God the Son His Incarnation

Chapter 8, we're progressing. Isn't that amazing? Chapter a week. Talking about God the Son and His Incarnation. So, here's the first question. What does, we've got people outside here. So the question is this, what does incarnation mean? Somebody comes up to you in the street and says, you know, I've heard about a lot of things and I've heard about the incarnation. What is the first thing you think of when you hear about the incarnation? And what does it mean to you when someone says or talks about or mentions incarnation. Okay. Okay. But you think of Christmas, you think of the birth of Christ. Okay.

So then, what does incarnation mean? Can anybody tell me where in scripture incarnation is mentioned? Where the word is mentioned? Okay, John 1, 1, 1, 2. Okay. So in 1, 1, in the beginning was the word, the word was with God. The word was God in verse 14. and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. Okay? And so, is that incarnation? Okay, that's incarnation. Is the word mentioned somewhere in terms of incarnation or that Jesus Christ is incarnate?

Now, I forget to tell you, I'm going to ask a lot of trick questions this morning. Alright, bottom line is this. The word incarnation or incarnate is never ever mentioned in scripture. You won't find it. So, because it's not in scripture, does that mean that it's something, a word that we shouldn't be using? The concept is there. Very good.

How about the word Trinity? The word what? Trinity. We're always using the word Trinity, right? Is that in Scripture? No. Trinity is not in Scripture either. But again, as Marilyn says, the concept is there, right? Okay. So, let's talk about Here's what we're going to do this morning. We're going to try to answer four questions.

Question number one is, what is the incarnation? Question number two, what does flesh mean? Because when we talk about incarnation, we're going to be talking about flesh. And question number three is, well, what is the nature of Christ's incarnation? And question number four, And why in the world the carnation? Why was Jesus Christ incarnate? So, let's look at what is incarnation.

So, I asked you the question already, and told you that neither the noun incarnation or the adjective incarnate appears in the New Testament. And so here's the bottom line. Here's where it comes from. There's a Latin word, incarnae, which means in flesh. And as you look at this Latin word incarnae, you see the derivation from English incarnation or incarnate. So we get the word incarnate. incarnate, or incarnation, from the Latin word incarnē. Incarnē in Latin means in flesh, simply means in flesh. But if you look at the Greek New Testament, you see the word in flesh all the time. And the Greek word is ensarce. So even though the word is not mentioned, the whole concept, as Marilyn says, is in the New Testament. Okay. So we come up with a definition. Here's just a simple definition.

The Incarnation is defined as the Lord Jesus Christ, and as Roger pointed out last week, in terms of God the Son, He's eternal, He's God, and He's the second person of the Trinity, that person becoming flesh. So God in the flesh. That's what incarnation means. And he's 100% man, 100% God. God in the flesh.

And I asked you a couple of weeks ago about Jesus Christ, who's seated at the right hand of God right now. And the question I asked was, is the Is he a man? Or is he a spirit? Or how does he exist right now? And the answer was that he's a man right now.

So he became flesh. He became incarnate for all eternity. And it's just not that little baby Jesus that we think of at Christmas time, as Vani as Bonnie says, because that's what we think of incarnation. We just think of that little baby at Christmas time, and we don't think of the fact that Jesus Christ is man, is a man right now.

He's going to be a man for all eternity. He's going to be the one that we're going to be fellowshipping with for all eternity. We're going to be looking at a man. Not some bright light But we're going to be looking at a person, the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Okay, so as Marilyn pointed out in John 1 verse 14, that the Word became flesh and He dwelt among us. And it goes on to say, and we beheld, we scrutinized His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of what? Grace and truth. Full of grace and truth. And so men were able to observe the very glory of the Lord Jesus Christ when He was here. Right? Full of grace and truth.

So He became flesh. The Word became flesh. Question, what does flesh mean? So we're talking about incarnation, we're talking about in flesh, became in flesh, and now what does in flesh mean? That he has a body. Okay, so how can we interpret flesh? Can we interpret flesh as a body, something physical?

Is that, I'm sorry? Body, soul and spirit is another interpretation. So it could be just material. It could be material and immaterial. Could it be anything else? Could flesh be anything else? But as you go through scripture, you find out that flesh could also be just immaterial.

So as we look at the word flesh in scripture, here's what we find. We find it utilized in three major categories. One, as Marilyn just pointed out, reference to the material, like to the body. Now, without looking at your notes, I want your eyes fixed here because there's no peeking.

The question is this, when we think of flesh, and we read the word flesh in scripture, what do we think of? Something that is positive, or is it something that is negative? What do we think? We think of the old man, so we think of something negative. Most of the time you hear the word flesh, but hold it. So we always associate the word flesh with something that's usually negative. But here we have, and the word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father.

