Jesus: Marvel of Nature

If you have your Bibles and I hope you do, I want to invite you to open with me to Philippians 2. The stage is set for us to dive into the second facet of the incarnation in Philippians 2. This is the passage that I want to encourage you to memorize over this Christmas season. Philippians 2:5–11 gives us a picture of who Christ is, the incarnation, God in the flesh. We talked last week about how He is the hope of glory. He is in very nature, God. Now, I want us to talk about how He is in very nature, man, not just the hope of glory, but a marvel of nature.

I want us to look at Philippians 2. We’ll start in verse 5 and just read through the passage to get an overview, get a glimpse of the context and then we’re going to focus in on one verse in particular.

Philippians 2:5–11 NKJV

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Now we unpacked last week verse 6: “He was in very nature God, and did not consider equality with God something to be grasped.” Now I want us to unpack verse 7, “But made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness” (Phil. 2:7). Every single word in that verse is important and I want us to see what truths unfold here.

The Unique Son...

The unique Son. That’s a literal translation of John 1:14 which we looked at last week when it said, “We beheld His glory, the glory of the One and Only”—in the Greek its “monogenous”, that literally means the unique son—same type of terminology that we see in John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten,” or the One and Only, the unique Son.

What makes Jesus so unique? I want you to see three truths unfold, particularly as we think about Him as a marvel of nature in the incarnation. Three truths unfold that I think if we can get our arms and our hearts and our minds around these truths, it will radically transform the way we see Jesus, the way we relate to Jesus, the way we walk with Jesus day in and day out through this life.

He is the sovereign Creator, yet He becomes a slave of His creation.

The first truth is this: He is the sovereign Creator, yet at the same time He becomes a slave of His creation.

Now, what verse 7 says is, “He emptied Himself.” It means that He made Himself nothing, but the words literally say, “He emptied Himself.”

Now, it’s important to be careful here. Sometimes when people read that Jesus emptied Himself they picture Him as He became a man. God became a man. They picture Him taking off some of His divine qualities. So some of the divine characteristics that He had, He emptied Himself of in order to become a man. But we know that’s not true. We saw all last week, as we dove into Scripture, how Jesus is fully God. He is in very nature God, means that His essence literally is God. He exists as God. You can’t just take off some things that you are. You are this, and Jesus was God—is God. And so He didn’t empty Himself by taking off divine characteristics.

Instead, He emptied Himself by bringing something onto Himself. By taking the very nature of a servant. Now, that word we’ve seen already. You might circle it. It’s mentioned twice. It’s the same word in the original language of the New Testament, “morphē”—the “form”. It says, “He’s in very nature God.” You can circle it in verse 6 and then in verse 7 it says, “He took the very nature,” same word there, “of a servant.”

So what we’re seeing is that Jesus had two natures—nature of God and the nature of servant. Not in contradiction to each other but He took on the very nature of a servant. So when you picture Jesus coming to the earth and becoming a man, being born as a man, instead of picturing it like God minus something, He takes something off, it’s more God plus something. It’s God taking on human likeness, being made in human likeness.

So this is what we're saying...

Jesus is one person with two natures.

So what we’re saying is the truth unfolded that Jesus is one person according to Philippians 2:6 and 7, one person with two different natures. Two natures; a human nature and a divine nature. We’re seeing two natures. The nature of God and the nature of a servant.

Now, throughout our time together I’m going to throw out a term that I think will be pretty new to all of us and you might write this down. We are just going to be so much more intelligent after we walk out of here than we are even now. You might write it down, the term is hypostatic union. Now, that’ll preach, all right—hypostatic union.

Now, this is a term that theologians have used to refer to this truth all throughout church history. That Jesus is one person with two natures and all throughout church history there have been a lot of questions about how this fits together—how can Jesus be one person with both a human nature and a divine nature—bring them together? This whole idea of the hypostatic union … And a lot of heresies have arisen by denying one of those two natures. Arianism and Ebionism were two heresies that denied the divinity of Christ—the deity of Christ, that He’s not completely God.

And likewise you had Apollinarism and Docetism that denied His humanity, He’s not completely human. Then you have Nestorianism that comes on the scene and basically says it’s almost like you’ve got two persons here, not two natures, but two persons. And they’re all in an attempt to wrestle with the question of how it’s possible for God to become man. And let’s be honest, it’s a pretty complex question. It’s baffling to the mind—how can God become a man? And what are the ramifications of that? Why would it be inaccurate, then, to say that Jesus is part of God as opposed to having God completely? He is God completely.

