THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHRIST – THE INCARNATION
John 1: 1, 2, 14; 1 John 4: 1-3; 2 John 9-11; 1 Tim 3: 16;
In a day when the great body of those who are nominally Christians are rapidly giving up all that is vital in Christianity, when those who profess to be the ministers of Christ are presenting a false Christ, not the Christ of God, when men on all hands are apostatising from the faith, it is of the greatest importance that we should be established in the doctrine of the Christ.
The great essentials of Christianity are the incarnation, death, resurrection and glory of Christ known in their true import, and the presence, and indwelling of the Holy Spirit to maintain the truth in the saints. It is necessary not merely to admit these facts but to understand the real purport of them and to have the truth engraved in our hearts, as the apostle said, “Now to him that is able to establish you, according to my glad tidings and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery”, Rom 16: 25. For the elect lady and for us, the test for receiving or rejecting those who come to us is the doctrine of the Christ. “If any one come to you and bring not this doctrine, do not receive him into the house, and greet him not, for he who greets him partakes in his wicked works”. Many false prophets are gone out into the world; hence we need to try the spirits whether they be of God. “Every spirit which does not confess Jesus Christ come in flesh is not of God”. This confession of Jesus Christ come in flesh involves two things—(1) The truth as to the Person who came, (2) of the condition in which He came; the confession involves the truth of His deity, and the perfection of His humanity. The incarnation is the fact of a divine Person come in manhood, and if a divine Person is identified with manhood, it must be manhood suited to God, hence of a new and distinct order to that which existed previously in the sinful race of Adam. One who was with God from eternity, and who was God, in time became flesh, took on Him a condition of flesh and blood, was made in the likeness of men, and dwelt here below among men; God came down to men in a man. We could not speak of ourselves as having come in flesh, we had no previous existence. But in Jesus Christ we see One who was in the beginning, that is, from eternity, now come in flesh, in a body prepared for Him, God manifest in flesh, a man in whom all the fulness of the godhead was pleased to dwell: very God, yet perfect man.
Three great things have been brought to pass in the incarnation: (1) the revelation of God; (2) the introduction of another man separate from Adam’s race, made of a woman, yet morally distinct from the rest of men; (3) the setting forth of God’s good pleasure in men, eternal life and sonship.
None but One who was Himself God could reveal God. In the Person of the Son God has Himself come down to men in a man. In Him we have the living Word, in that way God has become His own witness. The Word who was with God, and who was God, has become flesh and dwelt among us. In two gospels, Luke and John, He is designated “the Word”. In Luke we have the presentation of God in grace, it is what God is for sinful man, God drawing near to man in a manner so suited to the condition and need of man, bringing forgiveness and salvation, and providing everything for his need and blessing, not only relieving the need, but bringing in blessing according to the grace of God. But in John we are on a higher plane, it is not what God is for sinful man and the grace that meets his need, but what God is in Himself in His own nature: acting according to that nature and working to establish what He purposed in Himself before there was any need, before sin came in, what He purposed for the satisfaction of His love and for the display of His glory. “No one has seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”, John 1: 18.
In everything He said, in all His manners and ways and works, there was the constant outshining of God before the eyes of men, God coming down so low as to put Himself within the reach of the weakest and the lowest, and in a way that attracted all who felt their need or sought for light, yet repelling none, however weak or sinful they might be. The light shone which was capable of lifting up man out of the state of weakness and degradation in which he was and causing him to live to God. But, alas, man proved to be unwilling and incapable of receiving the light, and not only so, but really hated it. The light appears in darkness, and the darkness apprehended it not. “Everyone that does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light”, John 3: 20. Hence it was evident that it was needful that God should bring in a new order of man—a man who could and would answer to the revelation, otherwise the revelation would have been ineffective and barren. In Christ we have both the revelation and the response, One in whom the approach was equal to the revelation. In the same Person we see God perfectly presented to men, and man perfectly presented to God, Col 2: 9. In Jesus God found a man after His own heart, One who answered to every thought of God in regard to man. The law set forth what man should be according to God, but it found no answer till the second Man came. There was no “second Man” till Christ came. All the rest of mankind were but the development of the first man Adam. But in Jesus Christ, come in flesh, we see the second Man—Man of an entirely new order, altogether distinct from the generation of Adam. At His baptism He was marked off from the rest of men by the sealing of the Spirit. There was One upon whom the Spirit of God could descend and abide, and that apart from any work of redemption; the Spirit could rest upon Him because of His own personal excellence. After living thirty years in private life under the eye of God, where all was a sweet savour to God, He came forth and took His place publicly among men at His baptism.
