The Reasons for Christ's Humanity #1

We must come through his mediator. We must come through the sacrifice that that mediator offered. And scripture tells us that Jesus became a man so that he could pay the penalty of sin on our behalf.

We joyfully celebrate Christmas, but do we take enough time to consider fully what it points to? The manger is only the beginning, not the destination. And on this edition of The Truth Pulpit, Pastor Don Green will again look at Christ's humanity, this time focusing on the reasons for our Savior to be fully human while still retaining his full deity.

Hi, I'm Bill Wright. And Don, while people often ask God the why questions, the answers aren't exactly hidden, are they? Well, Bill, I guess what I love about the why question in the context of the humanity of Christ is it leads us straight into the wonders of our salvation.

Jesus Christ, in love, left heaven in order to come and be the Savior of his people. He loves us, he cares for us, and he is now a mediator between God and us that is sure. Friends, stay with us as we study this more today on The Truth Pulpit.

Thanks, Don. And friend, let's get started now in The Truth Pulpit. We want to look at four reasons for Christ's humanity. Why would Christ leave glory to take on human flesh?

Here's your first answer. It is to be our mediator with God, to be our mediator with God. And beloved, you need a representative before God. You're not fit to go before God on your own. And that is the most essential realization that a man could come to who is not yet a Christian.

And there's two aspects to this. First of all, what you need to understand is that there is an infinite gap in who you are compared to who God is. There is a gap, an infinite chasm of a gap between your essence as a sinful man, a sinful woman, and the infinite holy God.

In Exodus chapter 15, verse 11, we read this. It says, Who is like you among the gods, O Lord? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in praises and working wonders? We are creatures of flesh, finite, limited knowledge, limited ability. God is infinite in holiness, in majesty, in glory. Shekinah glory surrounds Him, emanates from Him, dwarfing and consuming all around.

Hebrews says that our God is a consuming fire. Well, look, none of us are like that. You're not like that.

I'm not like that. And so how are we ever going to be reconciled to our Creator when there is such a gap in essence as that? There is no answer to that apart from Christ. But that gap in essence is compounded by a spiritual gap as well, a spiritual division, you could say, between you and God. A spiritual gap caused by your sin. Isaiah 59, verse 2 says that your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear. There should be dawning upon your mind afresh for some of you, perhaps for the first time, just how profound this measure, this aspect of our existence is. God, holy and majestic, infinite Creator, you finite creature.

Where is there any basis for fellowship there? God, holy and separated from sin, you lost in sin, you a lover of sin, you as a Christian still corrupted by the remaining remnants of sin in your own existence. Where are we ever to find communion with the God who made us? Where are we to find release? Where are we to find hope in the fact that our sinful condition by nature and by choice is worthy of the eternal judgment of God?

Where are we to find that? You know, you could pull out everything you had in your pockets and lay it on a table and it's a trifle, it's nothing that you could pay to bridge that gap. You could live a thousand lives and never pay for a single sin, let alone the multitude that you have committed, and you could live a thousand lives and never change the essence of being a fallen creature, a child of Adam, even in this hyperbole with which I speak, if you could do all of that at the end of the thousand lifetimes, you'd be no closer to reconciliation to God than where you began. In fact, it would just be worse because it would just be a thousand lifetimes of further sin and disobedience against your God. The point is this, is that you need help. You are helpless, lost, separated from God. You need help if your sins are to be forgiven. You need help if you are ever to be in the presence of God.

You need help if you are ever to see Him face to face. And from that understanding, then, what Scripture says about the purpose for which Christ Jesus came is glorious. Turn in your Bible to 1 Timothy chapter 2, if you will. 1 Timothy chapter 2. But remembering that earlier in 1 Timothy chapter 1, Paul said that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. All of a sudden, all of a sudden, there is a spotlight of hope that is brought into the darkness.

All of a sudden, there are strains of music beginning to play in the midst of the deadness of our spiritual lives, that there are notes of a melody of hope that start to sound. Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. You say, ah, I'm a sinner. Precisely. Do you mean to say that Christ Jesus came to save someone like me?

Exactly. All of a sudden, there is all of the reason in the world to pay heed to the incarnation of Christ, to pay heed to why He came. And what is it that He did? Who is it that He is that addresses this need of this gap that we have between us and God? Look at chapter 2 verse 3. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. Verse 5, for there is one God and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all the testimony given at the proper time.

God in His infinite majesty, in His infinite holiness, separated from you by your finite essence and your sinful being and no way for you to bridge that gap. Now, we see why Christ came. He came to save sinners. He came to be a mediator. He came to be the go-between between God and sinful men just like you.

