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GOD MANIFESTED IN FLESH. THE MAN CHRIST JESUS NO. 1

I deprecate discussion on this momentous subject. The moment you travel outside the very words of scripture you are in danger of error. “God manifested in flesh” is scripture, but ‘perfect God and perfect Man’ is not scripture. Satan’s direct opposition is against the Word made flesh — the “man-child” (Revelation 12) — from Herod’s day down to this. In Christendom the pious Christians ^[p. 124] think of Christ as God and not as Man, and they read of His miracles in the gospels to prove that He was God. They do not see that indirectly they are siding with Satan who will tolerate any measure of religion so that the Man out of heaven is not paramount. Satan, in his opposition to God, perpetrated the fall of man in the garden of Eden, but when the Son of God became a Man His first work (see Mark 1) was to drive the unclean spirit out of man.

The Son of God became a Man. He thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but He laid His glory by and took on Himself the form of a Servant, and was made in the likeness of men. “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death” (Hebrews 2: 14), etc. He became a man, born of woman, to bear the judgment on man. He died, and in His death the man after the flesh was judicially terminated; so “henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more” (2 Corinthians 5: 16). There is the earthy man, and there is the heavenly man. The blessed Son of God went through the terrible sorrow of death as a man. His very greatness caused Him to suffer beyond our conception, for He bore the judgment on the first man, and He is the second Man. The first man is of the earth, earthy, the second Man is out of heaven. You must see the first man superseded by the second Man. Every believer is of the second Man. You must keep in mind that the greatness of the grace is that the Son of God, who could say, “I and my Father are one” (John 10: 30), took on Himself the form of a servant or slave, and He says, “I do nothing of myself” (John 8: 28). He, the only begotten Son in the bosom of the Father, declared God while in the form of a Servant. In His grace He connects His own with all He is as a Man. From not seeing this they fell into error at Plymouth in assuming that the church was united to God. The church or the body of Christ is of His order and nature. It has come from Him and is united to Him. It is marvellous grace that the Son of God became Man — a Man to free every one believing in Him of the man after the flesh, so that every one in ^[p. 125] Him is a new creation. I think we have but a very feeble appreciation of the new man. We are brethren of the risen Christ. “Both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren” (Hebrews 2: 11) — the offspring of His resurrection, in all His divine beauty as a Man.

Again, the manna is not essentially His acts, or His obedience, but the grace in which He did everything; as Mr. Darby has said, His springs were in God: our springs naturally are in ourselves.

Finally, the better we comprehend His manhood, the more fully we see the greatness of the mystery of the church — His complement. He would not be complete without His body. The world could not contain the books which could be written of Him, but the vastness of this blessed Man will be expressed by His body, the church, to the glory of God for ever.

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