And we start to ask questions. How is this baby in a manger able to uphold all the universe as we saw in Colossians 1 as He’s sitting there crying in a manger? How does this work together? If Jesus is God and He’s praying to God while He’s here on earth then is He praying to Himself? How do you fit that together? And I’ll be honest with you, this will give you a headache if you dive into it for too long.

Let’s think for a second, together, about who Jesus is, one person with two natures.

When we don’t know what to do, we focus on what we do know to do. When we don’t know what to believe, we focus on what we do know to believe. So let’s focus on what we do know.

As the Son of God, Jesus is fully God.

First of all, as the Son of God, Jesus is fully God. Fully, completely. It would be inaccurate, based on what we studied last week, to say, “Jesus is in part God.” He existed being in very nature, God. He talked all throughout His ministry about how He was equal with God, “I and the Father are One. Before Abraham was born, I am.” We see testimony to His deity all throughout Scripture.

And we know that never stopped. We know that when it says He emptied Himself or made Himself nothing, that He wasn’t becoming less than God at that point, because Colossians 2:9, which we thought about some last week, says that, “The fullness of deity dwells in Jesus.” Fullness, He’s not part God and part man, no. He is fully God. We see that throughout Scripture. We dove into that last week. If you missed last week, let me encourage you to dive into that, maybe through listening on the internet from our website, just to catch that picture because we can’t miss that.

As the Son of Man, He is fully man.

Second facet, as the Son of Man, which is another title Jesus is referred to throughout Scripture, we know He is fully human. Not part human, not kind of like us, He’s completely like us. Everything that makes us human beings, Jesus had. Physically He had a body, flesh, bones, blood—He was a physical human being. He was born, we are born.

We sometimes have this idealized picture, even of Jesus’ humanity. When you come to some of our carols, like Away in a Manger-- "no crying he makes..." - Have any of you had a child before that didn’t cry, at some point? We’ve got this picture of this almost angelic picture of Jesus always peaceful as a baby.

He cried. He cried as a man, He certainly cried as a baby. He wriggled and screamed. He was human. And He walked and He was hungry and He got tired, all very real things that we all experience, Jesus experienced. He was fully human, physically. Not just physically but mentally. We know that He grew in His knowledge. Jesus, and this is an astounding truth, the Creator of the universe learned to crawl.

You should think about that. He learned to walk. He learned to do all the things that are basic to growing as a human being. All those things were realities for Him. Luke 2:52, “He grew in wisdom. He grew in stature.” He mentally is like us—physically, mentally, emotionally. We know that Jesus experienced a full range of emotions that we experience. He experienced extreme joy and extreme sorrow, both of them. There were times when it says Jesus was angry. Not in a way that caused Him to sin, but He experienced anger.

He also experienced happiness. We see times in Scripture where it says He was troubled in spirit—literally anguished in spirit. Even in the Garden of Gethsemane, the point where He is was sweating blood because the emotion was so heavy. Emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually—we know Jesus had a soul. He had a spirit.

So we’ve got that picture that He is fully human, not just in part like us. Now, that’s described when it says, “He took on the very nature of a servant being made in human likeness.” Now, here’s where the difference is in Philippians 2:6 and Philippians 2:7. At the beginning of verse 6, it says, “Being in very nature God.” And we saw last week how that meant He has eternally existed as God, but He was made, was being made in human likeness.

So there was a point in time, it’s what we celebrate at Christmas, when He became a man, when He took on human nature. And we know that He died and rose from the grave, a resurrected body, physical body and that He continues to be man. He ascended into heaven, we have pictures of Him in the rest of the New Testament of Him, seated at the right hand of God.

So that’s the picture we’re seeing. And we see it—those two elements of the person of Christ side by side throughout the Gospels. Think about it. Even when it was prophesied that He was going to be born—it said the virgin will give birth to a what?—son. There’s His humanity. And you will call His name Emmanuel, which means God with us His, there’s deity—humanity and deity united together. Even the virgin birth, human birth like no other, deity conception by the Holy Spirit. The picture’s going together here.

Then we see His life played out. We see Him at some points hungry and tired—His humanity. At the same time we know His deity, His omnipotence is displayed in the way He feeds over five thousand folks or calls people to life that had died, like Lazarus. It’s an incredible picture in Mark 4 when the disciples are on the boat in the middle of the Sea of Galilee. They had this storm raging around them, what is Jesus doing? He’s snoring over here in the corner. He’s tired, He’s weak, we see such a picture of His humanity. The disciples are all scared so they wake Him up, panicked. Jesus yawns, kind of stretches a little bit and just raises His hand and said, “Be still.” And all of a sudden everything’s quiet—humanity and deity together.