A mediator is one who intervenes between two separated parties. Christ came so that He could represent God to you and that He could in turn represent you to God and that there would be a go-between, a mediator, an exclusive one who can bring separated parties together. That's why Christ came.

He came to be a mediator. It was the purpose for which He came. Now, let me just say a word of pastoral encouragement and a word of pastoral hope to those of you that struggle with the darkness of your sin, either lost in sin, never having come to Christ, living with regret over your past sin, feeling the weight of your sin even of the past week, which is pretty much in one degree or another all of us, right?

Because this is the nature of our existence. It's a sin-tinged, sin-tainted existence that we have, and those who take it seriously, who take sin seriously in one way or another feel the weight of it, right? Well, look, the entire reason Christ came was to deal with that, was to take that burden, was to take that guilt, was to take that shame away, to remove that wall of separation, to remove that barrier so that you would have free access to God, so that what you need to see in this hour, what you need to see as we contemplate communion, as we remember the coming of Christ and that He came to be our mediator, is that the very weight of which I have spoken here is the very reason He came was to remove that impediment from your fellowship with God, to replace the sense of guilt with a sense of peace, a sense of reconciliation, a sense that things have been made right by someone outside of you, and so that in Christ the very weight of sin is removed, and as you trust in Christ, as you look to Christ, as you put your faith in Christ, you realize that the biggest, most serious need of your human life, of your human existence has been resolved. It's why Christ came.

It means that the guilt that has plagued your mind, the vain regrets over the past, do not have to define your perspective on life going forward. Your perspective on life going forward can be, should be, must be shaped by the fact that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners just like you. And I know the mindset, but I'm such a bad sinner, I've done so much, I've so greatly sinned against Him.

Yeah, right, I get that. But Paul said he was the foremost and Christ came to save him, if he saved the greatest sinner, surely he'll save the lesser sinners like us that are gathered together in the room. If the purpose of Christ could include the greatest sinner like Paul, then it includes everyone else. And another pastoral word along these lines, it's funny how sin can distort people's thinking in so many different ways, but, beloved, there comes a point where in trusting Christ, yes your sin has been great, yes the blackness of your prior life was profound, but faith means that you look beyond your sin and look to the one who took your sin away. That Christ came in order to save you from that, and really at the root of that mindset is really nothing more than pride at the root of it. I am too great a sinner for God to forgive. Now don't talk that way, you're denying the incarnation, you're denying the cross when you talk that way, rather humble yourself and realize that as great as your sin is, the sacrifice, the merit, the glory, the righteousness, the love of Christ is even greater than that, and humbly receive Him, humbly receive the forgiveness that He brings to everyone who trusts in Him, and let your heart be at peace.

Let your heart rest in Christ. Yeah, I've sinned so much, you could say, I certainly could, but the whole point of the gospel, the whole point of the gospel of which we sometimes sing in this hymn is that in Christ God has provided us a grace that is greater than all our sin. We believe that, we trust Him for that, and we commit ourselves into the hands of Christ alone for that, and we find our joy, we find our rest, we find our peace in that, because it is enough for your accusing conscience to know that God has accepted the sacrifice of Christ for your sin, and if God has accepted the sacrifice of Christ for your sin, then your conscience must fall silent before that, because God is greater than your conscience, God is greater than your memory, God has accepted Christ, and therefore your conscience is compelled to accept it as well when you trust in Christ, and you commit your sinful soul to Him for redemption.

Beloved, these are the most wonderful things that a human ear could ever hear. There is a means of reconciliation with God, because Christ came to be the mediator between us and God. Now, secondly, we're kind of blending these things together as they're intended to be. We can separate these four points this morning for analytical purposes, but they are all of one woven cloth together. It is one woven cloth of the great righteousness of Christ and the shed blood of Christ that settles down upon the soul and covers the soul that trusts in Him. We don't rend these things apart, we just see different aspects of it so that that melody, that music, those joyful notes of redemption and forgiveness and peace can ring in our ears. Here's the second melody of the work of Christ, the second reason for His humanity. Number two, He came to be our substitute sacrifice for sin. To be our substitute sacrifice for sin. In His person, He is our mediator.

His mediating work is premised on the work that He did for us at the cross of Calvary. Now, let me remind you of some familiar Bible truth as we take these things in together today. Scripture tells us that all men have broken the law of God.

Scripture tells us that the wages of sin is death. And for redemption to take place, why did Christ become a man? For redemption to take place, human intervention was necessary.