And then you go over to Galatians 2.20, and it says, I am crucified with Christ, right? Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And the life that I now live, how, where? The life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

Is that flesh there positive or negative? Positive, definitely. So that when I look at Other terms, like where it says that if we're in the flesh, that we cannot please God. How is that used? Positive or negative? Negative. So the point is this. Same word. So the point is this.

As you look at the word flesh, as you look at any word in scripture, any word, I don't care what it is, whether it's love, righteousness, you have to look at it in the context, you have to understand it in the context because it may be positive or may be negative.

For example, when we think of love, and if I say agape love, positive or negative? Positive. But if I were to say that man is condemned, and the reason why man is condemned is that he loved darkness rather than light. And I would tell you that that word love is agape, negative or positive. That man loved agape darkness rather than light.

Negative or positive? Negative. Negative. If I were to tell you the word righteousness, if I were to talk about the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, negative or positive? Negative. And it's talking about their own self-righteousness. But if I were to talk to you about the righteousness that's in Christ, Negative or positive? Positive. Okay. So, depending upon the context, you have to look at the word.

So, as you go through all of the New Testament, with respect to the word flesh, it can refer to the material body, that is, the physical body, or sometimes it's talking about this flesh that's on the bones of the body. And we will go through these references here. Now, there's the second usage where it's as funny as both the material and the immaterial, the body, and the immaterial, the soul and the spirit. the immaterial part of man. So flesh is used in that sense. So scripture talks about the infirmity of the flesh, immaterial and material. Negative or positive? Negative. We talked about flesh and blood and flesh being frail He talks about a feeble man, negative, positive, in terms of flesh. Negative.

So then we come down to John 1.14 and Galatians 2.20, which we just talked about, and we see that the Word became flesh, the life that I now live in the flesh.

It's both material and immaterial. It's all of the Lord Jesus Christ, all that he was, his body, soul, and spirit. He was 100% man, like we are 100% man, right? So the life that we now live in the flesh, both material and immaterial, both in the body, in our soul, in our spirit, our mind, our heart, which is the immaterial. It is also then used as just the immaterial.

So, in Galatians 5.16 and 17, it says, If you walk in the Spirit, you will not, you will, what? If we walk in the Spirit, we will not, what? We will not fulfill the lust of the flesh, the desires of the flesh. Negative, positive.

So it's the lust of the flesh, and it's talking about the flesh, and so now the question is, when you interpret this, is it material and immaterial, or is it material, or could it be material? Which category do you put it in? So answer me this question. I mean, why did I put it in that category? I needed more bullets.

The desires. Lust, the word there, epithumia, is a Greek word which just means desires and it means sometimes inordinate desires. So if I talk about the word lust, And usually we think of the word lust. But if we change it to desires, desires could be positive or negative. I mean that we understand.

But lust usually we think of because when we think of lust we think of what? What kind of lust? Normally we associate lust with one of the Immoral? Sexual. We think with lust, we think of sex, don't we? I mean, we automatically associate lust with sex. And we don't understand that lust means just simply desire. Okay, so the lust of the flesh. Let's take the body. Does the body have lust, desires? The body? This flesh and bone? Does that come strictly from the body? It's a good guess because it's in this category here.

When we talk about the less of the flesh, there's a source within us that produces the desires. And we always have to ask, where did the desires come from? And so, as an unbeliever and believer, desires can come from the old nature. As a believer, desires can come from the new nature. So we've got two sets of desires. If you're a believer in Christ, there's two sets of desires coming on us all the time, 24-7. We've got the desires of the Spirit, and we've got the desires of the flesh.

So when we take this passage of Scripture in terms of desires, if you walk in the Spirit, you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh, that understood in that passage, there's the desires of the Spirit. That's immaterial. That's not material. I don't want to spend time here, but I just want our understanding. Now, we're going to take a look at question number three, and I don't want you to look at your notes. because I want to ask you a question. We're talking about the nature of Christ's incarnation. What was it like?

So he became flesh and he dwelt among us. So what was the nature of his incarnation? So if I were to ask you about his deity with respect to his incarnation, with respect to him becoming flesh. Think about his deity. Question. Was his deity abolished when he became flesh? Okay. How about this? Was his deity diminished or reduced when he became flesh?

Yes, we got a couple of yeses. We got some noes. All right, good. Which is it? Because somebody is wrong. All right, so now all of you who said yes, I want to ask you a question. Scripture says, Look at Philippians 2, verse 7. These are for the people who said, yes, that his deity was not diminished. Now remember, I've told you I'm going to be asking some trick questions. So you're going to have to catch which is the trick questions here. Philippians chapter 2 in verse 7.

