Mark: Theology 101:The God-man [Mark 12:35-37]

Mark: Theology 101: The God-man []

We are going to revisit the verses we looked at last week, and camp out here for this week and next as we look at some essential theological truths. As we said last week theology is a good thing as it is the study of God and we want to be well informed Christians, so the points of theology we are looking at are three of the most important points in Christianity. The inspiration of scripture [last week], the divinity and humanity of Jesus [this week], and the Trinity [next week] are the three essential truths that everything else is built upon! These are the foundation, as it were, of our Christian faith…so let’s lay a good foundation and look at our text again.

Stand for the reading of the word of God. []

To refresh our memories, Jesus is teaching in the temple. The religious leaders were present, along with a large crowd all listening to Jesus teach. Jesus had been on the receiving end of several questions from the religious leaders that were trying to discredit Him, but that’s ended now. Now it’s Jesus turns to ask the questions. Jesus’ question turns the theologians on their heads, as He asks the question of the ages…a question concerning the identity of the messiah. He’s raised this question before privately, now it’s public…the cross is in three days so it’s time for full disclosure of the truth.

Jesus begins his question simply with establishing that the Christ will be the son of David. No problem there. The Davidic sonship of the Messiah was a common and almost universally accepted belief throughout Israel in Jesus’ day. We’ve already seen this with blind Bartimaeus in chapter 10. When Jesus passed by he cried out Son of David have mercy on me. Son of David was a title that recognized the messiah. The orthodox Jew believed that the messiah would come from David’s offspring, from the town of Bethlehem, where David once lived.

Why did they hold that view? It’s well established in the OT that the Messiah would be of the household of David. Scripture references for Davidic sonship of Messiah in OT.

Your house and kingdom will endure before me forever, your throne will be established forever.

I have made a covenant with my chosen one, I have sworn an oath to my servant David: I will establish your offspring forever, and build you throne for all generations.

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light…for unto us a child is born, a son is given, and the government will be on His shoulders. His name will be wonderful counselor, might God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace…he will reign on the throne of David forever.

A shoot will grow from the stump of Jesse… the Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him, the spirit of wisdom, understanding, knowledge, strength.

The days are coming when I will raise up a Righteous Branch of David…He will be named Yahweh Our Righteousness.

David will never fail to have a man sitting on the throne of the house of David

in that day I will restore the fallen booth of David

There are many other texts that point to the Messiah being of the line of David in the OT. It’s an established fact that the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One of God, will be a human descendent of David, and they all could agree with that.

But Jesus extends that question by taking them to , a well known Messianic Psalm. is the most quoted Psalm in the NT, in fact it’s the most quoted OT passage in the NT. Jesus ascribes this Psalm to David, He makes mention of the inspiration of the scripture, which we looked at last week. Jesus uses one verse, the first verse of to point out something that everyone missed. [read the verse]

Here’s the problem no one had seen until Jesus raised it. The Messiah is David’s son, no problem with that, but the Messiah is also David’s Lord at the same time??? David calls him Lord. Just think about this for a second, what father or grandfather or great grandfather would call their son or grandson their Lord? Here’s what Jesus is pointing out…the Messiah is the son of David, but that’s not all He is…He is also David’s God? The Messiah is David’s son and God’s Son at the same time???

What the Jew of Jesus day failed to get is that the Messiah would be more than a mere man…He would be God in the flesh! The Jew of Jesus day missed that, tragically many today still miss it. Jesus will cite this text again when he stands before the high priest in , when asked “are you the Messiah?” Jesus replied, “I am.” Jesus truly is 100% man and 100% God…he is the God-man. This is a truly important theological truth. So let’s look at these two natures of Jesus deeper...

The Eternal Son of God

Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of God. This great truth is the first principle of Christianity-and all other truths are grounded. That truth explains the very essence of Christianity, to know Christ is to know God. We looked at the inspiration of scripture last week, we discovered that Jesus is the very center of the scriptures. Everything in the OT points forward to Jesus; everything in the NT proceeds forth from Him.

The full deity and full humanity of Christ is fundamental to true Christianity, anything else is false. The bible affirms His eternal existence with the Father before the creation of the world. remembering “the glory I had with you before the world existed.” There was never a time when Christ, the eternal son, did not exist.

The beginning of John’s gospel helps us with this…, “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. And all things were created through Him, and apart from Him not one thing was created that has been created.”

The Word is Jesus. So Christ existed with the Father in eternity past, Christ was there at creation and in fact it says He created all things, in addition to that, Paul writes in “He is before all things, and by Him all things hold together.” Christ is creator of all, Lord over all creation and holds all things together. The church, the body of Christ, the redeemed, know this to be true, that Christ is before all things, created all things, and holds all things together…but one day everyone will know this as Christ will be revealed before all at His second coming and every knew will bow and confess Christ is Lord of all!

If we trace on further in John’s gospel, , “And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

The Incarnate Son of God

The eternal Son of God took on flesh and became a man??? This is called the incarnation: The divine Son of God, Jesus coming to and living on earth in human form.

The incarnation is the greatest event in human history, yet at first it was largely hidden from the world’s view. We know the humble story of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem, the Christmas story, but you see it’s so much more than a pretty little nativity scene…it was God coming to this earth in the form of a man, Jesus of Nazareth, and marked the beginning of Christ earthly ministry to redeem mankind back to right fellowship with God.

Paul gave a good explanation of this in , where he expresses the self-emptying of the eternal Son as He takes on human nature.

Paul says, “he was in the form of God” [] the word “form” in Greek is “morphe” which refers to the inner nature or substance of something, not the external outward shape. i.e. Paul is saying Jesus’ nature is divine, the substance that is God’s alone. Jesus is God. Paul continues...

