Who Is Jesus? (Part 4 of 6)

Many people and even some religions agree that Jesus was a good man, maybe even a prophet, but they stopped short of accepting that he was God incarnate. Today on Truth for Life Weekend, Alistair Begg explains why Christianity is actually meaningless without the incarnation of Christ. That is historical, biblical orthodoxy.

And that is what was taught to me as a small boy and for which I'm very grateful. Colossians 2 9, for in Christ all the fullness of the deity, says Paul, lives in bodily form. Now, the theologians speak of this in very clear terms. When they address this issue—and this is volumes I'm gonna reduce for you—they say, in speaking of the incarnation, that what we have is not subtraction. So, actually, subtraction, division, and addition are three key words used in theological terms. What do we have in saying that the God became man? Was it subtraction?

Answer it, no. Because in becoming man, he remained God. Every so often in a discussion you will say—oh, yes, someone will say, oh, yes, we believe that there was a divine Son who was co-eternal with the Father. That was the Christ, they might call him. Or that was the Son. But when the Christ came, the Jesus of Nazareth Christ, he was not the same one as was eternal with the Father.

And they play all these kind of games. And so we need to be able to say, no, in the incarnation we do not have subtraction. In becoming man, Jesus remained God.

Nor do we have division. So that he was split up and mixed up. He did not become a combo of God and man. And some people's understanding of the incarnation is, if I might say so reverently, is that Jesus somehow became all combined and mixed up as part God and part man in this one person. And some of you are sitting there saying, Yeah, and I thought that was orthodoxy. No, you're wrong.

You see, it isn't. And you've been telling people that he was a little bit of God and a little bit of man. He was kind of one part God and two parts man or two parts man and one part God, you know.

Here is a statement that you will want to write down. His deity was not humanized, nor his humanity deified. His deity was not humanized, nor his humanity deified. In other words, he remained fully divine through his earthly life. He chose at times to limit his knowledge. He chose at times to do certain things.

But he remained completely divine throughout all of his earthly life. And even we see that in his death, because he just agreed to die. He said, No one takes my life from me. I have the power to lay it down, and I have the power to take it up again.

Men—ordinary men—have got no option in that matter. Even when we think we have, we don't. So if it wasn't subtraction and it wasn't division, what was it? Well, it was addition.

You've already worked that out. Jesus became what he had not previously been—namely, man—without ever ceasing to be what he had always been—namely, God. He added humanity to his deity, and from then on he remained both God and man, with two natures and one personality. This is a great wonder in the incarnation. In the doctrine of the Godhead, you have the Trinity. You've got this great, amazing wonder of three distinct persons in one unique being. There is a distinction of persona, there is no distinction of usia.

And within the person of Jesus Christ, you have the distinction between his divinity and his humanity, so that you have two natures in one personality. And if you think that that is somehow marginal, let me come to the third and final point. Because our first question was, What did he say?

And we laid out some of that. Our second question was, Well, what does it mean? And I've tried to show you what it means. The third question—and perhaps the most pressing question for many of us this morning—is, What does it matter?

What does it matter? Thomas Carlyle, the historian, once wrote, If Arianism—and I'll explain that in a moment—if Arianism had won, Christianity would have dwindled to a legend. Imagine you got that on a history paper. If Arianism had won, Christianity would have dwindled to a legend.

Thomas Carlyle. Please write 5,000 words on the significance of this quote. Well, you need to know what Arianism was. You need to know that Arianism stemmed from a guy called Arius. And you need to know that Arius argued in the early centuries that there was a time when Jesus did not exist. So that when you go to John chapter 1 verse 1, and it says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, Arius says, No, absolutely not.

Now, who have you ever heard like that? Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Christian scientists—all say the same thing. And, says Thomas Carlyle, if Arius had managed to convince the fourth-century world that there was a time when Jesus did not exist—in other words, that he was not the incarnate God, that he was simply a created being—he said by now, Christianity would have been like Greek and Roman mythology. It would have descended to simply being a legend. If the Christian church does not affirm and reaffirm the centrality, the priority, the necessity, the fundamental orthodoxy of the incarnation of Jesus Christ, then Christianity in Western culture will dwindle to a legend.

We will become totally marginalized, and we will become absolutely irrelevant. Oh, says somebody, I think you're overstating it. Well, then, track with me for just a moment. The people who today argue that my forceful endeavor to communicate this truth to you is really a dreadful waste of time do so because they think of the incarnation as a kind of theological appendix. Doctors for years have told us that we can live without our appendix. But if you take away my heart, I won't be around.

So better be sure that what you're planning on taking away is something I can live without, because if it's something I can't live without, it better not go. And so the argument is that the incarnation is to Christianity an appendix theologicus. In other words, you can take it out and ditch it, and the body of Christianity will go on by itself.