Let me read it from the King James. It says this, but he made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men. Okay? I want somebody to read it from either the New American Standard, does somebody have a New American Standard? Crystal. Okay, so it translates the word in the King James that he made himself of no reputation, and it translates that Greek word, the New American Standard, in that he emptied himself. So now, hold it, you guys who said his deity was not diminished or reduced, here's a passage of Scripture saying that he emptied himself. Well, if he emptied himself, he must have emptied himself of something.

So I want you to take a look at another passage. I want you to take a look at Romans chapter 8, verse 3. Romans 8, verse 3. See if we can prove these guys who said yes, can we prove that they're wrong? Let me read it from the King James. Romans 8, 3.

For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh." Now, here's a passage of scripture that says that God sent Christ in the likeness of what kind of flesh? Sinful flesh.

Philippians 2.7 said He emptied Himself.

Would you like to change your vote? How many would say, after reading these passages, that the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ was somewhat diminished, somewhat reduced? How many would like to change their vote? Come on. Didn't I convince you guys? So how do we answer these questions? Somebody comes up to you and says, hey, the Lord Jesus Christ, I'm sorry, he wasn't 100% God.

I mean, I can show you in scripture where he emptied himself. He must have emptied himself of something. And I can show you that God sent him and he was in the likeness of sinful flesh. all deity, something had to change, right? So what does all this mean? Let me give you some of the bottom line here, and we'll see why. The thing is this. His deity was not abandoned. Never was his deity abandoned. Can anybody tell me how we know his deity was not abandoned? At least by the words of the Lord Jesus Christ?

And Roger went through this last week. Okay. He says, I and the Father are one. Anything else? A passage that Roger used last week in John 8, 58, where they asked Christ, who are you? Because Christ was talking about Abraham. He said, hold it, this guy sounds like he knows Abraham. How could he know Abraham when Abraham lived 1,000 or 1,500 years ago, whatever it was? And Christ said, before Abraham was what?

I am. And of course, when he said that, what did these Pharisees do? They picked up rocks to stone him. Rightly so, because what was he saying? He was saying, I am the I am back in the Old Testament when Moses asked him in the burning bush, who shall I say sent me? get down, because he told Moses, get down and talk to Pharaoh, get a job for you, Moses. And Moses said, well, who shall I say sent me? And God said, tell him, I AM sent you, the one who continuously exists, the one who has existed for all eternity. And when Jesus Christ said, I AM, they picked up stones, because if anybody proclaimed themselves to be God, they should be stoned. That's what the Old Testament says. Okay, so his deity was never abandoned. His deity was never reduced or diminished in any way. Not one iota. Not one iota.

So now, how do we explain the fact in Philippians 2.7 that he emptied himself? He became of no reputation that he emptied himself.

How do we explain that? And I think the way we explained it is this. is that when he emptied himself, he did not empty himself of his glory, of his deity, but he emptied himself of his outward glory. Now notice the word outward, very important, because how about inward? Did He empty Himself of His inward glory? Okay.

What does glory mean? When we talk about the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, when we talk about the glory of God, what do we mean? When Jesus Christ says that, He's talking about us, He's praying to the Father in John 17, He says, The glory that you have given me, I have given them. I have given every one of you, he's talking about believers, those who would become believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, that we have the very glory of the Lord Jesus Christ.

What does that mean? Crystal? Representation? Correct? Okay, representation of God. Can we define that a little bit more? How are we representative of God? I'm not going to say a word until you answer. Okay, so glory has to do with image, glory has to do with nature, essence, So when we're talking about the glory of God, we're talking about his essence, right? What's his essence?

Okay, certainly true that Jesus Christ and say in 1 John 2.2 that he's God's satisfaction. Certainly true. But when we think about now essence of God, his essence, what's he like? Tell me something. Somebody comes up to you and says, tell me what God's like.

What's he like? What's his nature? What's his essence? He's what? Okay, the fruit of the Spirit. Perfect and holy? He's love? All his attributes? And what's his attributes? Love? Joy? What's God like? Somebody asks you, I want to know about God. I'm working with two guys right now who are unbelievers, and they want to know, what's he like? He's merciful. He's love. We had love three times. What else? He's omniscient. Omnipresent. Holy. Righteous. Wonderful. That's what he's like. Okay. So when he empties himself, He did not put aside any of that essence. Zero.

