Word of Salvation – Vol. 29 No. 36 – September 1984

 

God Becomes Man

 

Sermon by Rev. S. Voorwinde M.A., M.Th. on Phil.2:5-7; Heb.4:14 & 5:10

(Belgic Confession Art.18)

Scriptures: Phil.2: 1-11; Heb.4:15

Suggested Hymns: 335; 336; 346:1,5,6; 347; BoW 202; 205

 

Congregation of our Lord,

In this sermon we begin with asking the single most important question that we could ever be asked in our life; the question that Jesus asked his disciples (and it’s just as important now as it was then): “What do you think of the Christ?”

It’s your answer to this question that will shape your life and determine your destiny.  Your view of Christ will influence how you speak, how you react; in short it will affect how you live this life and also how you leave this life.  So, “What do you think of Christ?”  What is your answer and how do you know that you are right?  How do you know your answer is correct when down the ages so many people have been wrong?  Nowadays the stress falls all too much on his humanity: he was a fine religious teacher; the greatest man who ever lived; even a superstar.  In other centuries the emphasis went the other way.  In the days of the early church there were the Gnostics who taught that it might seem as though God became man but enlightened understanding knows better.  Jesus was God not man.  And then at the time of the Reformation there were the Anabaptists, and they taught that it was not from Mary but in her that Jesus became flesh.  In other words Jesus was not quite as human as the rest of us.

And so there have been those who have stressed the humanity of Christ and on the other hand there are those who have put too much emphasis on the divinity of Christ.  But we need to hold both in balance; we need to keep the two in equilibrium, that Jesus was truly God and truly man.  Jesus is the eternal Son of God become man.  In the first chapter of John’s Gospel it says this: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  And we beheld His glory” (verse 14).  In other words, in Christ God became man.  In his book on the Belgic Confession Eugene Osterhaven reacts to this verse in the way that every Christian should: “This incarnation, this coming into human flesh undertaken by God is the stupendous fact of the Christian faith which causes one to become lost in silent wonder.  At times it seems almost too wonderful to be true.  Yet without it the church has no message or reason to exist.  Nor does life have any ultimate meaning” (P.109).

Jesus Christ: true God and true man.  Next time we’ll look at His divinity, but for now we’ll consider Jesus in His humanity.  And I’d like to do this from three perspectives:

1.  To look at Jesus the man in general.

2.  To consider Jesus from the vantage point of Phil.2, and what this does for us.

3.  To view Him from the perspective of Heb.4 and what this means to us.

So first of all from a human point of view what was the man Jesus really like?  For a start He must have been a fascinating personality.  Several years back I was talking to a relative in Europe who was having some difficulties with the Christian faith.  When we’d been talking for about an hour he made a very perceptive remark: “Here we are almost 2000 years later and we’re still talking about Jesus.  He’s still a subject people can talk about for hours.  How many people sit around talking about Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great?”

Now of course that’s true.  But there’s a great danger and that is that we create a Jesus of our own imagination, a Jesus in our own image; that we think of Jesus the way we would like him to be.  That’s a very easy trap to fall into.  For revolutionaries Jesus was a revolutionary; for communists He was a communist; for black men He is black and for white men He is white.  All you have to do is to look at pictures, paintings and posters.  Often it’s a dead give-away of what the artist thinks about Jesus.

How often haven’t you heard it said that Jesus was a perfect gentleman?  Well, brothers and sisters, let me suggest to you that Jesus was nothing of the kind: A gentleman always restrains his emotions; Jesus openly wept over Jerusalem.  A gentleman never loses his cool; Jesus made a whip and cast the money-changers out of the temple.  A gentleman is always polite and refined, he has charm; there was nothing charming about Jesus when he called the Pharisees “whitewashed tombs”, “hypocrites” and “sons of the devil”.  Jesus was no gentleman.

Another danger is that in our minds we do not think of Jesus as truly man and truly God, but rather kind of blend the two.  He was superhuman, supernatural, a kind of superman who, apart from the cross, just glided through life performing miracles as He went.  With so many people thinking of Jesus as only human, how easy it is to over-react and to forget his true humanity, to ignore the fact that he was just as human as you and I.  We all know the words of the well-known Christmas carol: “The cattle are lowing, the Baby awakes, but little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes.” Now, tell me, how human is a baby that doesn’t cry?  Can you imagine how poor Mary would have felt with a baby that never cried?  She would probably have been the most worried mother in the Middle East.  You see that is the kind of pious nonsense we come up with once we ignore the true humanity of Jesus Christ.

And, if He was truly human, then he had to go through all the normal stages of development like everybody else.  He had to learn to read and write and do arithmetic just like other children.  And in the synagogue school he had to learn Bible verses off by heart just like everybody else.  Obviously He was very intelligent.  He impressed the scholars in Jerusalem when he was only 12.  But still he had to learn like you and I.

We also know that there was moral and spiritual development in the life of Christ.  That was true of him as a child.  As Luke says: “Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and in favour with God and man” (Luke 2:52).  And then, even more remarkably, in Hebrews 5 we read of his spiritual development as an adult: “Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him”, (vs.8&9).

So right through His life there was growth, development, change and progress.  Of course it wasn’t that He went from imperfection to perfection, but from infancy to maturity, from birth to manhood.  Physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally He had to grow just like we do.  And then too as a grown man he had a very human personality.  He showed very human emotions:

– He experienced joy, pity and sorrow.

– He knew what it was to be hungry, thirsty and tired.

– He also endured agony, distress and pain.

– He could be angry and he could weep.

– He could rebuke and he could feel compassion.

– He could be indignant and could love.

– He was wise, gentle and humble.  Yet he spoke with authority.

