The God Man

THE GOD-MAN THE GOD-MAN, CHRIST JESUS.

It was a new and startling doctrine, when first preached to heathen sages, that God would take humanity into so intimate a connection with Himself as really and truly to be man and God in the same person; but it is a doctrine which must be received by you, or else you cannot receive Christ. My Master will not be satisfied with the acknowledgment that His character is lovely, His doctrine pure, and His moral teaching super-excellent. He will not be content with your admission that He is a Prophet greater than any prophet who ever came before or after Him. He will not rest satisfied with your admission that He is a Teacher sent from Heaven, and a being who, on account of His virtues, is now peculiarly exalted in Heaven.

All this is true, but it is not the whole truth; you must also believe that He who, as man, was born of the Virgin, and was dandled upon her lap at Bethlehem, was, as God, none other than the everlasting Lord, without beginning of days or end of years. You do not receive Christ in very deed and truth unless you believe in His real humanity and actual Godhead.

Indeed, what is there for you to receive if you do not receive this truth? A saviour who is not Divine can be no Saviour for us. How can a mere man, however eminent, deliver his fellows from sins such as yours and mine? How can he bear the burden of our guilt any more than we can ourselves bear it, if there be nothing more in him than in any other singularly virtuous man? An angel would stagger beneath the load of human criminality, and much more would this be the case with even a perfect man, if such an one could be found. It needed those mighty shoulders—

"Which bear the earth's huge pillars up,"— to sustain the weight of human sin, and carry it into the wilderness of forgetfulness. So, in order to be saved by Him, you must receive Christ as being God as well as man.

John calls Him "The Word," or the speech of God. God in nature has revealed Himself, as it were, inarticulately and indistinctly; but, in His Son, He has revealed Himself as a man declares his inmost thoughts, by distinct and intelligible speech. Jesus is to the Father what speech is to us; He is the unfolding of the Father's thoughts, the revelation of the Father's heart. He that hath seen Christ hath seen the Father. "Wouldst thou have me see thee?" said Socrates, "then speak;" for speech reveals the man.

Wouldst thou see God? Listen to Christ, for He is God's Word, revealing the very heart of Deity.

Lest, however, we should imagine Jesus to be a mere utterance, simply a word spoken, and then forgotten, John is specially careful that we should know that Jesus is a real and true Person, and therefore he tells us that the Divine Word, of whose fulness we have received, is most assuredly God. No language can be more distinct and explicit than that which John uses concerning Jesus. He ascribes to Him the eternity which belongs alone to God: "In the beginning was the Word." He peremptorily claims Divinity for Him: "The Word was God." He ascribes to Him creative power: "All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made." He ascribes to Him self-existence, which is the essential characteristic of God: "In Him was life." He claims for Him a nature peculiar to God: "God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all;" and he says that the Word is "the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." No writer could be more definite in the expressions he uses; and beyond all question he sets forth the true and proper Deity of that Blessed One whom we all must receive if we would obtain eternal salvation.

Yet John does not fail to set forth that our Lord was also man. He saith, "the Word was made flesh,"—not merely assumed manhood, but was made flesh; made not merely man, as to His nobler part, His soul, but man as to His flesh, His lower element. Our Lord was not a phantom, but one who, as John declares in his first Epistle, could be seen, and heard, and touched, and handled.

"The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." He tabernacled with the sons of men,—a carpenter's shed His lowly refuge, and the caves and mountains of the earth His midnight resort in His after life. He dwelt among sinners and sufferers, among mourners and mortals, Himself completing His citizenship among us by becoming obedient unto death, "even the death of the cross." Thus, while He is so august a person that Heaven and earth tremble at the majesty of His presence, yet is He so humble a person that He is not ashamed to call us "brethren." THE GOD-MAN,—A MIRACLE OF POWER AND LOVE. Have you ever thought of the miracle of power displayed in the Lord's fashioning a human body capable of union with Godhead? Our Lord Jesus Christ was incarnate in a body, which was truly a human body, but yet which was, in some wondrous way, specially prepared to sustain the indwelling of Deity. Contact with God is terrible: "He looketh on the earth, and it trembleth: He toucheth the hills, and they smoke." He puts His feet on Paran, and it melts; and Sinai dissolves in flames of fire at His presence. So strongly was this truth inwrought into the minds of the early saints, that they said, "No man can see God's face, and live;" and yet here was a manhood which did not merely see the face of God, but which was inhabited by Deity. What a wonderful human frame was this which could abide the presence of Jehovah!

