Major Bible Themes

Today we are in chapter 8 and it has to do with the incarnation of the Son of God. Now every week I hope you are noticing that right up here it will give you next week of all the questions that are in the back of the book, those are the four that we will concentrate on. Just like some questions for this week were put up there last week. We're going to concentrate on four things today. We're going to talk about what our incarnation is. We're going to talk about what does the flesh mean? What is the incarnation of Christ? What's the nature of that incarnation? And what's the purpose of Christ's incarnation? Why did he do it? So, let's talk about incarnation. It's really interesting that that word is not in the Greek.

And I brought this along to, if you ever want to, you can borrow this from me too. Art Botzer gave me this book some years ago and it's called The Visual History of the English Bible. And it's pretty good in terms of, it traces back to the manuscripts, to when the printing press was invented. and how the Bible then became, was the first book printed, the Gutenberg Bible, and it began to become, the common person could pick it up. Before that time, there were a couple of things in play.

This word incarnate, or incarnation, is actually a derivative of a Latin word. Now why do you think Latin would be the predominant word, or the predominant language that translation would take place in? That's where it came from. It's our friends the Catholics. They translated everything into Latin. They translated everything into Latin. And the monks and those people that transcribed things through the dark ages, they did it in Latin.

Now there are Greek manuscripts which are the more accurate because there isn't another language in the way, but that's how the word incarnate or flesh got into the English vocabulary was vis-a-vis the Latin. In the Greek, the word is sarx, or ensarki, which means in flesh. So, if you've got a couple of days with nothing else to do and you want to read about how we got our English Bible, this is the book for you. There's a lot of really cool visual photographs here of original manuscripts. It's kind of neat.

So the definition down here, Incarnation is defined as the Lord Jesus Christ, and by the way this is how I'm always definition, which I'm not so sure I like, and I'll tell you why in a minute. Defined as the Lord Jesus Christ, who is eternal, who is God, who is the second person of the Trinity, becoming flesh. I would have translated it this way. would have defined it this way. The Incarnation is defined as the second person of the Trinity who is eternal, who is God, becoming flesh and becoming the Lord Jesus Christ.

See the difference? You alright with that? Okay. So let's look at these verses because they're really cool verses. In Courtney, John 1 1 and John 1.14, April Hebrews 1.3 and Acts 1.9-11.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. So the Word who is the second person of the Trinity becomes flesh, becomes a man.

Okay? I don't think you can state it any more succinctly than that. Okay, Hebrews 1-3. And he is the radiance of his glory, and the exact representation of his nature, and upholds all things by the word of his power. When he made purification of sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. Okay, so that brings up a question.

And the question is, when the Word became flesh, or he became man, did he diminish himself in his role as God? No. Did becoming a man make him somehow inferior to the other persons of the Trinity? No, it didn't. So, what do you think, did he set aside anything? When he became flesh? As you're thinking about that, read Acts 1, 9-11. Okay.

It was not long after he said this that he was taken up into heaven while they were watching. And he disappeared into the clouds. As they were straining their eyes to see him, two white robed men suddenly stood there among them. They said, Men of Galilee, why are you standing here staring at the sky? Jesus has been taken away from you into heaven and someday, just as you saw him go, you will return. Okay, so what these verses tell us is that Jesus Christ is God and He's man. Is He 50% God, 50% man? No, He's 100% both, right?

And there's this term that I remember hearing it years ago, the hypostatic union. This term right here. I still have no idea what it means. Somehow, the second person of the Trinity is united with humanity. And how long is he going to be united to humanity? Eternity. Forever.

So, a really important point, which we'll get to in the last slide, and I emphasize this a lot, that sitting on the throne of the Father today, in the heavenlies, is a human being. This human being. That's a really cool thing, when you think about it. Okay, let's talk about what flesh is.