“Did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself by taking the form of a servant.” Paul is not saying Jesus laid aside or emptied himself of his divinity…rather, Jesus did not cling to His privileged position at the Father’s right hand, but set aside his heavenly privileges to become a servant. “emptied himself” Greek “ekenosen” means poured out himself…i.e. the eternal son poured all he is, divine, into human form…becoming the One and only God-man.

Paul continues in , “Jesus humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” This truly is something remarkable. God became a man and died for man’s rebellion. As C.S. Lewis said in his book ‘Mere Christianity’ “The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God.” This is a non-negotiable doctrine of the Christian faith, get this wrong you have a counterfeit religion.

The term ‘incarnation’ is of Latin origin and literally means ‘enfleshement’ or ‘embodiment.’ The Greek equivalent is found in the scripture ‘en sarx’ That’s the reference I mentioned earlier. “The word became flesh’ {sarx egeneto} simply put the incarnation means the eternal Son of God took on human flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. As such, Jesus Christ is one person in two natures: divine and human.

The importance of this can’t be overlooked because, if Jesus is not divine, He cannot be the Christ; and if He is not human, he cannot be the Savior.

Kenneth Samples wrote in his book “God among sages’ “this truth about the incarnation, sets Christianity apart from all other world religions, for it is unique to Christianity to discover God who takes the initiative to become flesh in order to redeem sinful human beings.” This truth has been defended throughout Christendom throughout history because of it’s essential nature to the Christian faith.

Now in this light, Jesus is clearly, as the bible tells us, the eternal Son of God who is and was and is and is to come, and through the incarnation set aside His privileged position at the Father’s right hand, but not His deity, in order to become a sinless human who rescued us from sin by becoming sin for us on the cross. []

So if Jesus is fully divine and fully human, how are we to understand the way in which these two natures work together?

Hypostatic Union

Is the theological term for this remarkable truth. At times Jesus exhibits the fullness of his deity-showing His sovereign control over nature, forgiving sins, receiving worship, knowing thoughts of people. But at times He also displays the full range of humanity-getting hungry, growing tired, feeling sorrow and sadness, feeling pain.

With these two natures at work, Jesus is not toggling back and forth between the two natures. This is where the term hypostatic union explains… hypostatic comes from the Greek “hypostasis” which means “person”. It refers to the union of Jesus’ two distinct natures in one person without dividing the person or confounding His natures.

Christ is one in substance with the Father in regard to His divine nature, and one in substance with humanity in regard to His human nature. The two natures perfectly unite in the one person of Jesus Christ.

To help us understand this hypostatic union better, I pulled a list together of some truths drawn from a number of sources, systematic theologies sources from Wayne Grudem, Charles Hodges, and James Garrett. I don’t expect anyone to be familiar with those names but they all have written solid trustworthy systematic theology books. I just want to share a few them that helped me in wrapping my head around this hypostatic union thing.

Jesus Christ is one person possession two distinct natures: a completely divine nature and a completely human nature. Thus, Jesus of Nazareth is rightly called the God-Man.

Christ is the same person both before and after the incarnation. The writer of Hebrews said, “Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” The difference is that before the incarnation, Jesus had one nature, divine. In the incarnation he added human nature, one that exists together with the original divine nature and will not disappear.

Through His divine nature, Jesus is God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, who shares the one divine essence fully and equally with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

The union of Jesus’ two natures is a true and personal union. i.e. it is not simply the indwelling of the divine presence in a human, as in the case with a regenerate believer whom is indwelt with the Holy Spirit. In Jesus the divine and the human nature come together in one person.

The two natures form a perfect, complementary union. The human nature of Jesus is never without the divine, nor the divine without the human. To deny the deity of Christ at any point in eternity is to undermine His eternal existence as the sovereign creator: to deny the full humanity of Jesus at any point after His miraculous conception in a virgin’s womb is to refuse His necessary sacrifice on our behalf as the Word who became flesh.

These are some truths that helped me understand this union of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

While Jesus shares all the divine attributes of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, he is unique among the Godhead in that only He has taken on human flesh. So that He could experience the full range of humanity, including being tempted, on our behalf…yet he did not sin!

Having lived a sinless life, He laid down that life for us on the cross, satisfying the wrath of God for our sins and extending to us the unmerited offer of forgiveness and everlasting life to all who believe.

This is truly difficult to wrap our finite minds around the mystery of the incarnation. Yet this much is crystal clear: sinful, fallen, and finite people can never repay the debt owed to a holy, transcendent, and eternal God. So in the wake of humanities sin, God unveils his plan to rescue a fallen people from sin and its consequences…through His Son Jesus.

I don’t know if you have stopped to think about his lately or not, but just think of it…the God and creator of the universe and all there in…step down from heaven in all its glory, and took on human form in Jesus. Jesus fully identified with mankind, yet without sin. He knows what it’s like to have sore feet, to be tired, to be hungry, to hurt, and feel the pain of losing a loved one.

Jesus knows what it’s like to be tempted by sin, yet he never gave into that temptation. And He willing gave up His life to die upon the cross and to take the full wrath of God for all sin upon Himself. If we really consider this…and we say we believe it…our only reasonable response is to bow down before Him.

Charles Spurgeon said in one of his classic sermons said...

“We can never meditate too much upon Christ’s blessed person as God and as man. Let us reflect on who His is, “very God of very God.” A man and a man of sorrows, yet at the same time, God over all, blessed forever. Who was despised and rejected by men, and worshipped by cherubim and seraphim. The highest stooped to become the lowest; the greatest took his place among the least.

The one who sat on the well of Sychar, and said give me a drink, was none other than He who dug the channels of the ocean, and poured into them the waters. Son of man and Son of God…you are essential Deity! We worship you this day in spirit and truth.”

Have you turned to this Jesus? The one who created all and invites all to come to him for rest.