II . HIS TRUE MANHOOD
Psalm 8: 3-6; 1: 9; Hebrews 2: 5-9, 14-18; 4: 15-16; 13: 8;
1 Timothy 2: 5; Matthew 1: 18-23; Luke 1: 26-35;
Last Tuesday evening we were considering the Lord Jesus in His own personal glory, that is, as a divine Person; what He is from eternity to eternity, God over all, blessed for ever. We were seeing that if souls have a false Christ, they have nothing, and that is a very serious thing. If souls have a false Christ, they have lost God and everything, because everything depended upon a divine person coming into Manhood. “The Word was with God, and the Word was God” and “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us”, John 1: 1, 14. Here we have the incarnation, that is, One who was God coming into Manhood.
Now this evening what I have before me is to consider Him as Man, “the Man Christ Jesus”. These are the two great pillars on which Christianity is built up, that is, the truth as to the deity, and the true Manhood of Christ. To lose either is to lose the truth of Christianity—to lose everything on which the glory of God and our blessing depends. We must hold both. We cannot, perhaps, entertain the two thoughts in our minds at the same moment, that is, when we are thinking of Him as Man, we are not thinking of Him as God, for the moment, and when we are thinking of Him as God, we are not thinking of Him as Man, but both must be held firmly in our faith.
Now the confession that we read in 1 John 4 involves both. Many false prophets had gone out into the world even in the apostle John’s day; how many more now! Christendom is inundated with false prophets, and the minds of Christians are being perturbed and corrupted by their teaching. The prophets must be tried whether they be of God. How can they be tried? A simple test, is “every spirit which confesses Jesus Christ come in flesh is of God and every spirit which does not confess Jesus Christ come in flesh is not of God”. This confession involves two thoughts—the Person who came, and the condition into which He came. Who came? The One who was with God eternally—the One who was Himself God. He came into human condition, He came in flesh; that is the condition into which He came. His coming in flesh does not add anything to His Person; it did not take away anything from His personal glory. He was always the same. But that blessed Person has come in flesh—come into Manhood.
I might have read another passage in Luke 2 where the heavenly host, when they announced the birth of Jesus to the shepherds, said, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men”, chap 2: 14. The birth of that Child was the great expression of the good pleasure of God in men. It could not be expressed more definitely—God’s own blessed Son, had been pleased to come into this world in manhood. That Babe born in Bethlehem was the expression of God’s good pleasure in men.
The Psalmist says, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?”, Ps 8: 4.
Another wonderful thought connected with this is, the marvellous expression of the grace of the Lord Jesus! That He, the blessed Son of God, was willing to lay aside His glory, and come down into this world of sin and evil, suffering and death, in the form of man. What grace! It is beyond anything that we can comprehend. One person in the Godhead, coming down into Manhood! What grace! What a descent it was! Where had He descended from? From God’s fullest glory; and where had He descended to? Into man’s estate, of course, apart from sin. This blessed Person, the Son, came into manhood.
Now the passage in John that I referred to, says, “the Word became flesh”, but it does not tell us how He became flesh. The passages in Luke and Matthew tell us how He became flesh—born of a woman, and it is important for us to mark the miraculous character of His birth. It was not a natural birth. Some of the teachers in Christendom today dare to say that it was merely a natural birth. If this was so, then He was born a child of Adam, in a state of sin, born under condemnation, and therefore could never take our place as a substitute and die for us.
Well, now, that is what is involved when men say it was a natural birth, but it was not a natural birth. “Before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost”, Matt 1: 18. “That which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost”, v 20. “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest overshadow thee, therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God”, Luke 1: 35. Read carefully the scriptures.
As Man, He was susceptible to hunger, fatigue, and everything that men could feel. “Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows”, Isa 53: 4. “In all their affliction, he was afflicted” (Isa 63: 9), so that now He is touched with the feeling of our infirmities. Having still, as Man, the feelings and sensibilities that are common to men, He can understand and feel with us in whatever kind of suffering (mental or physical) in which we suffer, is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin”, Heb 4: 15.
He has the affections of a man, and feels as a man. What a wonderful thing it is to know that we have such a One to represent us before God, and ever living to intercede for us.
There is another point—while I have said He is actually and truly Man (and ever will be), He is a Man of another order. He is not of Adam’s race morally (1 Cor 15: 45-49). The apostle draws a contrast between the two orders of man; there is the natural man, and the spiritual man; there is the earthly man and the heavenly man; there is the first Adam (the head and source of a generation), and there is the last Adam (the head and source of a new generation). There are the two distinct orders of man—the first man, Adam, and the second man, the Lord Jesus out of heaven. Christ was the second Man. In God’s reckoning, there was no second man until Christ came. There was only Adam extended and developed in his race. You and I were born of Adam’s generation, and we were born in sin and under condemnation, subject to death. The first man was an earthly man, made of earth and belonging to earth, and could not go beyond it. “Dust thou art”, God said to Adam, “and unto dust shalt thou return”, Gen 3: 19. Born into this world an earthly man, he dies and goes back to earth again as far as this world is concerned.