Paul represents our Saviour, when He cometh into the world, as saying to His Father, "A body hast Thou prepared Me." That was indeed a body which was miraculously wrought; "that holy thing" was the special product of the Holy Spirit's supernatural power. It was a body like our own, with nerves as sensitive, and muscles as readily strained, with every organization as delicately fashioned as our own; yet God was in it. It was a frail barque to carry such a wondrous freight.

O man Christ Jesus, how couldst Thou bear the Deity within Thee? We know not how it was, but God knoweth. Let us adore this hiding of the Almighty in human weakness, this comprehending of the Incomprehensible, this revealing of the Invisible, this localization of the Omnipresent. Human language cannot adequately set forth this unutterable truth. Suffice it to say, that the Divine power was wonderfully seen in the continued existence of the materialism of Christ's body, which else had been consumed by such a wondrous contact with Divinity as was manifested in Emmanuel, "God with us."

Christ took upon Him our nature in the fullest sense possible. His body contained everything that makes up a human body,—flesh, blood, bone, mind, heart, soul, memory, imagination, judgment,—everything that naturally belongs to a rational man. Jesus of Nazareth was the Man of men, the model representative Man. Think not of Him as a deified man any more than you would dare to regard Him as a humanized God, or demigod. Do not confound the natures that were united in Him, nor divide the Person in whom they were so marvellously blended. He is but one Person, yet as truly man as He is "very God of very God." As you think of this truth, say, "He who sits on the throne is such as I am, sin alone excepted."

"Oh, joy! there sitteth in our flesh, Upon a throne of light, One of a human mother born, In perfect Godhead bright!"

Behold, what manner of love God hath bestowed upon us, that He should espouse our nature! For never had He so united Himself with any creature before. His tender mercy had ever been over all His works, but they were so distinct from Himself that an immeasurable distance separated the Creator from His creatures so far as existence and relationship are concerned. The Lord had made many noble intelligences, principalities and powers of whom we know but little; we do not even know what those four living creatures may be who are nearest the eternal presence; but He had never allied Himself with any of them by actual union with His person. But, lo, He has joined Himself to man, that creature who is made to suffer death by reason of his sin; God has; come into union with man, and therefore we may feet sure that He loves him with amazing love, and that He has great thoughts of good towards him. If a king's son doth marry a member of a rebel race, then we may be certain that there are prospects of reconciliation, pardon, and restoration for that race. There must be, in the great heart of the Divine One, wondrous thoughts of pity and condescending love for guilty sinners, or He would never have deigned to take human nature into union with Himself. Let us sound the loud cymbals of delight and thanksgiving, for the Incarnation bodes good to our race. As God has taken manhood into union with Himself, then God will feel for man, He will have pity. upon him, He will remember that he is dust, He will have compassion upon his infirmities and sicknesses. You know how truly and graciously it is so, for that same Jesus, who was born of a woman at Bethlehem, is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, having been in all points tempted like as we are. Such intimate practical sympathy would not have belonged to our great High Priest if He had not become man. Not even though He is Divine could He have been perfectly in sympathy with us if He had not also become bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. The Captain of our salvation could only be made "perfect through sufferings;" and to this end, it was needful that He should become a partaker of flesh and blood; and, now, the Son of God can fully sympathize with men because He is one with them in everything except sin.

