself up to die in an act which only incites them to man's crowning crime against God. How the Lord's human soul must have shrunk from giving Himself up, knowing that there mast ensue a frightful orgy of devilishness let loose, a pandemonium of unrestrained vice and injustice and mockery and impiety. Such a death and all it implied and produced must have caused Him torture beyond all reckoning.

But because He was God incarnate—even though He may not have recognized that fact—conscience made Him set His face as a flint to meet the incredible unbelief of wicked men, permitting them to wreak their vicious will upon Himself. Only thus could pure holiness act. It must have been a deep sense of God's utter holiness and His loathing of sin which. impelled His Son to resolve to fulfil now what Isaiah had written concerning Him. He knew Himself as a root out of dry ground—unnaturally dry ground; despised and forsaken of men. His appearance more disfigured than any man's, devoid of any outward dignity or beauty. No wonder He seemed aged to the Jews (John 8:57). No wonder that after He rose two disciples failed to recognize Him, because He was so wonderfully changed (Mark 16:12).

He knew that as a lamb He would be led to the slaughter; that by an oppressive judgment He would be condenmed; that Jehovah would cause Him to be crushed.

Mere punishment can never be an adequate expression of the utter opposition of God's holiness to human wickedness. Pure holiness can only deal with such sin by receiving upon itself the full assault of the malignant human will. Christ's own laws of the Kingdom laid down that ill-treatment or abuse by an outsider was not to be resisted, nor was retaliation to be made (Matt. 5:38-41). One must submit, because only thus can one who is utterly antagonistic to wickedness and has none of it in his own heart obtain satisfaction. Active resistance or opposition will not destroy the evil desire. The true believer will be little concerned about any hurt inflicted upon himself by the malignance of a wicked person, but will be greatly concerned about the offender's condition.

The Lord's standard of moral perfection is found at Matt. 5:48, "YOU, then, shall be perfect, as your Father, the heavenly (Father), is perfect." But as regards obstinate or malicious sin, God's holiness could not be satisfied by any lower form of opposition to sin than by permitting voluntarily His bitterest opponents to vent their utmost spite and hate upon Himself. That was the only way that perfect love and perfect holiness could act. That was why the Lord had to die. God might quite justly have slain all the murderers in a moment, as they deserved, but He shewed a more excellent way. His Son, by dying through the malignant spite of men, enabled the Father to express Himself as totally opposed to sin. Divine righteousness must oppose human wickedness and utterly condemn it in the only way which was altogether adequate. By suffering sinners openly to vent their evil spite and malice upon God Himself, Christ satisfied God's holiness and His righteousness.









In this incredible and unique manner God becomes the Author of our salvation—in human form. Because He could in no other way have suffered death. That is how He becomes to us Jehovah Tzidqenu, "the Lord our Righteousness," and how we become the righteousness of God in Christ.
In our next chapter we must consider the grandest and most staggering marvel of all time or history, the self-emptying of Christ Jesus (Phil. 2:7), commonly known as the Kenosis. In a grand sweep this self-emptying takes in all Creation, the introduction of human society on earth, the Incarnation, and the Death of the Lord. All these mighty events are parts of one picture, one process. Without a clear grasp of the meaning of the self-emptying, we can have no dynamic Gospel to herald to sinners, because the Kenosis lies at the very root of the Atonement, and is part of it.

End Chapter 10 (Alexander Thomson)