The Incarnation;

(Lesson 4 —1 John )

During the incarnation Jesus Christ faced every category of testing in every area just as we do and yet He never sinned. How did He do it? It wasn’t just in His deity. He doesn’t rely on His deity to solve the problems of life. He does it as a man relying upon the Holy Spirit and on Bible doctrine. That is what sets the precedent for the church age. During the time of the hypostatic union on the earth Jesus Christ is doing two things. First, He is fulfilling all of the requirements of the law. Bu His reliance upon the Holy Spirit He lives a perfect life, thus fulfilling the law and qualifying Himself to go to the cross. So He fulfils all of the mandates in the Old Testament. Second, by doing it on the basis of the Spirit of God plus the Word of God he sets the precedent for how the believer in the church age is to live the spiritual life. It is on the basis of the filling of the Holy Spirit plus the Word of God that the believer grows to spiritual maturity in the church age. So in His life He fulfils the Old Testament mandates and He sets the pattern and precedent for the church age. If He is not true humanity, facing those problems just as we do as a genuine human being, then it is all fraudulent and there is no precedent for the spiritual life in the church age. The spiritual life of the church age is not based on the spiritual life of the Old Testament; it is not based on the Mosaic Law. Christ fulfilled the law and He is the end of the law, Romans says. The church age spiritual life is based on the precedent of Christ living the spiritual life during the incarnation on the earth when He faced all the trial, all the testings in His life under the power of God the Holy Spirit.

An aside: Because He is seated at the right hand of God the Father in His humanity—His humanity is what went to the cross and died for us—He is localised in His humanity on high and He cannot become localised in an ongoing communion service, therefore there is no physical presence of Christ in the Lord’s table (or the Mass, which is the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation). He cannot be localised in Heaven and then each time the Mass is celebrated have His body become ubiquitous on earth.

The doctrine of the incarnation

Definition: “Incarnate” comes from the Latin carne, meaning flesh, matter, and it means to be made in flesh, that God became human flesh.

The incarnation was not some afterthought of God, the incarnation was determined by God in eternity past at the council of divine decrees. It was first prophesied in the Bible in Genesis 3:15 ^NASB “And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.” Here we see that the Messiah would be “her seed,” the seed of the woman, true humanity. Genesis 12:1-3, we find out that the Messiah would come through the line of Abraham. Genesis 49:10 ^NASB “The scepter [sign of a ruler] shall not depart from Judah, Nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, Until Shiloh [Messiah] comes, And to him {shall be} the obedience of the peoples.” It is further clarified in 2 Samuel 7:12 in the Davidic covenant ^NASB “When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you, who will come forth from you, and I will establish his kingdom.” We get a further indication of the miraculous quality of His birth in Isaiah 7:14 ^NASB “Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son [genuine humanity], and she will call His name Immanuel [God with us].” So here there is a clear indication in the Old Testament that God would be united with humanity in the person of the Messiah. Isaiah 9:6 ^NASB “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father [Correctly, Father of eternity, a designation of His eternal attributes], Prince of Peace.” There are four titles in that verse and they are only applied to deity in the Old Testament. Further, the prophesies in the Old Testament define the birthplace of Messiah. Micah 5:2 ^NASB “But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, {Too} little to be among the clans of Judah, From you One will go forth for Me to be ruler in Israel. His goings forth are from long ago, From the days of eternity.” The fulfilment of these prophesies is given in Matthew 1:18 ^NASB “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. [19] And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly. [20] But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. [21] She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.’ [22] Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: [23] ‘BEHOLD, THE VIRGIN SHALL BE WITH CHILD AND SHALL BEAR A SON, AND THEY SHALL CALL HIS NAME IMMANUEL,’ which translated means, ‘GOD WITH US’.” John 1:14 ^NASB “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.” 1 Timothy 3:16 ^NASB “By common confession, great is the mystery of godliness: He who was revealed in the flesh, Was vindicated in the Spirit, Seen by angels, Proclaimed among the nations, Believed on in the world, Taken up in glory.” Hebrews 2:14 ^NASB “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil.” Philippians 2:5-9 ^NASB “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, [6] who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, [7] but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, {and} being made in the likeness of men. [8] Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. [9] For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, [10] so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, [11] and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

The incarnation had two purposes. The first was salvation. Jesus Christ had to be true humanity to die as our substitute. But what is more important for this epistle is that Jesus Christ was true humanity not just to die for our sins but in order to exemplify for us and set the precedent for the spiritual life of the church age. If He is not true humanity than He could not handle the problems, the testings, the temptations, the adversities in life on the same resources that we do. But Jesus is true humanity in order to demonstrate for us the power of God the Holy Spirit, so that no matter what we face in life, no matter what the problem is, Jesus Christ has faced it all, and on the basis of the filling of the Holy Spirit and the application of doctrine from the Word of God Jesus Christ was able to face that, yet without sin.