THE
LORD JESUS CHRIST
T.P.
Simmons
We
have studied God the Father, and the doctrine of the Trinity. It now remains for
us to study the other two members of the Trinity. In this chapter our study is
to be devoted to the Lord Jesus Christ, God the Son.
I.
HIS PRE-EXISTENCE AND ETERNITY
The
pre-existence of Christ means His existence before the incarnation. The
Scripture teaches this very plainly. But more than that, it
teaches also that He has existed from all eternity. In our study of the Trinity
we noted that the distinctions in the Godhead are eternal. The following
passages clearly set forth the pre-existence and eternity of God the
Son:
"In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God"
(John 1:1).
"I
am come down from heaven" (John 6:38).
"And
now, Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with
thee before the world was" (John 17:5).
II.
HIS INCARNATION
This
same pre-existent, eternal Son became flesh, took upon Him a human body, and
dwelt among men, finally giving Himself as a sacrifice for
sinners.
Let
us note:
1.
THE FACT OF THE INCARNATION.
"And
the Word became flesh" (John 1: 14).
"Who.
. .emptied himself, talking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of
men" (Phil. 2:6,7).
"He
saith ... a body didst thou prepare for me" (Heb. 10:5).
2.
THE NECESSITY OF THE INCARNATION.
(1)
It was necessary that He endure bodily suffering if He was to
suffer as man's substitute.
The
final suffering of sinners in hell will be a suffering of both body and soul
(Matt. 10-28). Therefore, since Jesus was to suffer in the place of sinners, it
was necessary that He have a body in which to suffer.
(2)
It was necessary that He have a body that He might be "in all points tempted
like as we are," so that He, as a high priest can be "touched with the feeling
of our infirmities" (Heb. 4:15).
The
angel Gabriel cannot sympathize with us when we are tempted,
because he has never known temptation in the flesh. But Christ can sympathize
with us. "In that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor
them that are tempted" (Heb. 2.18).
(3)
It was necessary that He have a probation in the flesh, and render perfect
obedience to the law, in order that there should be wrought
out a righteousness that could be imputed to us.
The
righteousness imputed to us through faith is not righteousness as the personal
attribute of God, but it is the righteousness wrought out by Christ in His
earthly life. This is indicated because the righteousness imputed to us is
described as being by or though faith in Christ (Rom. 3:21, 22; Phil. 3:9).
(4)
The incarnation was also necessary to His ministry of teaching, His selecting
the twelve apostles and founding the church, and His setting for us an example
of perfect obedience to the will of God.
These
things are things which God saw could be best accomplished by one in the flesh.
Therefore the incarnate Christ was sent to accomplish
them.
The
incarnation of Christ is a mystery incomprehensible to the finite mind. It is a
supernatural phenomenon. Hence the necessity of the supernatural virgin birth of
Christ as shown in the following passages:
"Now
the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When his mother Mary had been
bethrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found with child of the
Holy Ghost" (Matt. 1:18).
"Behold
a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son"
(Matt. 1:2,3)- quoted frorn Isa. 7:14.
"And
the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and
the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee; wherefore also the holy thing
which is begotten shall be called the Son of God" (Luke
1:35).
"And
the word became flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:14).
The
birth of Christ was miraculous. But let us beware of pushing the miraculous
element so far that we destroy the reality of Christ's human
nature. Of what did the miracle of Christ's birth consist? It did not consist of
a miraculous creation of Christ's body, nor of an immediate birth; but of merely
a conception in the womb of Mary. Matt. 1:20; Luke 1:31. There is every evidence
that the body of Jesus passed through embryogeny and fetation just as the bodies
of other human infants do, and that he was carried in the womb of His mother for
the usual period of nine months. Luke 1:56; 2:6. It is quite
plain that the miraculous element in the incarnation consisted merely of the
divine impregnation of the ovum. Thus the human nature of Christ was made a
normal human nature, but, nevertheless, completely sanctified and preserved from
every taint of sin by the implantation of Deity.
The
following Scriptures show that Christ had a real human nature:
"Jesus
therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus by the well" (John 4:6).
Deity
cannot become wearied.
"When
the fulness of the time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman" (Gal.
4:4).
"There
is one God, one mediator also between God and men, himself
man, Christ Jesus" (1 Tim. 2:5)
Christ's
body and human nature were in all respects like our own, except that there was
no taint of sin in Him. He was the flesh of our flesh and blood of our blood.
"Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of FLESH AND
BLOOD, he also himself took part of the same; that through death he might
destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil" (Heb. 2:14).
On
the human side Jesus was a bonafide Jew. We are plainly told that He "was made
of the SEED OF DAVID ACCORDING TO THE FLESH" (Rom. 1:3). See
also John 7:42; Acts 13:23; 2 Tim. 2:8. The physical characteristics of Jesus
were those of a Jew, and thus the Samaritan woman recognized Him as a Jew. John
4:9. Then Jesus freely acknowledged Himself a Jew. John 4:22.
We
should be just as zealous in maintaining Christ's humanity
as we are in maintaining His deity. It was against those who denied the true
humanity of Jesus that John wrote in 2 John 7-11, and he shows that their error
was just as fatal as the error of those who deny His deity. As shown in the
preceding discussion of the incarnation, it was just as necessary that He be man
as it was that He be God.
V.
HIS DEITY
"And
the Word was God" (John 1:1).