But it was just as outward glory. Boy, that's a good question. How could it be confined to a body, but yet be omnipresent? And not only that, how could it be omniscient? And how could it be omnipotent? Would that be fair? If he's confined to a body, how could it be all of that?

Good question. Okay, so spiritually he's not connected to the body. I'm not laughing at you, really. I'm trying to think of the concept. Let's see, spiritually he's not connected to the body. Oh, confined to the body. Oh, excuse me. And I was wondering, how does that happen? OK. Remember we talked about, and Roger talked about the Trinity, and we tried to see what the Trinity is like in terms of father, son, and the Holy Spirit. We have three persons and one Godhead.

There's this unity, and there's a unity of heart, mind, and essence. What you just talked about, His essence, His righteousness, His love, His grace, His mercy, His omnipotence, His omniscience, etc. His very essence and nature. And because of who the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are, who God is, that because of this essence in nature, they just radiate. So that when you get into eternity future, and you get in the holy city, the holy Jerusalem descends, and the Lord Jesus Christ and God are the temple of that holy city, and it says They need no light in there. Why? Because they are the light. I mean, just the radiance from the glory as to who they are. You don't need a light. Because of their glory, it just radiates. So now, think about this. Here we have this sun with this glory coming down to earth and becoming man in flesh.

Did the average guy on the street see this glory in the Lord Jesus Christ after he was a babe in Bethlehem and he grew up and he walked and he taught? Did the average guy or did anybody see this glory? Very good. So the question is, what did they see? Well, they saw a guy. He was just a regular guy, a regular man. And they saw his body, his soul, and his spirit. They saw his body, but within his body he had a soul and a spirit, a heart and a mind. And they just saw a guy like any other guy, right? But there was a difference. Here's a guy who was not only a man, but he was God. And so he was God the Son. So within him was this glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father.

But man could not see that. The average person in the street could not see that, could they? So, they just saw a man. Now, who is this guy? And performing miracles. Boy, this guy is invading our territory. These Pharisees and scribes. This guy is invading our territory. People are following him and not us. Let's just put him to death. Let's get rid of this guy. So all they saw was a man, right? They saw a man, but they didn't see God. They didn't see the God-man. They just saw a man. There's very few people that saw the God-man. And you always have to keep ahead of Marilyn. And I figured, okay, what questions is Marilyn going to be asking this week? And so, what did Marilyn say?

That they saw, just a few people saw, this glory that was within him. He didn't The glory was never reduced, never diminished. His deity was never reduced, never diminished. But it just wasn't manifested when he was a man. So he emptied himself of his visible glory.

But on the Mount of Transfiguration, here we have James, Peter, and John, and the Lord is transfigured before them. inward glory now becomes outward and they see him. Somebody turn to John chapter 17 and read verses 1 and 2. After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed, Father, the time has come. I'm sorry, excuse me, did I say John? Matthew. Yeah, I'm saying what in the world is Marilyn reading? Okay. Matthew 17. Whoever gets there first. Matthew 17, verses 1 and 2. Mark.

His face shone as what? Like the sun. His face shone like the sun and his garments white as light. Did those garments all of a sudden change? He had the same garments on when he went up, so what happened? It was shining through the garments, so the very glory that was within was shining through the garments. So they saw the transfigured Lord Jesus Christ, transfigured before them, in terms of that inner glory now became visible and outward, right? So, all this to say that the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ as man, or Him as God, His glory as God, never was diminished, never was reduced, never was changed in any way except that it just wasn't visible. Okay, so he looked like any other guy.

All right. Okay, so here's the question. I was trying to duck the question. No. Oh, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know if that's the middle voice. I'd have to look at it. So I don't. Right, standing right here, I don't know. Okay, so here's Marilyn's question. Marilyn's question is this.

Did he set aside his omnipotence, omniscience, right? Omnipresence? Did he? As when he came as man? That's a good question. And believe this or not, I didn't talk to Marilyn this week, but I knew she was going to ask that question. So you always have to anticipate, what question is the class going to ask? But we talked about the fact that he'd emptied himself.

What that means now, he became poor, impoverished himself, just means that he impoverished himself of this outward glory. So here's Marilyn's question. Did he cease in any way his divine functions, his omnipotence, his omniscience, his whatever? Did he cease any of those divine functions? In Colossians 1, 16 and 17, and Hebrews 1, 3, do you remember what it says? That by him all things, what?

Consist? And it's interesting, in the Greek word there means to stand together or held together. All things in this universe, all things in this universe, every atom is held together by the Lord Jesus Christ. And in Hebrews 1.3 it tells us it's held together by the word of His power. By the word of His power. What's interesting is this.