ALL FULNESS IN THE GOD-MAN. In Christ Jesus, there is all fulness, "for it pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell." In Him, there is everything that is essential to Deity, for "in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead." There is also, in Him, the fulness of perfect manhood, for that Godhead was revealed in Him "bodily." Partaker of flesh and blood, made in all things like unto His brethren, there was nothing lacking that was necessary to the perfection of humankind in Him. There is a fulness of atoning efficacy in His blood, for "the blood of Jesus Christ .... cleanseth us from all sin." There is a fulness of justifying righteousness in His life, for "there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." There is a fulness of Divine prevalence in His plea, for "He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them."

There is a fulness of victory in His death, for "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, that is, the devil." There is a fulness of efficacy in His resurrection from the dead, for by it we are "begotten again unto a lively hope, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away." There is a fulness of triumph in His ascension, for "when He ascended up on high, He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men."

There is, in Christ Jesus, a fulness of blessings unspeakable, unknown; a fulness of grace to pardon, of grace to regenerate, of grace to sanctify, of grace to preserve, and of grace to perfect. There is in Him a fulness at all times; a fulness by day and a fulness by night; a fulness of comfort in affliction, a fulness of guidance in prosperity, a fulness of every Divine attribute, of wisdom, of power, of love; a fulness which it is impossible to survey or to explore. There is in Him everything summed up in a grand total, as Paul says, in writing to the Ephesians, "that in the dispensation of the fulness of times He might gather together in One all things in Christ, both which are in Heaven, and which are on earth, even in Him."

"It pleased the Father that in Him should all fulness dwell." In vain we strive to recount the holy wonder; this is a theme which would exhaust an angel's powers,—the fulness which resides in Jesus our Head, and ever abides to answer our need. We may realize a little what a fulness this must be, when we think of the multitude, which no man can number, all of whom have received of His fulness, grace upon grace. There is not one of them who has received only a little grace; they are all, as Rutherford has it, "drowned debtors to His mercy;" or, as we might put it, "over head and ears" in debt to Him. They are so indebted that they will never fully know how much they owe to their Lord, but they feel that an eternal song will not be too long for the expression of their grateful praise.

Christ's fulness is an abiding fulness. John says, "Of His fulness have all we received;" yet he calls it a "fulness" still, for it never becomes any less, however many may partake of it. It was a fulness before a single sinner came to it to receive pardon; it was a fulness before a solitary saint had learned to drink of that river, the streams whereof make glad the Church of the living God; and now, after myriads, and even millions, of blood-redeemed souls have partaken of this life-giving stream, it is just as overflowing as ever. We are accustomed to say that, if a child takes a cupful of water from the sea, it is just as full as it was before; but that is not literally true, there must be just so much the less of water in the ocean. But it is literally true of Christ that, when we have not only taken out cups full,—for our needs are too great to be satisfied with such small quantities,— when we have taken out oceans full of grace,—and we need as much as that to carry us to Heaven,—there is actually as much grace left in Him as there was before we came to Him. Although we have drawn upon the exchequer of His love to an extent so boundless that we cannot comprehend it, yet there is as much mercy and grace left in Christ as there was before we began to draw from it. It is a "fulness" still, after all the saints have received of it.

There is also an abiding fulness of truth in Christ; after you have heard it for fifty years, you see more of its fulness than you did at first. Other themes weary the ear, sooner or later. I will defy any man to hold together a large congregation, year after year, with any other subject but Christ Jesus. He might attract hearers for a time; he might charm them with the discoveries of science, or with the beauties of poetry, and his oratory might be of so high an order that he might, for a while, draw the multitudes who have itching ears; but they would, in time, turn away, and say, "This is no longer to be endured; we know all he has to tell us." All music but that of Heaven becomes wearisome before long; but, oh! if the minstrel doth play upon this celestial harp, though he keepeth his fingers always among its golden strings, and be but poor and unskilled to handle an instrument so divine, yet the melody of Jesus' Name, and the sweet harmony of all His acts and attributes, will hold his listeners by the ears, and thrill their hearts as nought beside can do. The theme of Jesus' love is inexhaustible; though preachers have dwelt upon it century after century, its freshness and fulness still remain.