Nick has somebody at work that actually was kind of interesting, because he said, you know, Christ wasn't deity. I mean, he, you know, he was from God and kind of, I don't know what offshoot or what, he's a Christian guy, but he has the thought that Christ became flesh, but gave up his deity to become a man. You know, the one that we told Nick was Colossians 119, which says, everything to put in him a man. Would this guy allow that the word of God is the ultimate authority?

Yeah, and I think he kind of went, uh, uh, uh, when Nick talked to him about it. You know, it's like, oh, well, uh, I had to think about what Nick had said. Well, and Nick may be just the guy that brings him around. Yeah, it was just, I hadn't, you know, heard, usually, I hadn't heard that, you know, God.

Well, I'm trying to think, you know, he could be a Mormon. Jehovah Witness don't believe, but Jehovah Witness and Mormons view themselves as Christians. I'd like to know what their definition is. Anyway. Mike, you asked the question, did Jesus give anything up of his deity?

The only thing I can think of is just he left his home to come to earth for a time. and then the fellowship with the father was broken while he was on the cross. That's true. That's the only thing I can think of. And it was just for that time period. It wasn't long term. I'm kind of setting you up for a question coming up here. That's good. Now that's good.

And didn't he also, like he would say, I don't do anything unless my father tells me, and he sort of submitted There wasn't any, yeah, there was an absolute submission there. And there wasn't anything that Christ ever did that wasn't the will of the Father. He never acted independently, ever. And that's a good point to know. As the representative man, and as the Son of God, and as the second person of the Trinity, you know, nobody, nobody, none of the persons of the Trinity operate independent.

They don't. They operate in unison. So let's define flesh. You can summarize it in three categories. With reference to the material, in the word of God, the physical body, and you can look up these verses, Acts 20, 30, 31, Ephesians 5, and the flesh that's attached to the bone. I can say my body is flesh and I can also say this chunk of it is flesh too. Then with reference to material and immaterial.

Romans 6.19 talks about the infirmity of the flesh.

Galatians 1.16 talks about flesh and blood, which is frail and feeble. And then we talked about the word became flesh. So we're talking about more than Jesus just getting a skeleton with a bunch of meat on it. Not only did he get that, but he also became flesh itself, which has an immaterial aspect to it.

And in Galatians 2.20 we all can identify that I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, I'm alive, functioning, and the life I now live in the flesh, in this body, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

Now there's an immaterial part, Galatians 5.16, If you walk in the Spirit, you will not fulfill the desires of the flesh. So, those that are in the flesh cannot please God. Well, if you took that physically, you'd think, well, no human being walking around in a body could ever please God, right?

So, what does that mean? What does it mean, in the flesh? The word lust means strong desire. Well, it's just submitting to your own nature. So would you say that your old nature equals the flesh? I'm not sure you can say that because you couldn't say that Jesus became the old nature, right?

He took on the form of what we see as flesh. Took on the form, flesh and blood, became a man. When Jesus became a man, he got a human soul. a human body, and a human spirit. You've got all three of those. Now, the difference between... Jesus had none of this lust of the flesh business. How come? Because he can't sin, he's God. He can't sin, he's God, but... And he didn't get a sin nature. He didn't get... that's more accurate. and you have a nature of flesh, a nature of sin, and it has desires, and they're really strong, and actually stronger than you have the capacity to control them. And it isn't your body being hungry, it's more than that.

We all know and can identify with the propensity to sin that's within us. We get angry, we get envious, we get greedy, we get all those really cool things. We hate, which in some cases is okay. But the flesh itself, the immaterial part of the flesh, does in fact have desires. Okay? And it's more than just your body being hungry. You know, when a person has an inordinate desire, a sexual desire, it isn't because it's behind his ear someplace. It's that nature in him that's desiring that. Okay? Okay.

Mike, so the, actually thinking about this, so the Christ being the firstborn of the new creation, body afterwards. So, his flesh, I'm just thinking, it made me think about this, you know, he has flesh. You don't ever want to get him thinking that. No, I'm just trying, you know, the conception was by the Father that it was through a sinful mother, you know, flesh, you know, and how that... the nature wasn't attached to it, which... Because the father was different. The father was different, so...