So what do you say to somebody like that? You say, Well, let's look at the evidence. Let's look at the evidence and see whether the incarnation is an appendix or is a heart. And the very cursory glance that we've given at the New Testament evidence makes it clear to us that there's no way in the world that we can regard it as an appendix. C. S. Lewis writing on this says, The doctrine of Christ's divinity seems to me not something stuck on, which you can unstick, but something that peeps out at every point so that you'd have to unravel the whole web to get rid of it. In other words, when you start to think realistically about Christianity, you cannot say, Now, let's take the incarnation, and we'll just put it over there, because frankly, it doesn't really matter.

It's not substantive to the issue. What you do is, when you start to examine Christianity, you come across it all the time. The very first verse of the book that was written by John, so that people might come to believe in Jesus, hits us straight up with the incarnation. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. See, we've got the incarnation, the very first verse.

That doesn't seem like an appendix to me, does it? Now, what does it matter? Without the incarnation, we do not have God upon the cross, just a man.

Right? If Jesus of Nazareth is not God, then Jesus of Nazareth on the cross is just a man. If we have simply a man on the cross, how, then, can we describe what happened on the cross, as the New Testament describes it, in terms of a self-giving, divine act demonstrating the love of God for humanity?

We can't. Because it isn't that. If it was just a man on the cross, then wherein lies the significance of his death? Who cares? One person cared, and his name was Barabbas. If it was just a man on the cross, he died for one man, Barabbas. Because Barabbas was the criminal who was about to be crucified, and the Roman law was such that at the time of the feast, it was customary for the governor to offer a pardon. And so he had to wrestle with a decision, Should I pardon Jesus Christ?

And Pilate realized that there was no legitimate claim against him, so a pardon was almost a strange nomenclature. Shall I pardon Jesus, or shall I pardon Barabbas? And he decided on the strength of the death of Jesus that he would pardon Barabbas. So Barabbas should have been really pleased that Jesus died, but no one else. Because what significance is there in the death of a Galilean Jewish peasant two thousand years ago, if it was just a man hanging on the cross? If all we have on the cross is just a man, we're left to conclude that his death was somehow or another simply to make a religious point. And that's what liberal theologians say. Oh, the death of Jesus was to make a religious point, which will somehow or another enrich our spiritual lives. I'm not grabbing that, are you?

The death of an ordinary Galilean peasant made a religious point, which enriches my life. Uh-huh? Okay, let me think about that for a moment. Okay, I've thought about it.

I'm not getting it. Let's look and see what the Bible actually says. What the Bible actually says is that it was God on the cross, and he was redeeming sinners. And that only God could do it, since only God was perfect, and only man could do it, since only man must pay, and since it must be God and it must be man, it could only be a God-man that could make an atoning sacrifice for sin. That God was, in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. That he entrusted himself into the care of his Father as he offered up his life as an atonement for sin. But you see, the average self-made man has got no place for sin.

He has clean fingernails and nicely starched cuffs. He doesn't need a Savior. And so it's irrelevant to him—the incarnation. As soon as he decides he needs a Savior, then he might be prepared to think about the incarnation.

But for now, it's an appendix. So without the incarnation, we only have a man on the cross. If we only have a man on the cross, then we have no solution for sin. Secondly, without the incarnation, God is removed from all the pain and all the suffering of the world at its worst.

Without the incarnation, God doesn't know about suffering, experientially. So we have nothing to say to the Jew who reflects on the Holocaust. We have nothing to say to the mother who looks at the burning bodies of her children as she comes crashing down the road to find that in the momentary absence her children have been engulfed in flames and they have been ushered into eternity.

We have nothing to say to the person who lies increasingly gone, suffering from the encroachment of cancer. We have nothing at all to say if Jesus Christ is not the incarnate God. Because if he is not the incarnate God, then what we have in Jesus is that he simply sends his condolences through a representative, but he doesn't enter in and share his people's sufferings.

The third and final thing I want to say is this. Without the incarnation, Jesus has no permanent significance and no immediate benefit. Without the fact of the incarnation, Jesus has no permanent significance and no immediate benefit. Why is Jesus so important to the Christian faith here and now, some twenty centuries after his death? The Bible says because God assumed human nature, came down to our time-space capsule, he came historically, vitally, relevantly, and savingly. However, if Jesus is not the incarnate God, then we're forced to ask what possible relevance his teaching and lifestyle has for us today. If Jesus is not the incarnate Son of God, why am I spending my life teaching this Bible?

Why would you ever show up on a Sunday morning or any time? If Jesus Christ is not the incarnate Son of God, we're involved in the greatest contract that the world has ever known. Do you understand that? We're living in the realm of total mythology. We're crazy people.

We're deaf. Why would we pay attention twenty centuries later to a Jewish male, carpenter-like, Galilean peasant figure? The answer is there's no real reason at all. And you're perfectly right. Because after all, we live in a different cultural environment, do we not? For example, why should women be forced to listen to a male religious teacher?

