Jesus, the God-Man

The Bible teaches that Jesus is fully human and fully divine.

So how is that possible? It's a mystery that many, even in the early church, have wrestled with. Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg walks us through the theological findings of the early church councils. So we're looking at Luke chapter 22, focusing on verse 39, and John chapter 1 verse 14. This was no ordinary man and no ordinary death. In Jesus, God became man.

That's really the essence of what we're considering this morning. The infinite became finite. The eternal entered one.

The invisible became visible. The creator became the created one. In the prologue of John's Gospel, he puts it in a phrase, John 1.14, the Word became flesh. And in doing so, he became what he was not, without ever ceasing to be what he was—namely, God. And in becoming man, Jesus was not exchanging his divinity for his humanity. In becoming man, he was not suspending or surrendering his divine attributes or his divine prerogatives in order that somehow or another he might become real and active. The only way that it is possible for us to make sense of the text, as we find it, for example, in the prologue of John, the only satisfaction that we can get to the material is to recognize that in the incarnation, what we have in Christ is addition or conjunction, but it is not subtraction. And the first thing that we need to notice, and notice carefully, is simply this—that in becoming incarnate, the divine Word did not relinquish his deity but added to it. In becoming flesh, he was not a phantom, he was not somebody who seemed to be human, but he was fully human. Milne says humanness is not simply attached to Christ, like a mask or a garment or an artificial limb. It is something which he is and through which he effectively expresses himself. You see, in the history of the church, the two great tensions in terms of Christology, which is the doctrine of the person and work of Christ, the two great tensions have essentially been in making Jesus so human that we lose sight of his divinity, or in making him so divine that we lose sight of his humanity.

And the challenge of the first four or five hundred years of the developing church was to try, in a cohesive way, first to formulate this material and then to express it, at least in an understandable fashion. It is vital that we understand that the Son of God had, then, ordinary human affections. He had ordinary human affection for his mother. He loved his mother. In his death, he expressed his concern for his mother in pointing her out to the disciple and in pointing the disciple out to her. "'Look after my mom,' he said. "'God,' says, look after my mother.'" And in the rich young ruler story—you remember? The rich young ruler came to Jesus, and he fell on his knees, and he said, "'Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?' And the gospel writer says, "'And the Lord looked at him and loved him.'"

What was that? It was an expression of ordinary human affection. Along with that, when we say that God became man, the Son of God experienced ordinary human emotions. He was grieved at the tomb of Lazarus, wasn't he? He wept in that circumstance. He knew what it was to be amazed.

He knew what it was to face deep trial, as we will see. Thirdly, to say that God became man is to recognize that he had a human faculty of choice, that Jesus was making real choices. You know, he walked up a street and he said, "'Shall I go up to Martha's house, or shall I go down here for a cup of tea?

Shall I sit down now, or shall I stand?'" And unless we understand the humanity of Christ, we've got this picture of him somehow just moving around the universe, arriving in places. Now, we see him able to move around in a different way in his post-resurrection appearances, but prior to his resurrection, we see him simply walking the streets, attending events and making ordinary choices. He became incarnate by his own choice. When tempted by the devil, he chose not to turn stones into bread. He chose not to throw himself down from the pinnacle of the temple.

And as we're about to see in this scenario when we get to it, in the expression of all that made him recoil from the circumstances, he chose to drink the cup of sorrow. And without belaboring this, just one other factor to say that God became man is to recognize not only that he had ordinary human affections, that he experienced ordinary human emotions, that he had a human faculty of choice, but also that he had a human intellect. He learned, if you like, his times tables.

Mary taught him his colors. Now, to say that he had a human intellect is not to say that he only had a human intellect. It is to say that he also had a human intellect. Because remember that in this capacity, there were things that he did not know. And if this were a class, I'd ask you, tell me one thing you did not know. And to all the bright people in the class, who would have put up their hand and said, well, he did not know the precise time of his return.

And I would say, go to the top of the class, that is absolutely correct. It's interesting, isn't it? Jesus says, nobody knows the time. No one knows. No man knows, except my Father, and who is in heaven. And the Father had chosen not to reveal it to his human intellect.

And that ought to say something to us. There must have been a reason why the Father determined that he didn't need to know it, presumably because it had absolutely no bearing on the work of redemption. It had nothing to do with what he was about to do.

It has nothing to do, ultimately, with why he had come. Now, what we're doing is essentially skirting around the issue here. We're skirting around the issue of Christology. It's thirty years or more since I had to study this. I thought I understood it better back then, and I do now.

I'm not sure. But nevertheless, what we're tackling head-on is the fact that what we face when we look at Jesus—this is verse 39, just one word, Jesus. Our subject is essentially Jesus 101, the last time Jesus was a member of the Trinity, and this morning Jesus, two natures in one person. That's the second thing, really, that you would want to say that our study is about—first of all, that God became man, and secondly, that this man was two natures in one person. That in Christ we have one who is truly human, and he is also true God. Now, this is a daunting thought, isn't it?