Even when we talk about how Jesus was about 30 years old when He began His public ministry. That’s what we say. That’s His humanity. At the same time as we saw last week, He’s a little more than 30 years old in His deity. He’s been there since the beginning—“in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God”—before the beginning, everything revolved around His presence in all of eternity. So we’re seeing both of them together, His humanity and His deity all throughout.

Now, our mistake would be to try to make sense of all this with our natural mind. To simply try to figure it out logically.

The point is not for us to be able to explain this. It’s not against reason. We know that God is the creator of reason. This is not something that goes against truth, something where we have to throw our brains out the door, but it is a time where we see, with awe and wonder, the fact that Jesus is one person with two natures and what it is is a...

Revelation by humiliation.

We see a picture of revelation by humiliation. That’s what the author here in Philippians 2—Paul—is trying to communicate to us—that Jesus reveals God completely.

He reveals God perfectly by taking on the very nature of a servant—humiliation. The readers in Philippi who were getting this letter undoubtedly were familiar with slavery and familiar with the fact that a slave has no rights, that a slave surrenders his rights, pride, anything along those lines. He doesn’t have that. And that’s the picture that Paul uses to describe Jesus.

He became a slave, a servant of His creation. He who had all glory, all dignity, all power, in heaven, He became a man and took on the nature of a servant and became a servant to His people. What does Mark 10:45 say? “The Son of man came not to be served but to”—do what?—“serve”. Now that is an infinitely beautiful truth, that Jesus came to serve you and me.

We talk about how we serve Christ but the beauty of the gospel is that He came to serve us and He came to reveal God to us. Revelation by humiliation. We know revelation is the way that God shows Himself, demonstrates His character. He reveals Himself.

Well, we know all throughout the Old Testament that you’ve got an infinite chasm, a separation that cannot be bridged between man and God. Because of man’s sin we are separated from God completely and totally and no matter how moral we are, no matter how intellectual, no matter how smart we are, there’s nothing we can do to bridge that chasm. What is the only way that that chasm can be bridged—the only way for deity to be united with humanity? And the answer is the incarnation. The answer is God must take the initiative to reveal Himself to us. There is nothing we can do to get to Him. God must take the initiative to reveal Himself to us and the beauty of Scripture is He doesn’t just reveal to us facts about Himself, He reveals Himself. He doesn’t just tell us who He is, He shows us who He is.

That is the beauty of the incarnation. When you ask, “Where is God?” Look at the face of Christ. He is fully God and fully man. He has bridged the chasm between man and God and as a result...

By emptying Himself, Jesus perfectly reveals both deity and humanity to all creation.

Some people say, “Well Jesus wasn’t just like us. He wasn’t human like us, because He didn’t sin.” And we’ll look at that a little bit later, but don’t forget that man was originally created not to sin. He perfectly reveals both humanity and deity and this is the most amazing miracle in all the Scripture and all of history. That’s why we said last week the incarnation is the hinge on which everything turns. It’s more amazing, such a huge truth, even beyond the resurrection, even beyond the creation of the world, it’s not as amazing to think about man created in the image of God as to think about God being made in the image of man. What a huge truth that is, that the Sovereign Creator of the universe would make Himself nothing and take on the nature of a slave of His creation. That’s the first truth.

He is perfect, yet He pays the price for sin.

He’s perfect, without sin and yet He pays the price for sin. This is what makes Jesus unique.

Now we’re getting into the question not so much of who is Jesus—one person and two natures, but we’re beginning to ask the question, why? Why did God become a man? Why was it so important that Jesus become man—fully God and fully man, united together in one person? Why is that so important? And it’s important right here for the very meaning of our salvation. If this truth—Jesus fully man and Jesus fully God—is not there then we have no reason to gather together. We have no salvation, no Christianity without the incarnation.

Now, I want you to see why that is on two levels. First of all, as man...

He alone can substitute for human sin.

Here we have the picture of a redeemer. We're reminded of the OT book of Ruth. Boaz became Ruth's kinsman redeemer. What see throughout the Old Testament is that the redeemer has to be like those He redeems. And that’s the picture we’re seeing here. All of us in the room have sin that separates us from God and makes that chasm between us and God. And God, in His holiness, in His justice, is set against sin—His character is set against sin. Which means His character is set against sinners. And God in His wrath poured out on sinners.