He was marked off from all the rest of men by the Holy Spirit descending upon Him and by the Father’s voice as One in every way agreeable to God, unique in His own perfection. What distinguished that blessed Man from all others was that He loved God. He was perfectly responsive to God. The outward life of obedience and devotedness to God flowed from an inward life characterised by the love of God in which He ever abode. This, too, was the spring of a life of self-abnegation and grace toward men. Man as a child of Adam has not the love of God in him, he is naturally rebellious and hates God and all that is of God, as was fully manifested in the presentation of God to man in Christ. He is naturally selfish and governed by his lusts, and hates his neighbour. The first man was in every way the very opposite to the second. It is as we learn this in ourselves that we appreciate the fact that God has brought in another Man, that He may take us up in Him. Christianity does not in any way recognise the first man, nor was it ever intended by God to be the means of renovating or improving or setting up afresh the natural man. The very fact of God bringing in a second Man proves that He has rejected the first. Ultimately the second Man will fill the universe of God, and this must inevitably displace the first man for ever, and already in the cross that man has come to his end for God. “The end of all flesh is come before me”, Gen 6: 13. From eternity God connected the whole of His purpose with the second Man, so that nothing of that which God proposed was lost in the failure of the first. This fact of the introduction of another Man of a different order is essential to the apprehension of Christianity or the doctrine of the Christ, especially in the present day, when many profess to preach Christ, but a Christ who is not the Christ of God. The professing body to-day is permeated with anti-Christian doctrine; there are many antichrists gone out into the world, and all this is preparing the way for the apostasy and the coming of the Antichrist.
The third great fact which has come to pass in Christ incarnate is the setting forth of God’s good pleasure in men. From eternity He who was wisdom could say, “my delights were with the sons of men”, (Prov 8: 31) and when He was born the angels said, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good pleasure in men”. And God’s good pleasure was to bring man into the place of sonship in relation to Himself revealed as Father, Eph 1: 5. Sonship involves two things, the knowledge of God revealed as Father, and the capacity to respond to Him in love. This was set forth perfectly in Jesus here below by the Spirit coming down and abiding upon Him, and by the Father’s voice He was marked off as the Son of God. “Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I am well pleased”. We could never understand the love of the Father, nor sonship, if we begin by thinking of it in connection with ourselves. We might understand something of the pity and mercy and grace of God in connection with ourselves, because it is just what we needed as sinful men. But there was nothing in us to call forth the love of God. In Jesus we see One who was a worthy object of the Father’s love, One in whom the Father found all His delight. He was ever the delight of the Father, and as man loved the Father, delighted to do His will, and was willing to endure the bitterness of death that He might glorify the Father. Thus the Father found in Him One upon whom He could bestow all His love, and One who perfectly responded to that love, who could say, “That the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father has commanded me, thus I do”, John 14: 31. In Him we see what sonship means; when we think of Him, we can have some conception of what the Father’s love was to that beloved One who ever dwelt in the bosom of the Father. The amazing thing is that all this was set forth in Him as man here below as the pattern of what was in the mind of God to bring us in Him, according to the glory of His grace, Eph 1: 6; John 17: 26. Of necessity He must die, accomplish the work of redemption, rise again and ascend to the Father as man before we could have part in it. Until He died He was alone, a unique man, in a unique position of favour and blessing. But having died He is no longer alone, He has brethren whom He now brings to share with Him His life, His place before the Father, and His blessing and glory. “The glory which thou hast given me I have given them”, John 17: 22. God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba, Father” (Gal 4: 6), so that we may have the consciousness of being loved as He was loved, and that we might answer to that love with the same kind of response as He did.
Thus in the incarnation we see God manifest in flesh, and man justified in the Spirit and sonship revealed as the good pleasure of God for men.
From Helps for the Poor of the Flock vol 14 (1909)