I mean, let's just be absolutely honest. It is the kind of thought that we find nowhere else in world religion. The things that people say and the claims that others have made don't even come close to the preposterous nature of this claim—that in the person of Christ we have two natures in one person.

He is truly human, and he is truly God. But the mystery of it ought not to cause us to shy away from it. Rather, the mystery, I think, should draw us to it, in order that we might recognize the importance of it. Again, Bruce Milne says, if we neglect this task, others will attempt it in ways which lead to error and confusion. In the doctrine of Christ's person, as surely as in all other areas of Christian doctrine, careless shepherds invite predatory wolves. What he's saying is, although it may not be immediately palatable to the sheep that are under your care, pastors, make sure that you don't fudge this issue. Make sure that your congregation understands that when we use the name Jesus, we're talking about one who is the second person of the Trinity, coequal and coeternal with God. And make sure that your congregation knows that when you say Jesus, you're speaking about one in whom is found all that can be found of God and all that can be expressed in man. In other words, tax their minds. And do so in such a way that you understand and that they understand that if you don't help them to face these things, then they may be bamboozled like the rest of the culture. The fact is that we're living this morning in a culture where most people think that all the religions are really just the same, don't they?

I mean, they do. And they think that if there's any disagreement, it presumably is on sort of marginal and peripheral things. That we're all really believing in the same world, we're all going in the same place. Everything is absolutely wonderful. And if there's any points of disagreement, then presumably they're marginal things, they're little bits and pieces.

Nobody needs to get concerned about them. And I suppose that that is quite an attractive idea. I understand why so many people are drawn to it. You certainly are able to shy away from any kind of confrontation, any notion of standing up for a position. But can you read your Bible and acquiesce to such a pluralistic perspective? And the answer, of course, is, no, we can't—not if we're honest. Because we realize that the religions of the world disagree at profoundly central points, and that truth is not a matter of pride or a matter of humility. This is how it goes in the minds of people. Because all religions are essentially the same, why are these dreadful conservative Christians always banging on this issue of Jesus of Nazareth, as if he was the only way to God? Surely we all know that there is not only one way to God.

Therefore, why do they keep saying what they're saying? Well, Islam says that Jesus wasn't crucified. Christianity says that he was. Only one of us can be right. Judaism says that Jesus was not the Messiah. Christianity says he is the Messiah. Only one of us can be right. Hinduism says that God has been incarnate. Lots of times, Christianity says that the incarnation was a unique and unrepeatable event.

We cannot both be right. Buddhism says that the world's miseries will end when we do what's right. Christianity says that because we're sinners, we can't do what's right, and the world's miseries will end when we believe what's right.

These shepherds will leave their congregation vulnerable to predatory wolves. Now, let me give you just a little historical theology, a couple of dates, so that you can have a little hors d'oeuvre, as it were. The first four hundred years, five hundred years, of the fledgling church, they were preoccupied with these issues. And had they not been, then we would not have been able to enjoy the benefits of their thinking.

We would not have their counsels and their insights as a point of reference. Those of you who've done church history at all will know that for the first three hundred years, the church was battered all over the place, thrown to the lions, turned upside down, like fireworks, and set alight, and so on. And then, eventually, a man, one of the Roman emperors, Constantine, became a Christian—became a Christian in the fourth century, in AD 312. Interestingly, having become a Christian, he took very seriously the teachings of Jesus, and he began to examine them for himself, and so much so that he was a prime mover in trying to put together a council that met in Nicaea in AD 325, thirteen years after he became a Christian, in order that they could wrestle with this issue of who Jesus was in relationship to the Father and to the Holy Spirit. They made a good stab at it, but it wasn't until AD 381 that in the Council of Constantinople, they finally determined together that Christ was not a created being. Well, you would think that they would just put that to bed and move on.

But no, they decided that there was more to tackle. And so they continued to pay particular attention to the question, How, then, can the divine and human coexist in this person, Jesus of Nazareth? And they wrestled with the question, How can you have one person with two natures? And the way that they came to their conclusions was by ruling out false options. And so they ruled out the idea that Jesus was two personalities under one's skin.

If you like, it was a multiple personality disorder—that in one person there were two personalities coexisting. They also ruled out the idea that divinity swallowed humanity—that his humanity was a kind of unreal notion, and that he was truly divine, and he was a bit of a phantom. They also ruled out the idea that instead of there being two distinct natures within one person, that these two natures were actually fused and interwoven into some kind of mongrel existence.

So having ruled that out, they then had to say, Well, what are we saying about two natures in one person? And this is how they put it in the Council of Chalcedon. Jesus Christ acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably.

Good words, huh? Nobody has bettered the Chalcedonian definition in 451. Now, by the time the Westminster Divines tackled this some centuries later and put it down in the Westminster Confession, this is what they said.

And this is a little more absorbable, but it's still quite daunting. Two whole, perfect and distinct natures—the Godhead and the manhood—were inseparably joined in one person, but without conversion, composition, or confusion. You say, Well, what do they mean without these three things? Well, let me just tell you in a sentence.

