Something To Hold On To
Big Idea: Because God came to us in the flesh, we can come to Jesus.
I. Introduction
A. Secular – Virtual reality
1. We’ve come a long way since Madonna sang about living in a “material world” in 1985. We now live in a world that is more and more virtual.
a. Regular mail to email
b. Going camping at Yosemite National Park or watching a 3D IMAX presentation of the Park
c. Playing tennis or guitar to video games
d. You can go online and attend a virtual church, where you pick your style of music, the type of message or Sunday school you want to hear and even sign up for childcare (although I don’t know what that looks like), all without leaving the comfort of your own home.
e. Even now surgeons and US Navy personnel can train for their jobs by putting on virtual reality goggles and gloves to simulate real operations or real parachute jumps.
f. We live in a world that is becoming less and less real, less physical.
2. We perhaps even see God as being virtual and not real.
a. He is invisible – I can’t see Him or touch Him.
b. He in some indefinable place called “Heaven”
c. He doesn’t speak audibly or show Himself
d. He is more like gravity – we know He exists, but we need someone else to tell us about Him and what He’s doing.
B. Personal
1. There can be several reactions to thinking that God is not real and present, but only virtual.
a. One is that we don’t pray to Him because we don’t believe He can actually help. We’re content to try to do things on our own.
b. Another is not submitting to His authority. If He’s not around to enforce His rules, why should I abide by them? Or, if He’s not here to reward me, why should I do the hard things?
c. Another reaction is to dismiss Him altogether. After all, how can I believe in something I can’t see, hear, feel, touch or taste?
2. Many of us sitting here right now, who call ourselves Christians, treat God in one of these ways because He seems too far off and impersonal.
3. We need God to be personal and physical and tangible. We need something we can hold on to.
C. Biblical
1. The Bible gives us some encouragement towards that end.
2. God has shown up in the past
a. Walked in the cool of the day with Adam and Eve
b. Spoke to Moses and Abraham face to face
D. Textual
1. Vital for us to talk about the Incarnation
II. The Meaning of the Incarnation – What is it?
A. The incarnation simply means “God in the flesh”
B. John’s description of the Incarnation
1. John 1:1-2, 14.
a. Three things we learn immediately from these first two verses.
1.) First, is that the Word is eternal.
a.) “In the beginning” takes us right back to Genesis 1:1, where God steps into history and consciousness by initiating the creation of everything.
b.) It has existed since before the beginning of anything.
2.) Second, is that He is in relationship with God.
a.) This is important, because both Old and New Testaments tell us clearly that everyone has sin, and therefore no one has the moral capacity to be in relationship with God.
b.) And this relationship has existed from eternity past.
3.) Third, this Word is God Himself.
a.) Deut. 6:4 tells us that there is only one God.
b.) At the same time that John is affirming this truth, he is trying to describe a plurality within this unity.
b. Finally, in verse 14, we are given a clear understanding of what this “Word” is.
1.) John tells us that it is clearly Jesus of Nazareth.
2.) He also tells us that there is a duality to Jesus
a.) Jesus is fully God, from verse 1.
b.) Here in verse 14, He is fully human.
c. In this verse we are given the clearest description of the doctrine of Incarnation: “The Word became flesh.”
1.) People were convinced that Jesus was human, because He had flesh and He tabernacled, or dwelt, or took up residence with them.
2.) People were also convinced that He was God, because He was completely full of the grace, truth and glory of God.
3.) In his description, John recalls the image of the tabernacle from the wanderings of Israel in the wilderness.
a.) Israel was concerned about the presence of God always being with them. So God instructed them to make Him a tabernacle for Him to dwell in.
b.) When the tabernacle was completed, Exodus 40 says that the glory of God filled the tabernacle.
4.) In the same way, John is describing Jesus as a human, fleshly tent, that was filled with God’s own glory.
d. If we have read this properly, we see that Jesus is both fully God and fully man.
1.) God has incarnated and put on flesh.
2.) He possesses two different natures at the same time.
C. Historical understandings of the Incarnation
1. John Walvoord, in his book Jesus Christ Our Lord, says, “The study of the person of Christ is one of the most complicated and intricate studies that can be undertaken by a biblical theologian” (pg. 106).
2. The Incarnation is a truth that is both simple and complex at the same time.
a. It is simple, in that the Scripture is very clear in what it is intending to communicate.
b. It is complex, because it doesn’t make any sense. And people have been misunderstanding it for a very long time.