How can we ever have somebody that takes that wrath or is a substitute for us if God’s wrath is being poured out on humanity because of sin? It would have to be someone from within humanity who could be a substitute for that human sin. And so we’ve got the first truth that as a man He alone can substitute for human sin because He was fully man but second as God...

He alone can satisfy divine wrath.

That God became a man, Jesus, fully God and fully human and Jesus Christ took the wrath of God upon Himself so we would not have to experience His wrath and His justice. He took our place. He was like us so He could be our substitute. He is God, so He could take wrath upon Himself and the picture is the One who is perfect pays the price for our sin and the incarnation is the crux of our salvation.

If Jesus is not fully human and not fully divine, salvation is not possible. But by the grace of God, this is possible. See how the incarnation is a picture of the gospel, humanity and deity united together in this person. Humanity and deity united together in the picture of the cross and humanity and deity, now, united together in hearts all around these seats because we now have been able to bridge that chasm through Christ. We have a relationship with God, we relate to Him, we walk with Him, we enjoy Him, we know Him because of Christ and because of who He is. That’s why the incarnation is so important.

And that is an infinitely more beautiful truth than any circumstances of a manger and a stable and wise men and shepherds that we focus on. They can crowd out this truth. We’ve got to see the beauty of the person of Christ at Christmas, if we want to grasp the reality of this.

Remember what we said earlier? It just keeps getting deeper. The deeper we go and it’s more beautiful. I guarantee you this picture in my own life is more beautiful today than it was last year or two years ago or three years ago. The more we know Christ the more we see His worth and the more we’re enthralled with His beauty, and the more we are in awe of His greatness. He is perfect and He pays the price for our sins.

He is transcendent over His people, yet He identifies intimately with His people.

This is good. He is transcendent over His people yet He identifies intimately with His people.

If you’ve grown up in a Christian home all your life, and you’ve grown up in church, and you’ve not had much interaction with other religions in the world then it’s hard to grasp what an incredible truth this is. This is a truth that sets Christianity apart. It sets Jesus apart. The major religions of the world are all grounded in—whether it’s a god you call Allah, or whether it’s a higher being, ultimate reality in the universe—but it’s all based on this ultimate reality being completely other, different from us, above us, over us, and we’re down here.

And the beauty of Scripture is that His greatness is not just in His transcendence over us, His greatness is pictured in His intimate involvement with us, in us, a part of our lives. That’s Jesus and it’s what sets Him apart that He was made in human likeness. He took on the form of a man, the nature of a man. He became like us.

When it says that He made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, it doesn’t mean that Jesus exchanged the nature of God which we saw in verse 6, for the nature of a servant in verse 7. Instead it means that Jesus displayed the nature of God by taking on the nature of a servant in verse 7. He became like us and was among us and walked among us and showed us how to live by perfectly revealing humanity and deity together, He is transcendent over us. Yes, He is holy. He is completely other. At the same time He is intimately involved in our lives.

In our likeness...

Think about what that means. That means first, that...

He is familiar with our struggles.

I want you to go with me back to Hebrews 2. We’re going to spend time in a couple more passages in Hebrews that I want you to see. He is familiar with our struggles.

Now, we mentioned earlier that Jesus was without sin. Jesus never sinned. Scripture tells us that over and over again. Jesus never sinned. He was completely without sin, completely perfect, completely holy. There was this transcendence at the same time His immanence, His intimate involvement with our lives, He lived a sinless life among us on the earth. I want you to see what that means.

When we say He is familiar with our struggles, look at Hebrews 2:18...

Hebrews 2:18 NKJV

For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.

It’s even clearer when you get to chapter 4, look at chapter 4. We’ll start in verse 14 and then camp out on verses 15 and 16. Look at chapter 4:14,

Hebrews 4:14–16 NKJV

Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Did you catch that? The Bible said, “He has been tempted in every way just as we are.” Now, people debate, well, could Jesus have sinned? Well, we know this, we know throughout Scripture He was tempted. Matthew 4, Luke 4, the very beginning of His ministry He is tempted in the desert by the devil. We know He was tempted with very real temptation. We know that there was temptation all throughout. We know there was temptation even from those who were closest to Him. Peter saying, “Surely this will not happen to you. You will not go through this path of suffering.” Surely He was tempted in the same way when He prepared to go to the cross in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Will this cup not pass from me.” Tempted along the way.

Now, this is where we get it backwards. We think that as we struggle with different temptations in each of our lives, as we struggle with different sins, we think the best place to go when you’re struggling with a temptation is to go to someone else who’s also struggled with that temptation and struggled with that sin and fallen into that sin. They know how to identify with us. And it’s one of the reasons why sometimes we think, “Well Jesus doesn’t know what I’m going through as I’m facing this temptation day in and day out. How does He know? He never gave into it Himself.”

