Don't Forget The Incarnation!
05 Jan 2016
It is always a slightly melancholic moment when we get to the end of the Christmas season, and we have to take the decorations down. The tree returns to it’s box in the spare room (we have an artificial one), the cards come down from the mantlepiece, and the front room feels a bit more bare. It’s not helped by the fact that we have to do this at the start of January - which is usually one of the bleakest months. It is an inevitable part of the yearly cycle. For Christmas to be special it can’t continue forever.
As we pack away the wrapping and baubles for another year I want to make sure that we don’t put away with them something else. We may be very tempted to leave aside thoughts of Jesus Christ being fully man as well as being fully God until we come round to thinking about the nativity story next December - but that would be a huge mistake. Just as it would be disastrous to only think about Christ’s resurrection one weekend in fifty two, his incarnation should be a central part of our thinking and meditation on who our Lord and Saviour is all year round.
Even during the Christmas period we are often too quick to rush past the implications of the fact that Jesus is fully man. As a preacher I am constantly encouraged not to forget the cross at Christmas - and rightly so. As the best carols’ emphasise, Jesus was “born that man no more should die.” But there is more to the fact that our Saviour is fully man than simply the fact that meant he could die. The Bible is constantly witnessing to the implications of Jesus incarnation for us now, as we live in union with him by faith. Just notice some brief examples -
JESUS’ HUMANITY AND HIS HUMILITY
Remembering the fact that Jesus became fully human for our sake reminds us of his wonderful humility. As Paul emphasises in Philippians 2:5-11 without leaving aside his deity he became a man. He did not consider becoming a human being, suffering and dying as somehow beneath him, although he is fully God. He did not consider obedience to his Father’s will as unfitting to him, even though it meant unthinkable suffering. As Bruce Ware put it in his recent book on Christ’s humanity, we must:
“….see the heights from which he came and the depths to which he descended in coming as the suffering Servant who would bear our sin. We will belittle the magnitude of what Jesus has done if we fail to see the kind of obedience he rendered and the extent to which he was willing to go in ensuring that he fulfilled the will of his Father.”
This then fuels our humility as we obey God and serve others. Paul emphasises Jesus’ humility in the letter to the Philippians so his attitude may become ours. “Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus” (Phil 2:5).
JESUS’ HUMANITY AND HIS OBEDIENCE
In his humanity Jesus gives us a pattern for what obedience to God looks like. When he was tempted in the wilderness it is striking that Jesus did not miraculously defeat Satan through his deity - he simply quoted the Bible and trusted those words. He shows us both that obedience at the point of temptation is possible, and gives us assurance that as a man, Jesus understands the pressure we are under to sin. Indeed he felt it in a far greater way than we ever will - because he never gave in to it.
Don’t be tempted to think that it was somehow easy for Jesus to resist temptation, or that he “cheated” because he was God. His temptations were genuine, and he resisted them as a human being empowered by the Holy Spirit - the same way that we are called to resist sin.
JESUS’ HUMANITY AND HIS DEATH
The fact Jesus is fully human is crucial for his death to have an effect for us. He didn’t just need to be a man in order to go through the physical reality of his death - he needed to be fully human to die in our place bearing the punishment for our sin. He would not be truly our substitute without that being the case (Hebrews 2:14).
What is true for his death is also true for his resurrection. Because he is a man as well as God we have a great hope for his return. When he rose again he didn’t just do so as God, but as man, the first fruit of the future resurrection. As 1 Corinthians 15:21 puts it -
“For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection from the dead.”
JESUS’ HUMANITY AND HIS RULE
When we went through Hebrews in our morning services recently I was very struck by how much that letter emphasises the fact that Jesus Christ is still incarnate. It is not true to say that Jesus now “lives within my heart”. He dwells within us by his Spirit who unites us to himself - but he is currently bodily seated at the right hand of the majesty on high (Hebrews 1:3). And the good news is - that is exactly where we need him to be!
This is because we can have assurance that as he is there, we are right with God. There is now a man in heaven - and if we are united to him by faith, as Colossians 3:1-2 tells us, we are there as well! We are welcomed into the presence of God because Jesus Christ is in the presence of his Father united to his people. God can no more cast us out than he can cast his Son out of his presence.
The Chalcedonian Creed summarised the Biblical statements about Christ. He is:
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
Which is simply to say, as clearly as we can, Jesus Christ is fully man and fully God. How much do we consider what Jesus’ humanity means for us today?