That brings up a question, how long would Jesus have lived if he hadn't been crucified? How long would his body have lived? He didn't have the same nature. No. Was it a corruptible body? You think he would have lived forever? I mean he grew up, he certainly could bleed, he certainly could suffer. He was cold. He was hungry. His body was not infected with sin though, but it was living in a sinful environment. To be honest with you, I don't know the answer to that. I really don't know because I don't think, you know, it says that the father fashioned a body for him. And it was susceptible to all of the pressures of the environment that it went into. It could die. Where would Adam's body before the fall die? Could it have died? Yeah, if he fell off a cliff, I'm sure he would. You know, although, you know, Mount Stanford said one time that the reason Adam and Eve felt naked when they sinned was because they were clothed in light. And it wasn't that they just didn't care about being naked. They had clothes on. But it was light that enclosed them, it wasn't, you know, something from Dillard's. Where does he get that enclosed in light? I think it was just his opinion. Now let me show you something here, I'm going to jump ahead.

This is the Lord Jesus Christ body, soul, and spirit, and in here, He's the Son of God, and He's united to the Father and the Holy Spirit in heart, mind, essence, nature, and flesh. Now here's an interesting point. A human being, Adam, has a body, he has a soul, and he has a spirit.

Which one of those before the fall was the controlling entity of who that man was? Right there. Okay? He was spiritually alive to God, and he got all his communication from God, and the spirit controlled the soul, which is self-consciousness, and in turn control the body. Now Adam sins. What happens? He dies. Death means separation. His connection with God right here went away. Okay? What fills the gap? Right here.

Because what's the sin nature attached to? I think it's attached to your soul. And so man became flesh, the sin nature, so the spirit is, you still have a human spirit, but it has no communication with God at all, in the fallen state. You have, every human being has a soul with a sin nature attached, which controls everything he does. Everything he does. Because the soul is the place of self-consciousness, and attached to that self-consciousness is this driving sinful source. that convinces you you have free will, you're in trouble. And it controls what the body does.

Now, when a person believes in the person and work of Christ, what happens? Right here, he becomes spiritually alive. But a lot more happens. He gets this position in which he's in Christ himself. One of the ways to define spiritual growth is the re-assuming of power of your spirit over your soul. Make sense? This is my opinion. As you are conformed to the image of Christ, this is the image you are being conformed to right here.

And as you are, you have that spiritual connection and your spirit begins to dominate you as a person again. It takes your whole life to even get there. But it squeezes out the sin nature. But from a positional standpoint, you've already been separated from it.

That's why God requires us to live by faith. We have to trust him. So, Mike, I'm still trying to understand the difference between soul and spirit. Somebody who's a non-believer, they have... I mean, I guess their spirit is dead. Who's the source of life? So all of their religious activity and everything is done by their soul? All done by the soul. If you look at all of those religions in the world, they're soulish. They're all based on emotion, and they're not based on anything spiritual at all.

Couldn't be. The natural man... The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God, their foolishness unto him, he cannot know them. Why? Because he's dead. He doesn't understand. He doesn't have a capacity. So they don't have a sinful spirit? They just have a spirit that's dead to God. It's alive, but it's dead to God.

And if it is, let's go forward, if it is the element within a man that makes him God conscious, they're not God conscious. As a matter of fact, Romans 1 says, Romans 1 says, how do we know that God exists? We know because he is observable in his creation. What's the soul? The soul and the body makes him conscious of what's going on around him, but not spiritual things. He has a conscience within him, which is in the soul, not in the spirit.

Now, T. Austin Sparks, ever read him? He's kind of a cool writer. He wrote a book called What is Man? And he's one of the only authors, and I recommend you get it from this church in Oklahoma, it's free, they'll just send it to you. He goes through and distinguishes the soul from the spirit and he gives properties to the spirit. The soul is mind, emotion, and will. But he says that the spirit is conscience, I can't remember now. Remind me and I'll give you the address. And I would recommend you read it. It's a little complicated but it's one of the only guys I've read that actually tackles that issue and that they are different.