Now when you come to the second man, Christ, His origin was from heaven, the Lord out of heaven. That is, He brought into manhood that which was heavenly, that which was suited to heaven, and which must go back to heaven. As we know very well, when He had accomplished His ministry and His service here, He was received back into heaven. Well, now, every believer is of the generation of that Man. We are born again, we are born of God and not of Adam. When a person believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, he receives the Spirit of Christ, and in receiving the Spirit of Christ, he partakes of the life of Christ, and belongs to another world. “As is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly”, 1 Cor 15: 48.
Well, now, the spiritual man is a man of an entirely new order. Christ is the pattern, and God is working to that pattern, and the ultimate result will be that every believer will be perfectly conformed to Christ.
Now I want to go back a little to the generation of Jesus Christ, because we do not understand our generation if we do not understand His generation, and the word is very explicit—“Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: when as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost”. Was that a natural birth? Again, the 20th verse, which is connected with the prophet Isaiah 7: 14, where it says, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” which being interpreted, is, “God with us”. Is that the result of a natural birth? Could any child ever born in this world be called “God with us”? Impossible! See also Luke’s account (chap 1: 26-28), and verses 31-35, as already referred to.
Now men are denying this, and then they have a false Christ. Those who say His birth was natural, would also say His death was natural, but His death was not natural; having borne the judgment of sin, and accomplished all that was spoken of Him, He delivered up His spirit to God. It was His own act—“I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again”, John 10: 18.
The scriptures are very definite as to the way He entered into manhood—“A body hast thou prepared me”, Heb 10: 5. He was a spiritual Man, begotten of the Spirit, and anointed with the Spirit, filled with the Holy Spirit and led of the Spirit, doing everything that He did in the power of the Holy Ghost.
If One who was Himself God comes into manhood, He must bring into manhood the moral qualities of God, holiness, righteousness, &c., so that in Him, as man God saw the moral reflection of Himself, truly man of a new order, man in the image and likeness of God. This was God’s original thought as to man, perfectly verified in the second Man.
Now I want to say a little as to the contrast between this blessed Man and every other man that was born into this world. If we think of Him in His relation to God, what characterised Him? Absolute obedience, absolute submission to His will, absolute dependence on Him. He was wholly for God. He said, “I delight to do thy will, O my God”, Ps 40: 8. All His life revolved around God; we might say He was God-centred, not self-centred. He never moved apart from God, never acted independently. Man’s way has been to act independently of God all the way through. What a contrast! This blessed One was found here wholly for God. He said, “I seek not mine own glory”, but the glory of Him that sent Me, John 8: 50.
What did Adam do? How did he fall? By pride, seeking to exalt himself. That is the nature of every one of us, but this One humbled Himself, sacrificed Himself to God’s will, never moving without God, although He had divine power. He never exercised it, apart from the will of God, never used it on His own behalf. Take, for instance, when He went to raise Lazarus—He lifted up His eyes to heaven and said, “Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me”, John 11: 41. He was about to exercise divine power in raising the dead, but He would not act independently of God. He would not move apart from the will of God; He would not act apart from dependence on God. You say, ‘I cannot understand that; if He was a divine Person, why not act in His own power?’ Well, in doing so He would have acted inconsistently with perfect manhood. He would have done that which was not proper to man. Man’s perfection is to be obedient and dependent, therefore He would not act independently, or apart from the will of God. As He said in the case of Lazarus, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby”, John 11: 4.
In Psalm 16 He says, “Preserve me, O God: for in thee do I put my trust”. He acted always suitably to the condition into which He had entered, and if we are to please God we must walk as He walked. That was what was suited to manhood, subjection to the will of God, and seeking only the glory of God. In all that, God looked down from heaven and found a man after His own heart. Everything that satisfied God’s desire was found in Him. Well, that is what He was Godward.
Manward, it says, He “went about doing good”, Acts 10: 38. He sacrificed Himself in serving man. He manifested the goodness of God, the tenderness and grace of God. He set forth the true character of God in all His ways and actions. They might come to Him at the end of the day when He was weary. He never said, ‘You have disturbed My rest’; He never turned any away. He sacrificed Himself for men, and went about doing good. He was always available where there was need.
Now you and I belong to the generation of the second Man. How far do these things mark us Godward and manward? He is the Head and Source of the new generation, and none can ever live before God, save those who are of His generation, and because we are of the generation of the second Man, we should exhibit His character, His ways. There is nothing God can take account of in us now, save that which is of Christ.
Well, now, that is the man Jesus Christ, very God and very Man. I do not go further to-night. He was the Holy One of God. “In him is no sin”, 1 John 3: 5. “Who did no sin”, 1 Pet 2: 22. “Who knew no sin”, 2 Cor 5: 21. Perfect Man, but of an entirely new order.
The Lord grant that we may have our hearts so engaged with Him, and admire Him, that we may partake of the same character and walk here as Christ did, and so exhibit the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.