But it’s based on a faulty idea. At that point we’re saying that you have to give into sin in order to experience the full brunt of temptation. The exact opposite is actually true though. Jesus never gave into sin and as a result He experienced the full force of the temptation. We give in at this point, or this point, or this point. We don’t experience the full force of those temptations. But Jesus did. He experienced the full force of them.

He is familiar with our struggles. He is able to sympathize with us in those. He was tempted in every way and therefore, sin has no claim on us because of Him.

He is familiar with our sorrow.

And we see that even from His ministry in the Gospels. You remember John 11 when Mary and Martha had lost their brother Lazarus and Jesus comes to them and they run out to Him just weeping. And John 11:35, it’s that easy verse that we all get to memorize when we’re kids but the truth is so incredible, it says that Jesus wept with them. Their tears touched His tears. He’s familiar with our sorrows. He knows how you feel.

No matter what life hands, He is familiar with the sorrows that we experience. He’s familiar with our struggles and our sorrow and...

He is familiar with our suffering.

Go back to Hebrews 2 with me; I want you to see this. Hebrews is such an incredible picture of Christ. Look at Hebrews 2:10. Look at verse 10. Again, this is talking about His humanity, Hebrews 2 really gives us a picture of the humanity of Christ. Listen to what verse 10 says,

Hebrews 2:10–12 NKJV

For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying: “I will declare Your name to My brethren; In the midst of the assembly I will sing praise to You.”

He is familiar with our sufferings. He is not immune to them. He is not removed from them. We don’t have a distant God who doesn’t know what it’s like to be a man. He’s familiar with the hurts and the pains we go through. And then...

Because He identifies intimately with us, He intercedes for us.

We talk about praying, we intercede, stand in the gap. Look at Hebrews 7, last one we’ll turn to. Hebrews 7:23 says...

Hebrews 7:23–25 NKJV

Also there were many priests, because they were prevented by death from continuing. But He, because He continues forever, has an unchangeable priesthood. Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.

Did you catch that? Jesus lives today He lives always. He lives to intercede for us.

When we walk through this life and we struggle with this trial or this pain or this temptation, to know that in the middle of that struggle, in the middle of that suffering, in the middle of our sorrow that there is One who is before the Father interceding on our behalf at this very moment, that He lives to intercede for us, that when we fall and when we sin we have a Savior who stands before the Father on our account and He says, “I will cleanse you from all unrighteousness. You are not held accountable for your sin.” That when we have sorrow and we have suffering and when things don’t make sense, we have One whose spirit groans for us with words that cannot express. And when the world comes crashing down on us, Romans 8:33 and 34 says, “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It’s God who justifies. Who is it that he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of the Father and is now interceding for us.”

Jesus is continually standing on your behalf. He lives to intercede for His people. The incarnation, fully human, fully God bring them together in one person and in this baby in a manger you have the most amazing, marvelous, beautiful picture that man could have never even dreamed of. The sovereign over creation becomes a slave of creation, the One who is perfect pays the price for your sin and for my sin. And the One who is transcendent over everything in the universe is intimately involved in each one of the details of our lives.

The Bottom Line...

The incarnation is a marvel of nature that incites infinite wonder.

If you figure it out, let me know. And let Arthur Pink know. Infinite wonder, that the more you dive into it the more you see its beauty and the more unfolds and incites infinite wonder. But it’s not just a cold truth on a page, this intellectual truth.

Jesus is the unique Son, and He incites infinite worship.

I can’t even begin to think through all of the different situations that are represented, the hurts, the pains, the struggles with sin, the temptations that you’re facing, things that are going on in your life, maybe even things that nobody else knows about. I can’t even begin to grasp that but I do know this, because Jesus is fully human and because He is fully divine that He is with us and He stands on our behalf.

I want to invite you with the infinite number of situations that are represented here, just to come face-to-face with Him personally, see His beauty and His mercy and to let Him nurture our hearts and nurture our spirits.

He is able to sympathize with our weaknesses. He knows who you are, where you are. I want to invite you to spend some time with Him. If you’ve never trusted in Him to bridge the chasm between you and God then I want to urge you, I want to invite you to trust in Him, trust what we have seen today and believe in Him for the first time and know that He stands ready to forgive you of your sins. Know that He stands ready to give you the hope of eternal life. He has conquered death. He destroyed it. Hebrews 2 says that no one has to ever fear death again because of His humanity and His deity. I invite you to trust in Him.