I can't say that the soul is the sin nature and the spirit is walking in Christ. I mean that's not accurate, right? Say that again. You can't say that the soul is the sin nature. No, I think it's like this, you have a soul and I think the sin nature is impinged on a soul. And the soul is, as Romans and other places talks about, slave to sin, slave to sin. Inside all of that, the soul is saying, I've got free will, I can do what I want.

Oh really? Try not sinning. Try it. You can't do it. It's impossible. Because you can't, you know, the soul that's Anything that's not a faith is sin. How do you live inside of that umbrella by faith? You've got to know what to believe. You've got to be aware. So you have to be spiritually alive. But faith comes from your spirit, right? Well, faith comes by hearing and hearing from the Word of God. It comes, yeah. The information about your faith comes from your spirit. Your soul is actually the thing that does the believing. Because it's a will. Activity of your will. back to the circles and all that.

For us now, conditionally, we have a body and soul like two spirits? No, we have two natures. We don't have two spirits, we have two natures. We have the nature of the resurrected Christ, glorified Christ, and then we also have a sin nature. The thing is that the soul is not in bondage or attached to the sin nature now.

It's still there, it's still active, but it's not empowered unless you let it. So where is the nature in this diagram? It's not in this diagram. See, I get them thinking and looking. We're talking about Chevrolet, where's the Cadillac? Now, back to the question that I was kind of setting you up for. When the Lord Jesus became flesh, he did not abandon his deity. It's really important. The deity was not reduced or diminished in any way.

Hebrews 1.8 says exactly that. But he emptied himself of what? Of his glory. Do you see that? So when you see the Lord Jesus on the earth in the Gospels, except for on the Mount of Transfiguration, you don't see any glory. Even though John says we beheld him the glory as the only begotten Son of the Father, what did he see? How could John write that? He was on the Mount, wasn't he?

That's how he knew. Plus, you always have to keep in mind with our brother John, he writes 30 plus years after all the other apostles are dead. So he has a huge advantage. He's a Monday morning quarterback. He looks back at things and has watched them transpire over a period of 60 years or more. He has seen the glorified Lord.

And when he writes those people that are studying one John, You know, here is this discussion about the glorified Lord by John, but if you haven't read Paul, you don't understand what John's talking about. John was after Paul's epistles. Oh yeah, the last Paul's epistle was like, what, 62? And John writes his gospel in 92, something like that. saying who Christ is, his deity, his flesh, all that, because of all that Paul said, I think, John. He knew all of that. He's now saying he was God. Putting kind of the standpoint of all Paul's stuff. That's right. Okay, he became poor. In other words, he impoverished himself of his outward glory.

2 Corinthians 3.9 says he was made lower than the angels. Who's got that Hebrews?

Hebrews 2.9, take a look at that because I want to ask you a question about that.

And it says, but we do see him who is made a little lower than the angels, namely Jesus, because of the sufferings of death, crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God he may taste death for everyone. Okay, in his incarnation he's made lower than angels, in what respect? in the hierarchy of creation. Angels are above men. They are greater beings than men. So when he becomes a man, and wow, check this out, this is God identifying himself with man and putting himself lower than angels. But the really cool thing here for our discussion is that when you get to 1, 4, and 8 in Hebrews, He's above the angels.

How did he get there? He just said, I'm tired of this lowly position, I'm moving up the ladder. Sure, he's resurrected, this newness of life that Christ is as a resurrected man is now, he's moved up in the hierarchy of creation to just under the creator, a man. So when you believe in the person and work of Christ and you come into Christ, where are you?

You are not lower than the angels anymore. That's why the angels can observe us and learn of God just by watching us. Because of who we are. And the world has got it backwards and Christendom has got it backwards. They want to watch angels because they want to learn spiritual stuff.

