The Vision (12.17.19): Made in the likeness of men

Image: Elder Clark leads prayer during CRBC outreach at Epworth Manor (12.27.19).

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on Philippians 2:5-11.

But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men (Philippians 2:7).

In the “Christ Hymn” of Philippians 2:5-11, the apostle Paul provides perhaps the best-known summary of the doctrine of Christ. He describes three aspects of our Lord’s existence and ministry: (1) his pre-existent glory (v. 6); (2) his incarnation (vv. 7-8); and (3) his exaltation (vv. 9-11).

Let’s look at each:

First, his pre-existent glory (v. 6):

This verse reminds us that the second person of the Godhead existed before the incarnation of the Word in Jesus of Nazareth.  God has from all eternity been Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God in three persons, equal in essence, power, and glory. The second person of the Godhead was in the form (morphe) of God, and did not consider it robbery [harpagmos:  something to be seized, stolen, grabbed at] to be equal (isos) with God (cf. John 5:18; 10:32; 19:7). 

Second, his condescension in his incarnation (vv. 7-8):

Three things are described in v. 7:

First, he made himself of no reputation. He laid aside the glory and honors and prerogatives that were rightly his as God.

Second, he took on the form of a servant.  The word servant is doulos, slave.  He went from the highest and most exalted state to the lowest and humblest.

Third, he was made in the likeness of man.  It staggers the mind.  He went from riches to rags. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). No one can ever say to God:  But you don’t understand what it’s like to be me (cf. Heb 4:15).

Third, his exaltation (vv. 9-11):

Praise be to God, his death on that cruel cross is not the end of the story!

He was gloriously raised from the dead, appeared to his disciples, and ascended on high to be seated at the right hand of God the Father Almighty (cf. Mark 16:19). 

Finally, the Christ hymn proceeds to tell of yet another level or stage of Christ’s exaltation that has yet to be achieved, and it is the final and universal acknowledgement of his great identity by all creation, including all men.

What is described here is not universal salvation but universal acknowledgement of the identity and greatness of Christ. The godly will do this willingly, but the ungodly “by force” (Matthew Poole).

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

The Vision (7.13.18): Jesus Wept

Image: Tiger lilies, North Garden, Virginia, July 2018.

Note: Devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on John 11:32-46.

John 11:35: Jesus wept.

Here we have another well-loved description of the compassion of our Lord: “Jesus wept.”

We sometimes refer to this as the shortest verse in the Bible—the one that most can recite from memory, along with John 3:16. Of course, the verse divisions were not original but were only added in the age of the printed editions.

In the original Greek there are three Greek words here in 16 Greek letters. In truth 1 Thessalonians 5:17, pray without ceasing, has only two Greek words but in 22 Greek letters.

What is striking is not only the brevity of the verse but what it describes: the shedding of tears by the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is striking because it reveals his true humanity, and so it should be placed alongside others that do the same, whether Luke 2:52, which says “he increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man”, or Mark 4:38 that says he was “asleep on a pillow” while crossing the Sea of Galilee by boat, or John 19:28, which says that while on the cross the Lord Jesus said, “I thirst.” As a true man Christ grew in wisdom and stature; Christ slept, Christ thirsted and hungered. And as a true man, Christ wept when he contemplated not only the death of Lazarus, the pain and grief of those who knew and loved him, but also the sin and misery of the whole world.

Christ was indeed, a true man. Compare Hebrews 2:14-16 which declares that Christ took not on the nature of angels but “the seed of Abraham.”

There is a sense in which it is right to speak of God’s tears, just as it is also right to speak of “God’s blood,” as in God having purchased the church “with his own blood” (so Paul in Acts 20:28 the Ephesian elders).

But we also know that we need to be careful with our words, remembering that Christ is both true man and true God. And that with God there is no shadow of turning; there is no loss; there is no body, parts, or passions.

As Cyril of Alexandria (378-444) put it in On the Unity of Christ: “He suffers in his own flesh, and not the nature of the Godhead” (p. 130).

Christ, as a true man and a true friend, wept over the death of Lazarus.

I often like to cite John 11:35 when I conduct a funeral service and to say that by his tears Christ gave a blessing to all of our expressions of grief. Christianity is not stoicism. We need not strive to be unmoved by the difficult circumstances of life, but to meet them with the appropriate expression of our passions, knowing that we have one who cares for us.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle

Cyril of Alexandria on the burning bush as a type of the Incarnation

Those who rejected the orthodox view of Christ as one person with two natures, argued that it would not be possible for any man to take on the glorious divine nature. In defending his view that in Christ God did not merely assume the form of a man but became a man, Cyril of Alexander points to the theophany of the burning bush in Exodus 3 as a type of the incarnation:

It was not impossible to God, in his living kindness, to make himself capable of bearing the limitations of manhood. And he foretold this to us in enigmas when he initiated Moses, depicting the manner of the incarnation in types. For he came down in the form of fire onto the bush in the desert, and the fire played upon the shrub but did not consume it. When he saw this Moses was amazed. Why was there no compatibility here between the wood and the fire? How did this inflammable substance endure the assaults of the flame? Well, as I have already said, this event was a type of a mystery, of how the divine Word supported the limitations of the manhood; because he chose to. Absolutely nothing is impossible to him (Mk 10:27) (On the Unity of Christ, p. 79).