Isn't that the way contemporary feminism argues? All of that stuff, they say, is culturally conditioned by the first century, by Palestine, by the Greek world, and the Roman world, and they were all wrong. Well, there's great validity in that if Jesus was not the incarnate Son of God. Because if he was not the incarnate Son of God, he may be the historical point of departure for Christianity, but he is not the anchor at the center of Christian faith for every generation. And that, you see, is exactly what people are arguing today. Jesus is not who he claimed to be.

We have voted him out. Therefore, we can negate him perfectly. However, if he is the incarnate Son of God, then he transcends all time barriers, he transcends all gender, he transcends all race, and his Word is abidingly, savingly significant. You see, that's where we end up. This is not a theological lumber. Now, let me just illustrate from a song in conclusion, as you would expect. People say to me, say, you know, this is all kind of rarified stuff, you know, up there in the … up there in the theological stratosphere.

No, it's not. Jesus Christ Superstar is arguably the most significant thing that happened in the development of the last fifty years in terms of a step forward in the whole musical notion, taking us into a realm that was not just kind of candy floss and white, white Christmas stuff, but taking us into an art form that merged thinking and philosophy with entertainment. Let me read to you the words from the Gethsemane song in Jesus Christ Superstar, where Jesus sings in prospect of his death. It goes like this. I only want to say—this is Jesus speaking to his Father—I only want to say, If there is a way, take this cup away from me. For I don't want to taste its poison. Feel it burn me. I have changed. I'm not so sure as when we started. Then I was inspired.

Now I'm sad and tired. Listen! Surely I've exceeded expectations, Tried for three years.

Seems like thirty. Could you ask as much from any other man? But if I die, see the saga through, Do the things you ask of me. Let them hate me, hit me, hurt me, Nail me to their tree. I'd want to know, I'd want to know, I'd want to see, My God, I'd want to know and see why I should die. Would I be more noticed than I ever was before?

Would the things I've said and done matter anymore? I'd have to know, I'd have to know, My Lord, I'd have to know. If I die, what will be my reward? Why should I die? Can you show me now that I would not be killed in vain? Show me just a little of your omnipresent brain. Show me there's a reason for your wanting me to die.

You're very clear on where and how, but not so hot on why. All right, I'll die. Just watch me die, see how I die, see how I die. Then I was inspired. Now I'm sad and tired. After all, I tried for three years.

Seems like ninety. Why then am I scared to finish what I started, what you started? I didn't start it! God, thy will is hard, but you hold every card. I will drink your cup of poison, nail me to your cross and break me, leave me, beat me, kill me, take me—now, before I change my mind. The song ends in a great orchestral, swelling, rising chorus, and the people look on and say, Oh, what a dreadful thing that that mean God did to Jesus!

Man, that ticks me off! That is the implication of a view of the incarnation which is devoid of orthodoxy. If he is not the God-man, he is a bad man telling lies, or a mad man living with delusion.

But he is not a good man whom we can set aside and carry on with the apparently main business of Christianity—hanging lights and tinsel and buying presents with money we don't have, for people we hardly know, so they can take them back for a cash refund. I'm about to leave here and drive to Pittsburgh with my colleague. I'm gonna walk in the room of a man whose life is now held in the balance by modern technology.

Every likelihood is that that situation will come to an end very soon. Well, then, why would you just spend the previous two hours of your life talking to this extent about the incarnation of all things? Because, loved ones, don't you understand? If Jesus is the person he claimed to be, you're gonna meet him. You're gonna stand right up and look in his eyes. And he's gonna ask you, when that Scottish joker tried his best to explain about why I came and why I died, why did you think you could brush it off and walk out and turn on the ballgame as if nothing matters? We can either bow at his feet and call him Lord and God. We can spit at him and call him a demon. But we can't come to him with any patronizing nonsense about his being a good man. He never left the option open to us.

He never intended to. Today, if you hear God's voice, do not harden your hearts. It's a powerful message today from Alistair Begg on Truth for Life weekend. One of our goals here at Truth for Life is to encourage you to spend more time on your own in God's word. And along with this daily program, another way we can help you do that is through the Truth for Life daily devotional email. It's a wonderful way to begin each morning reading a passage of scripture, followed by a brief commentary from Alistair. This daily devotional is free.

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I file them in my computer to share with others and then reread them for myself when I'm experiencing difficulties or certain circumstances, special joys. Truth for Life is a daily blessing from God in my life. Thank you. Let me encourage you to go to our website and read more stories from listeners like Carol. Find out how God is using Truth for Life to help people grow in their faith all around the world.

Go to truthforlife.org slash stories. And while you're on the website, check out a bundle of three books that we're calling Short Classics. This is the last weekend we're offering this bundle of three pocket-sized books from three gifted theologians whose work has encouraged countless believers over many decades. These books have been carefully chosen. We are sure they will have a long-lasting impact on your life as well. Find out more about the Short Classics bundle when you visit our website truthforlife.org.

I'm Bob Lapine. Thanks for including us in your weekend plans. Some people enjoy Christmas festivities while remaining indifferent to Jesus. Next weekend we'll gain a deeper understanding of Christmas in light of Christ's divine assignment. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life where the Learning is for Living.