Of course, I could go on, but let me recommend to you a personal study which is very much worthwhile: read the Gospels and underline any verse, phrase or word that reveals something of the personality of Jesus.  It may not say all you thought or had hoped to find.  But you’ll see what kind of a man Jesus was, what a beautifully balanced personality He had.  And you’ll also get a better picture of who you ought to be as a follower of Christ, as someone walking in His steps.

Now this brings us to those very practical lessons of the epistles, as for instance our text in Phil.2: “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: who, being in very nature God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness”.  Notice the contrast here.  He was in very nature God, but he took the very nature of a servant.  How did this happen?  The contrast is linked by the words, “He made himself nothing.”  Here I must admit that I prefer the older translations which have, “He emptied Himself.”  Now, of what did He empty Himself?  Of His divine nature?  No!  Even as a servant He was still God.  In fact even on the cross He was still fully God; He had to be if His death was to conquer death.

So of what did He empty Himself if He was still God?  Well, He emptied Himself of His riches, His glory, His privileges and His power.  In that sense He made himself nothing; or, in the King James Version: “He made Himself of no reputation.”  Let me try to illustrate this point.  A teacher of mine used to say if you use a silly illustration, people will always remember it.  I have since learned that they will remember the illustration but not the point it’s illustrating.

Anyway, let’s imagine that as a housewife you’ve been sick in bed for a week and obviously you’re rather behind on your housework.  Dust has gathered on all the furniture; the ironing has piled up and there are stacks of washing up to be done.  The biggest tragedy is that none of your friends and neighbours has offered to help.  But now at the time of your illness there’s a royal tour and Queen Elizabeth is visiting Hobart.  She hears of your unfortunate position.  She drops all her plans for a day and comes to help you.  She puts on jeans and a T-Shirt and she spends that whole day cleaning your house.  She irons your clothes, dusts your furniture, does your washing up.  To echo those words in Philippians 2 “she emptied herself.”  For that day she laid aside all her royal dignity, her royal privileges and her royal wealth.  She became a servant while at the same time remaining queen.

So it was with Jesus.  He became a servant but remained God.  He became obedient to death even death on a cross but he remained God.  Just as in the story of how the queen humbled herself by putting on jeans and a T-Shirt and cleaning your house, so Jesus humbled himself by becoming man, by being a servant and by dying on the cross.  And now comes the application: “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.”  If you believe that Jesus died for you, if you are sincere when you partake of the Lord’s Supper, if Good Friday means anything to you, then this applies to you.  It applies very pointedly to you as one for whom Christ died.  Then you must be prepared to make yourself nothing, to be a servant, to humble yourself.  As Christ’s people we must be a community of servants.

That’s where the humanity of Christ hits us in a very down-to-earth way.  He was a servant.  He washed his disciples’ feet.  Are you prepared to do menial tasks, at work or at home, or is that beneath your dignity?  At your place, who takes out the garbage?  Who cleans the toilet?  Who washes out the baby’s dirty nappies?  Who cleans up after the dog’s had an accident in the house?  Somebody has to do it.  Is it you or is it somebody else?  Jesus made himself nothing, he became a servant, he humbled himself.  And “your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.”  Is it?  And in humility do you count others as better than yourself?

So that’s where the humanity of Christ challenges us, right where we are, to be servants, to be humble, not to be above the menial and the mundane.  But there’s not only a challenge, also a profound comfort to be drawn from the humanity of Christ.  Remember our text in Hebrews 4:15.  “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are; yet was without sin.”

Jesus Christ is our High Priest in heaven.  He prays for us.  And yet He is not far removed, He is not remote.  He understands, He feels for us, He has sympathy.  He too was tempted.  He too shared the weakness of human nature.  Notice that our text says: “He was tempted in every way just as we are.  This verse encourages us to think of examples.  We can say it reverently, but when our Lord Jesus was a teenager He had His share of sexual temptations just like any other lad.  There were also pretty girls in those days and they must have looked attractive to Him.  And when He was a carpenter, it’s hard to imagine that He never hit His thumb with a hammer, and was tempted to use language that He shouldn’t use.

He never yielded to temptation.  He never committed sexual sin.  He never used curse words as He worked.  But the temptation was just as real.  Those temptations were just as real for Him as they are for us.  Now you may say: “But what’s so comforting about that?  How can someone sympathise with me when I’m going through tests and trials and temptations that he never gave in to?  How can he sympathise with me when He made it and I haven’t?”  One of the commentaries gives a good answer: “Sympathy with the sinner in his trial does not depend on the experience of sin, but on the experience of the strength of the temptation to sin which only the sinless can know in its full intensity.  He who falls yields before the last strain.” (Bruce, p.86).  In other words, Jesus is more sympathetic and not less.  He understands fully because He knows exactly how strong the temptation is.  He endured it to the end.

But now there’s just one more question.  Does He sympathise with us only in our temptations or does He also sympathise with us once we have yielded, given in, been defeated?  Well, it is true that Jesus does not sympathise with sin, but He does sympathise with the sinner.  And so He sympathises with us in both situations.  The next verse provides the answer.  If we have yielded to temptation He gives us mercy and if we are struggling with temptation He gives us grace.  “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”  Because of Jesus the throne of judgment has become a throne of grace.

And finally, just one closing thought.  Jesus never gave in to the temptations that we give in to and yet we have His sympathy.  No doubt there are people who committed sins you never committed, and therefore you should show them the sympathy of Christ.  The mercy that Christ showed you is what you now owe to others.  And how is that done?  Paul tells the Galatians: “Brothers, even if a man is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; looking to yourself lest you too be tempted.” (Gal.6:1).

Amen.