We needed a man, we needed a human captain, a human head of the race to come and intervene on our behalf. We have nothing to offer to God for the forgiveness of our sins. It's not enough to feel bad about it, you could cry all day about your sin, but it's not going to grant any forgiveness if there's not intervention from outside of you. Scripture tells us that something with a different nature could not redeem man. The Old Testament had its pattern of animal sacrifices, but Scripture tells us that they never rendered permanent forgiveness. Hebrews chapter 10 verse 4 says, It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Now, along with that, you could say that it is impossible for your works to take away your sins. Once you've polluted the fountain, you can't bring anything from within yourself that would satisfy God.

You know, I realize that it's Christmas, not Good Friday here, but every year it seems like around Good Friday, you can find pictures of people under Catholic influence, you can find stories of people, often in the Philippines, who will crucify themselves publicly and they will beat themselves publicly, supposedly in a manifestation of regret and remorse over their sinful ways. Well, beloved, you should never look at that and think that that is something holy, that that is something good, that that is something righteous. There are two perspectives with which to view that. One, this is just a display of flesh of someone saying, look at me, and in pride offering up that from the flesh as though that would satisfy the Spirit of God. There's nothing good in that whatsoever, nothing good in that whatsoever. And also, you must understand from a theological perspective why that is nothing more than a waste of time at best.

At best, it is a waste of time. It's because that person is guilty and the sacrifice offered to God for the forgiveness of sin must be without blemish, without spot. And so you could beat yourself and crucify yourself for a thousand lifetimes and it wouldn't do you a bit of good because the sacrifice has to be sinless and you don't have anything that is untainted by sin to offer to God. And so you could crucify yourself as these people pretend to do and it will do you no good.

It is a vain flesh-oriented kind of religion that actually just multiplies their guilt even more. No, we must come to God through the means that He has appointed. We must come through His mediator.

We must come through the sacrifice that that mediator offered. And Scripture tells us that Jesus became a man so that He could pay the penalty of sin on our behalf. Look at Romans chapter 8 and as you're turning to Romans 8, stick your finger in the book of Galatians as well. Romans chapter 8, and then in a moment we will look at Galatians chapter 4 as well. Romans chapter 8 verse 3. Remember, we're answering the question, why did Christ become a man?

What were the reasons for Christ's humanity? And in Romans chapter 8 verse 3 we see this, what the law could not do, we could not justify ourselves by our obedience to the law, the law cannot reconcile you to God. You cannot start obeying God's law and think that that's going to reconcile you to God because the law does not have a provision for the taking away of sin. In Romans chapter 8 verse 3 then, Paul says, for what the law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did. Finding His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh so that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Christ came in human flesh so that He could offer a human sacrifice to God for the forgiveness of your sin. He had to be, it took a human sacrifice to substitute for human sin.

Without that there would be no redemption because Scripture tells us that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin. And so Christ had to become a man, Christ gladly became a man so that He would have righteous human blood to offer up to God as a propitiation for your guilt and shame and sin and violation of His law. Now look at Galatians chapter 4 verse 4, Galatians chapter 4 verse 4 where it says when the fullness of the time came God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that for this purpose to this end He might redeem those who were under the law that we might receive the adoption as sons.

Jesus was born of a woman in order that He might redeem us from the requirements that God's law places on men. And so He was born as a man that He might redeem us from the requirements that God's law places on men. Lived His life in perfect obedience to that law so that there was a righteous dimension to His shed blood and a righteous merit to His life and to His shed blood that now He is able to share with everyone who comes and believes in Him for their salvation, who trusts in Him alone, who puts their faith in Christ alone for their redemption. That's why He became a man, to become our substitute sacrifice for sin. And because Christ offered His life in that way, God's wrath has been satisfied. God accepted His sacrifice.

Look at Hebrews chapter 2, Hebrews chapter 2, Hebrews chapter 2 beginning in verse 14. It says, therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, since they share in humanity, Christ Himself, He Himself, likewise also partook of the same. He shared in our humanity. God the Son took on human flesh with a goal toward death. It says that through death He might render powerless.

Him who had the power of death, that is the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives. Well some time ago as we studied the book of Ruth, we were introduced to the concept of the kinsman redeemer as epitomized by Boaz. Well Jesus is our kinsman redeemer as well as mediator and sacrifice. Pastor Don Green will cover two more reasons for Christ's humanity next time as he wraps up the series, The Most Blessed Birth. Be sure to join us then here on The Truth Pulpit.

Right now though, Don's back here in studio with a few closing words. Well as we close today's broadcast, I just want to express my gratitude for the many friends whose generosity make this program possible. You know, if you would like to join with those who are supporting us, you can do so at our website. Here's Bill to tell you how. Just visit thetruthpulpit.com, that's thetruthpulpit.com. I'm Bill Wright inviting you back next time when Don Green presents more from The Truth Pulpit.