Scientists don't understand how an atom is held together. You know, an atom has a nucleus, a proton, a neutron, etc. and it has and depending upon which theory, and the quantum theory is the one that's prevalent today, that says you have all these valences of electrons, and that's how it's held together. But, you know, there are scientists that say the quantum theory really doesn't work on everything. There's something lacking. So there's other scientists working on other theories in terms of how this is all held together. Very interesting.

But Hebrews 1.3 says, all things are held together by the word of his power. Interesting.

So did he cease? When he became man, did he say, Father, you take over, right? You're sending me to earth. You take over in holding the universe together. Is there any word in scripture that says that he was anything other than God the Son, who, Hebrews says, holds all things together. It says that he holds all things together. He became a man. He never gave up the exercise of his divine functions. Never, ever.

So can you see how the Lord Jesus Christ was both man and God? Does that boggle your mind? Okay, was there a separation between this humanity and deity? Okay, for those who say no, some say yes, some say no. For those who say no, I have another question for you.

When he died, who died? If he was deity and humanity, did both his deity die and his humanity die? Just his humanity died, huh? So is there a separation in that sense? Can deity ever die? Why? It's eternal because of his very essence. Okay. Okay, so the question is, if his humanity did die, and his deity didn't die, how can it be both man and God right now? And the answer was resurrection. He was resurrected. Same kind of body that he had when he died? Glorified body. It's a different kind of body. What kind of body did He die with?

One with sin? Really? Really? He died with sin on that cross, but not His, right? but ours. The sins of the world were placed upon him. Yes, Ray. Very good. Very good. And so you see evidences of his deity, right? But, and there are some theologians that say, what time are we supposed to get through here? 9.55?

Okay, there's some theologians that say that in Philippians 2.7, when he emptied himself, that he defested himself of any of his deity in terms of his omniscience and omnipotence, etc. I don't know how you can arrive at that as you read the Gospels. And he could say, Philip, I saw you under that fig tree. When did you see me?

Etc. So the point is this, that he never ceased to exercise the divine functions in terms of holding this whole entire universe together. He is always the outraying of the Father's glory. He's the express image of the Father. Nothing ever changed. Okay, we've got to get to these last slides here.

So here's the answer to the other question. when he came in the likeness of sinful flesh, the word likeness there means resemblance, that he resembled sinful flesh. Not that he was sinful, he resembled sinful flesh. He was born of a woman, under the law, partake of flesh and blood, fully man, body, soul, and spirit, He became the man Christ Jesus, but there's differences between the likeness and resemblance of sinful man. And the differences is that he knew he experienced no sin.

None. Nada. He did no sin. Thought, word, or deed. He was tempted but without sin. He was the just one, the righteous one. He could not sin. So that was the difference. So he resembled sinful man. You couldn't tell the difference outward, visibly, but there was an inward difference. And the inward difference is that the Lord Jesus Christ was without sin. Now, just in closing, one question. Why? Why the incarnation? So he could die for our sins.

What I want you to do is to always remember this. Always think, when we ask you these kinds of questions, always think back to God's eternal purpose. What is God's eternal purpose? Because if He sent His Son in the flesh, it had to be part of God's eternal purpose, right? To fulfill His eternal purpose, Otherwise, why would He send His Son? So there's a reason to fulfill God's eternal purpose. And God's eternal purpose, as we looked at, remember these four points we're going to ask you every week, is to declare His glory, to share His glory, to reveal it, and then to be glorified. And I just want to hone on here, to share His glory. God wanted to share His very glory with mankind. with you and me.

But because of Adam's one sin, we became tainted. We inherited a sin nature that separated us from God, and so that we couldn't have fellowship with God. But God's very desire was to bring us in this fellowship with Him, in this circle of love with Him.

And the only way He could do it is to send a man who was sinless. And a man had to pay the penalty, but a spotless man. And that spotless man was the Lord Jesus Christ. And because he paid that penalty for our sins, now we can be restored back to fellowship with him by believing the person of Christ, who he is, and his work on the cross. And we can share right now that very fellowship with him, his very life, right now by just abiding in Him.

Thank you, Father, for your eternal purpose in sharing your glory with each and every one of us here this morning, and in knowing, Father God, that it's an ongoing process as we walk by faith that you want to conform us to the very image of our Lord Jesus Christ. And we thank you for that. We thank you for his work on the cross for us. And pray, Father, that each of us, moment by moment, would walk in the Spirit, that we would not fulfill the lust of the flesh, and that we would be faithful witnesses for you, that others may see the Lord Jesus Christ through us. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.