In the Old Testament, there's a lot of discussion about the angel of the Lord. And as you see here, the angel of the Lord never appears in the New Testament. How come? Who do you think this angel of the Lord was in the Old Testament? Jesus. Yeah, it's the pre-incarnate Christ. Sure.

As a matter of fact, who's the prototype man? You know, like if you're going to build a car and you build a prototype? Who's the prototype man? Is it Adam? Or is it Christ? Who is the model? Christ is the model. Adam was created in the image and likeness of God. Christ is the prototype. So even though Adam shows up first on the scene, he's not the prototype, Christ is.

Now he never ceased to exercise his divine functions. Did he? No. So while he's walking around on the earth, he's 12 years old and he's in the temple, is he holding the earth together? Yep. You sure? Didn't he pass that off to somebody else? No, he's still doing all that.

When he's on the cross and dying, are all things still consisting in him? Sure they are. Because he's 100% man. and he's 100% God, and we'll talk about his crucifixion coming up. You have to know, what died on the cross when he died? Death meaning separation. What happened there? The deity didn't die.

Was he as the second person of the Trinity separated from God? Did God turn away from the Word? He turned away his back on the sin that he took on. He turned away from Jesus the man. But how do you separate them now? If you have this hypostatic union, I think I'd ask a question that nobody can answer. I really do. Because there's no question that God turned away from him. He said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? This is the second person of the Trinity and Jesus one man, one entity saying that. So, I mean, and God can't look upon sin, God meaning the word also.

So, anyway. What's also tricky is he's deity at all times and yet he's lower than the angels. That blows me away. Yeah. When he identifies or becomes a man in this hypostatic union, he in fact in terms of the hierarchy of creation was lower than the angels. Well, we right now are lower than the angels, right? No, you're not. Well, in Christ you are, but... Well, you know what's interesting? I'm going to pick on you for a minute, so get ready.

That's a great question because it reveals something about the way we view things. All of us as believers for a long time in our Christian life really do view ourselves from the Adamic viewpoint, don't we? And so we would logically conclude that we were a little lower than the angels. The problem is that God doesn't view us that way. The Word of God doesn't view us that way. The Word of God views us in Christ.

And so I think as time goes by as a believer and the Spirit of God is able to persuade you about who you are, you start looking at yourself a little different. Which side of the cross do you live on? Before you got crucified or after you got resurrected? As a resurrected person, you wouldn't say that. And it's not arrogance, it's humility that, my goodness, look what God has done. But are people who aren't believers lower than angels? Yes, they are. And they're controlled by an angel, our friend Beelzebub. He upholds, he bears all things by the word of his power. He is the out-raying of the Father's glory.

We talked about that last time, that Jesus being the word of God, what his role in the Godhead is, and that is he's the one that reveals to the creation the character of God. You would not know. You would know that God was great, that he was a creator, that he was powerful if Jesus had never shown up. What's the one big thing you'd have never learned if Christ didn't show? that he loves. You wouldn't have known that without him.

So he's the express image of the Father. He said, if you see me, you see the Father. Sure. I and the Father are one. And then, check this out. In John 17, what does he say about you? Father, as you and I are one, here's what I want you to do. I want them to be one with us. Who's he talking about? He's talking about Laura. And you. And you. Isn't that cool? Okay. When the Word became flesh, it was in the likeness of...

Let's look at Romans 8.3. He was in the likeness of sinful flesh. In other words, a resemblance. He's true humanity. He's born of a woman. He's born under the law. He partook of flesh and blood. He is fully man, body, soul, and spirit. He became, and that's why I go back to the definition, He became the man Jesus Christ. It wasn't that Jesus Christ became a man, it's the other way around. Okay, read Romans 8-3.

For what the law could not do, and that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sin for flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh. In the likeness of sinful flesh, what does that mean? Likeness of sinful flesh. Does it mean that he became sinful? No. He came down, looked like man, but still had the 100% God, deity, sinlessness. You know what's interesting though? This might answer the question as to how long his body would have lived. If he became in the likeness of sinful flesh, his body might have died. He knew no sin. He wasn't infected with the sin nature.