JTR

Athanasius on the Incarnation as the restoration of a stained portrait

In On the Incarnation, Athanasius suggests the analogy of restored portrait painting to describe how the new Adam, Jesus, restored the stained image of the first Adam:

You know what happens when a portrait that has been painted on a panel becomes obliterated  through external stains. The artist does not throw away the panel, but the subject of the portrait has to come and sit for it again, and then the like-ness is re-drawn on the same material. Even so was it with the All-holy Son of God. He, the image of the Father, came and dwelt in our midst, in order that He might renew mankind made after Himself…. (42).

He later notes the necessity of the ministry of the perfect model, since:

You cannot put straight in others what is warped in yourself (42).

JTR

Athanasius compares the incarnation to a king entering a city

I got started last Sunday preaching through chapter 8 of the confession “Of Christ the Mediator.” To prepare I’m reviewing Athanasius’s On the Incarnation (using the volume in the Popular Patristics Series from SVS Press).

Athanasius compares the incarnation to a king entering a city:

You know how it is when some great king enters a large city and dwells in one of its houses; because of his dwelling in that single house, the whole city is honoured, and enemies and robbers cease to molest it. Even so it is with the King of all; He has come into our country and dwelt in one body amidst the many, and in consequence the designs of the enemy against mankind have been foiled, and the corruption of death, which formerly held them in its power, has simply ceased to be. For the human race would have utterly perished had not the Lord and Saviour of all, the Son of God, come among us to put an end to death (35).

JTR

The Vision (6.9.17): And the Word Was Made Flesh

Image: Roses, June 2017, North Garden, Virginia

Note: This devotion taken from last Sunday's sermon on John 1:14.

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth (John 1:14).

John 1:14 is the most important and illuminating statement of the doctrine of the incarnation in Scripture.

It begins: “And the Word was made [ginomai: to become] flesh….” The Word here, again, is the pre-existent Logos. To say that he was made flesh is to say that he became fully a man.

Calvin, however, notes that John, under the Spirit’s prompting, specifically used the word flesh (sarx) to stress the wonder of the divine condescension. So, he writes:

He intended to show to what a mean and despicable condition the Son of God, on our account, descended from the height of his heavenly glory.

For:

When Scripture speaks of man contemptuously, it calls him flesh…. Yet the Son of God stooped so low as to take upon himself that flesh, subject to so many miseries.

Take a moment and just touch your own flesh and consider this fabulous claim: The Word was made flesh!

There were many attempts from the earliest days to deny this declaration. We see this even in the NT itself. Compare John’s references in his epistles to “antichrists” or false teachers who denied that Jesus came “in the flesh” (1 John 4:1-3; 2 John 1:7).

In modern times, many challenges to the Christian faith come from those who deny the full deity of Christ, but in the early days the more common challenge was apparently from those who denied the full humanity of Jesus.

Aside from those who simply denied that the Word took on flesh, there were other distortions that arose in early Christianity:

Apollinarius argued that Jesus had a human body but not a human soul.

Nestorius argued that Christ was two persons in one body: He was a divine person and a human person, but not one person.

Eutyches said that he was one person but that he had only one nature and that one nature was a mixture of divine and human.

A consensus emerged and was affirmed among orthodox (right-believing Christians) that the Christ was fully a man (having both a human body and soul) and that he was one person (contra Nestorius) with two distinct natures: fully God, and fully man (contra Eutyches).

This creedal consensus is reflected in our confession of faith. See chapter 8 “Of Christ the Mediator” paragraph 2 of the 1689 Baptist Confession:

The Son of God, the second person in the Holy Trinity, being very and eternal God, the brightness of the Father's glory, of one substance and equal with Him who made the world, who upholds and governs all things He has made, did, when the fullness of time was complete, take upon Him man's nature, with all the essential properties and common infirmities of it, yet without sin; being conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, the Holy Spirit coming down upon her: and the power of the Most High overshadowing her; and so was made of a woman of the tribe of Judah, of the seed of Abraham and David according to the Scriptures; so that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion; which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, the only mediator between God and man.

This is likewise taught in the Baptist catechism:

Q 25: How did Christ, being the Son of God, become man?

A: Christ, the Son of God, became man by taking to himself a true body, and a reasonable soul; being conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the virgin Mary, and born of her, yet without sin.

If we want to be faithful Christians, we have to get our understanding of Jesus right. We have to know who this one is to whom we are giving our lives and our allegiance. We honor Christ when we think rightly of Christ.

Grace and peace, Pastor Jeff Riddle