"I
and the Father are one" (John 10:30).
"The
first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is of heaven" (1 Cor. 15:47)
"Who
is the image of the invisible W the firstborn of all creation" (Col. 1:15).
"Being
the effulgence of his glory, and the very image of his substance" (Heb. 1"3).
"They
shall call his name Immanuel; which is, being interpreted, God with us" (Matt.
1:23).
The
notion of modernists that Jesus was divine only in the sense
that they hold man to be divine does not satisfy these passages. Man is not
divine in his natural condition. After regeneration he has a divine nature
dwelling in him, but retains also the sinful human nature. It is never said that
man, even after regeneration, is God or that he is the "effulgence of His
glory."
How
Christ could be both God and man is a mystery beyond the power of man to
comprehend. Neither does man have any ground for a denial of it. It is a
revealed fact, necessary, as we have seen already, to the work that Christ came
to do.
"Him
who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the
righteousness of God in him" (2 Cor. 5:21).
"For
we have not an high priest that cannot be touched with the
feeling of our infirmities; but one that bath been in all points tempted like as
we are, yet without sin" (Heb. 4:15).
"For
such a high priest became us, holy, guileless, undefiled, separate from sinners,
and made higher than the heavens" (Heb. 7:26).
VII.
HIS SACRIFICIAL DEATH
"He
was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the
chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed"
(Isa. 53:5).
"The
Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life
a ransom for many" (Matt. 20:28).
"Who
was delivered up for our trespasses, and was raised for our justification" (Rom.
4:25).
"Christ
died for our sins according to the Scriptures" (1 Cor. 15:3).
"Christ
redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us: for it is
written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree" (Gal. 3:13).
"Who
his own self bare our sins in his body upon the tree, that we, having died unto
sins, might live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed" (1 Peter
2:24).
"Christ
. . . suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might
bring us to God" (1 Pet. 3:18).
"The
blood of Jesus his Son cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1: 7).
"Herein
is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the
propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:10).
Christ
did not die merely as a martyr. In a sense He was a martyr. His death was
brought about, from a human standpoint, by His faithfulness to His Father's
will. But He was more than a martyr. He was the substitute for sinners. He died
in their stead.
"The
unmartyrlike anguish cannot be accounted for, and the forsaking of the Father
cannot be justified, upon the hypothesis that Christ died as a mere witness to
truth [nor upon any other hypothesis except the one that affirms that He died as
a substitute for sinners to satisfy the justice of God]. If Christ's sufferings
were not propitiatory, they neither furnish us with a perfect example, nor
constitute a manifestation of the love of God ... If Christ
was simply a martyr, then He is not a perfect example; for many a martyr has
shown greater courage in the prospect of death, and in the final agony has been
able to say that the fire that consumed him was 'a bed of roses.' Gethsemane,
with its anguish, is apparently recorded in order to indicate that Christ's
sufferings even on the cross were not mainly physical sufferings" (Strong,
Systematic Theology, p. 399).
VIII.
HIS RESURRECTION
1.
As Prophesied.
Psa.
16:9, 10.
2.
As Taught by Jesus Himself.
Matt.
12:40; 16:4; 20:19; 26:32; Mark 9:9; Luke 18:33; 24:26; John
2:19,21
3.
As Witnessed by the Angel.
Matt.
28:6.
4.
As Taught by the Apostles.
Acts
2:24; 3:15; 4:10,33; 10:40; 13:30-33; 17:2,3,31;26:23,26; Rom. 1:4; 4:25;
6:4,5,9; Eph. 1:20; Heb. 13:20; 1 Pet. 1:3; 3:18; Rev. 1:5.
5.
As Proved by Rational Arguments.
For
arguments in proof of the resurrection of Christ see Chapter 1.
1.
As Prophesied.
Psa.
68:18.
2.
As Taught by Jesus Himself.
John
6:62.
3.
As Recorded by the Gospel Writer.
Mark
16:19.
4.
As Recorded by the Inspired Historian.
Acts
1-.9.
5.
As Declared by the Apostles.
Acts
3:21; Eph. 1:20; 4:8; 1 Tim. 3:16; Heb. 4:14; 9:24.
6.
As Proved by His Presence at the Right Hand of the
Father.
Acts
7:56.
X.
HIS OFFICES
1.
Prophet.
Deut.
18:15,18; Matt. 21:11; Luke 24:19; John 6:14.
2.
Priest.
Heb.
3:1; 5:6; 6:20; 7:11,15-17,20-28; 8:1,2,6.
3.
King.
Num.
24:17; Psa. 72:8,11; Isa. 9:6,7; 32:1; Jer. 30:9; Ezek. 37:24,25; Dan. 7:13,14;
Hos. 3:5; Mic. 5:2; Zech. 9:9; Matt. 2:2,6; 19:28; 21:5; 28:18; Luke 1:33;
19:27; 22:29,30; John 1:49; 12:13,15; 12:19.
As
a prophet Christ taught the will of God. As a priest He offered His own blood in
the heavenly temple (Heb. 9:11-14) and intercedes for believers (Heb. 7:25). As
king He possesses all power (Matt. 28:18) and rules now over an invisible,
spiritual kingdom (John 18:36,37), and is later to rule visibly over the whole earth (Psa. 66:4; 72:16-19; Isa. 2:2; Dan.
7:13,14,18,22,27; Heb. 10:13; Rev. 15:4).