That's speculation on my part. The point is that he is 100% man. He is everything that we are. Okay? But death is separation. I don't know that Christ could have been separated from God. The only point that he was, was when sin nature was put on him. When sin was made sin. Yeah. Yeah. So, what's the difference? He was sinless humanity.

He knew and he experienced no sin, 2 Corinthians 5.21, and he didn't sin. Now, you know, it's easy for us to say, well, maybe he didn't sin in action. Maybe he thought about it when our boy Lucifer was tempting him in the desert. Notice here it says he was tempted without sin. Again, I'm going to disagree with Hal. I would change that word to tempted. Because the definition of tempted means that there's a possibility that you would give in No possibility.

He's not like Adam in that Adam was innocent. Jesus Christ was not innocent. He's holy. Big difference. An innocent man doesn't know evil and he also doesn't know good and he doesn't know the contrast. Holiness knows good and evil and loves the good and hates the evil. Jesus Christ is holy. He's the just one, the righteous one. He could not sin, and there are lots and lots of pseudo-Christian people that think he could have. It was impossible for him to sin.

Why? It's real simple. What's the definition of sin? The Greek word is hamartia. What's it mean? It's to fall short of the mark. Who's the mark? He's the mark. If Christ sinned, the world sunk. I mean, why would you? I mean, if you take that position, then you just condemn yourself. You take that position so that you can justify your own weakness. So, he continued fellowship with the Father and to do His will through his entire time on the earth, except on the cross. The fullness of the Godhead dwelt in him bodily.

We went through this and what this is designed to do is to show who Christ is with his glory being hidden. And by the way, this is true of every one of us and the glory of Christ that's in us is hidden. Colossians says that our life is hid with Christ and God. That glory that Christ shares with us is already there. It's already there, but it's hidden just like it was in him.

But we have the capacity to behold the glory of the Lord right now through his word. Check that out. That's pretty cool. When I'm out of transfiguration, here's what happened. That hidden glory began to shine out and overcome his humanity when he was transfigured. Okay. Kind of a cool. All right. Purpose. What was the purpose?

Why does God do everything he does? Yeah, he does it to glorify himself, so that's kind of self-centered, isn't it? What do you think? God created man, in 2 up here, God created man to share his glory for eternal fellowship. When you recognize that he's a God of love, and what his character is, he decides to create to create a creature like us for the sole purpose of enjoying him. He doesn't get any more shakes out of it, but you do. That demonstrates to me what a wonderful God he is in the sense that he has decided by becoming a man, or by creating a man, he wants to share his glory. It does his original purpose gets circumvented because Adam sinned.

Because in Romans 5.12 it says, Adam's sin caused separation and condemnation to all mankind. Whoops, there goes the glory deal.

No, God knew that that was going to happen. What's that? God knew that Adam was going to sin. So it didn't frustrate his purpose, it just took him a few thousand years to implement it, right? And he implemented it by Christ becoming by the second person of the Trinity becoming incarnate, becoming a man to pay for the sins of the world. Why did it take a man to do that? Because a man is the one who did the offense. Now, did Lucifer sin before Adam? Sure he did. But don't you notice that no person of the Godhead has become an angel to die to rescue them? So they don't get to be rescued. But you and I do because Christ is a man. So I'm going to jump down to the end.

His eternal purpose was to declare his glory and to share it and to reveal it and that's the reason we exist. And to be glorified. Question, isn't the Lord wondrous and magnificent? And now he has proposed to share Christ's very glory with you and me.

Overwhelming. Overwhelming. We're done. Timing's perfect. Father, how we thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ actually becoming a man. And that because of that we now are seated with him in the heavenlies. and that your glory will be manifested to all creation and we will be included in that. Father we thank you and we pray in his precious name. Amen.