I'll give you a sentence on each. What they're saying is that the divine is not changed into the human, nor is the human transmuted into the divine. There's no conversion. The divine and the human do not coalesce so as to form a third entity. There's no composition. And neither are these two distinct natures mixed. There's no confusion. So then, what is the concept? Let me give you Jim Packer in his Concise Theology, another wonderful book to have on your shelves. Jesus lived his divine human life in and through his human mind and body at every point. He did and endured everything, including his sufferings on the cross, in the unity of his divine human person.

So the natures are not separated, the natures are not commingled, the natures coexist in the one person, and all of his divinity and humanity of life is lived through his human mind and body. Now, I'm going to stop there. I'm going to make a couple of points of application, but that's more than enough to get you started, as it were. That's what the teacher would say. Well, there you are. That gets you started.

Go home and figure this out. Paul, when he addresses Timothy, he says to him in 1 Timothy 3, Great is the mystery, or beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great, Coleman. And then he quotes, He appeared in a body. The mystery of godliness is great, he appeared in a body.

And I suggest to you, so it is. Ultimately, at the end of the day, unless we become as little children, unless we recognize that what we have at best is a formulation of truth rather than an explanation of truth, we will never get beyond it. But the fact that it is mysterious, the fact that it is difficult, the fact that it taxes our minds, the fact that this isn't a blessed thought for blessed individuals to go on their blessed way, does not mean that we should step away from this. Rather, that we should give ourselves to it.

Especially when we recognize the pluralism and syncretism that is represented in our culture. 2 John 7 says, Many deceivers who do not acknowledge Jesus in the flesh have gone out into the world. Therefore, he says, it is imperative that when you use the name Jesus, when you say that Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane and that he sweat as it were great drops of blood and he was overwhelmed to the point of sorrow, and he said, Father, if there's any other way that I can get out of this situation, would you please come up with it now?

Because I'm paralyzed of the prospect of what is about to happen. The mystery is, you see, that he is not compelled by some divine force that moves him against his ability to choose as a human, but the very compulsion is his own compulsion. That he bows, as it were, as he is before the mystery of what he was. If Jesus is less than God, he can't reveal God. And the claim of Christianity is simple.

It's profound but simple. That God has made himself known, has revealed himself in the world, in the order of creation. He has revealed himself in the conscience of man—generically, men and women—inasmuch as we have the faculty of moral choice and decision-making. He has revealed himself in the wonder of this Bible—that is, a book that understands us, even though many times we don't understand it—and he has revealed himself fully and finally and savingly in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. But if Jesus is not God, no, he hasn't. Because that which is not God cannot reveal God. And if Jesus is not God, then he can't reconcile man to God. Therefore, if Jesus is less than the person he claims to be, we have no revelation, and we have no redemption, and therefore, the whole thing is completely bogus.

So do you understand how important this is? As opposed to some silly approach to Christianity that just says, Oh, yes, you know, yes, whatever, you know, who knows, give everyone a hug, have a hug and have a great day, you know? A sort of mindless, gauntless, futile, stupid existence. And here in Gethsemane, as we will come to this scene, when he experiences anguish and distress, when he encounters an agony greater than anything that we might ever know, we may be confident that he understands, that he empathizes, that he cares, and that he cares to the fullest extent of caring. The writer, again, to the Hebrews, says, Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. You see, the God of Christianity is not a God on a deck chair, removed from the experiences of life. The God of Christianity is a God on a cross, is a God in a garden, is a God down here, as well as a God out there. He is a God who is tangible. He is a God who is reachable. He is a God who is knowable. He is a God who understands us. And many of us this morning, if we think anything of God, we simply think that God is somewhere a way up there, you know. How are we then to unscramble all of those notions of God?

Well, by looking at Christ. But not if Christ is a created being. But he is the very emanation of God himself. He is God.

He is man. That is the claim of Christianity—a daunting, perplexing, invigorating claim. The whole world is against it.

Then I am against the whole world. You're listening to Truth for Life. That is Alistair Begg with a message he's titled, Jesus the God Man. Today's message helped us understand why Jesus can fully relate to us in our humanness and why he's also the only one who can reconcile us to God. I hope today's teaching has helped you better prepare your heart for the coming celebration of his resurrection. Let me recommend a book to you that will center your thoughts on the saving work of Christ from Easter through Pentecost. This is a 48-day devotional titled, O Sacred Head Now Wounded. Each day you'll reflect on who Jesus is and what he's done and what that means for us today. The daily reading includes a scripture passage, a prayer, a number of meditations, and a creed or a catechism. The book, O Sacred Head Now Wounded is yours when you give a donation to support Truth for Life today. You can give a one-time donation at truthforlife.org slash donate, or you can arrange to set up an automatic monthly donation when you visit truthforlife.org slash truthpartner.

If you'd prefer, you can also give us a call at 888-588-7884. Thanks for listening today. With Easter just a few weeks away now, it's good for us to remember how easy it is for us to sentimentalize the story or to skip past the crucifixion to the empty tomb. Tomorrow we'll reflect on the significance of Christ's passion. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.