3. The church has always confessed the truth about Jesus being both God and man. The problems came as people tried to explain how they thought this could be and what it really meant.
a. Some erred in denying the fullness of Jesus’ humanity.
1.) Apollinarians in the early fourth century taught that Jesus had a human body, but a divine soul instead of a human soul. But because He didn’t have a human soul, then He couldn’t be fully human.
2.) Others, called docetists, taught that Jesus only appeared human (apparition), therefore, He didn’t really die on the cross.
3.) Variation of this in Islamic theology today.
b. Others erred in denying the fullness of Jesus’ divinity.
1.) Jacob Arius in the early fourth century denied the eternal pre-existence of Christ saying, “There was a time when he was not.”
2.) Jesus then had to be created at some point, which means He could not have been fully God and is of a different essence and nature.
3.) Even though this view was condemned in 325AD, Jehovah’s Witnesses still carry this teaching today.
c. Still others erred in denying that both natures existed fully in one person.
1.) Nestorius in the mid-fifth century denied that Mary could be the “Mother of God” and that God could exist in a woman’s womb for nine months, have been wrapped in baby clothes and He could not have suffered, died and be buried.
a.) Because of that he could not call Mary “God-bearing”, but only “human-bearing”
b.) This led to the teaching the Jesus existed as two persons in one body. A type of split personality or schizophrenia.
2.) After Nestorius came Eutyches who went in the other direction and asserted that Christ had only one nature.
a.) Each of His divine and human natures were modified into a compromised third type of nature.
b.) Therefore, Christ was neither fully divine or fully human, but something completely other.
D. Scriptural truth regarding the two natures: Hypostatic Union
1. The proper perspective to understanding the position of two natures in one person is called the Hypostatic Union
a. Briefly, it says that “the preincarnate Christ came and took to Himself a human nature and remains forever undiminished Deity and true humanity united in one person forever.” (Enns, 227).
b. Two important things about this definition:
1.) First, is the word “forever”. Jesus exists today in the same way He existed when He was on earth: fully God and fully man.
2.) He did not discard the human nature when He was done with it, like a rented tux after a wedding.
3.) Second, this is not an attempt by Christian theologians to create something out of thin air to artificially exalt Jesus.
a.) Instead, it is an attempt by fallible men to accurately describe what infallible Scripture presents.
b.) And it is not an idea that comes about only in the NT. We see the idea of the Incarnation in the OT as well.
2. OT Prophecies
a. Gen. 3:15 – seed of the woman
1.) Notice two things:
a.) First, it says “seed of the woman”, which refers to the physicality of the Messiah. He would come into this world as so many billions of children have done, through his mother.
b.) Second, it doesn’t say “seed of the man”. It nowhere mentions male participation in this child’s conception of birth. The implication is that there would be a supernatural conception.
2.) In this one phrase, we are given both aspects of the Incarnation; the physical human aspect, and the supernatural God aspect.
b. Isaiah 9:6 – “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given…”
c. Micah 5:2 – “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah…”
3. NT Witness
a. John 10:30 – “I and the Father are one.”
1.) Jesus makes the claim
2.) Then Jesus substantiates the claim
b. John 20:28 – Thomas seeing the risen Jesus crying out “My Lord and my God!”
1.) Thomas was in the same position we are today. He wanted something physical, something tangible to hold on to.
2.) He wasn’t referring to two separate people
3.) He saw the man Jesus, and called Him God, and Scripture accurately describes it for us.
c. Php. 2:6-8
1.) Verse 6 says that He was in the “form of God”, which refers to Jesus possessing God’s very nature, or character, or essence.
2.) Similarly in verse 7 He takes the form, or essence of a human servant.
d. Col. 2:9 – “For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (and 1:19).
E. Scripture is clear that God incarnated, put on flesh, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth so that He is both fully and completely God, and fully and completely human in one person. The remaining question now becomes…
III. The Meaningfulness of the Incarnation – What does it mean for me?
A. Because of the truth on the Incarnation – that God became flesh – we have something to hold on to. We have something definite that we can grasp to help us in our daily struggles and in our spiritual life.
1. First and foremost Jesus is worthy of our worship.
a. Because He is fully God, that means He is the one true God who is deservedly worthy of all our worship and praise.
b. To worship someone or something other than Jesus is idolatry. To worship God without worshipping Jesus is foolish and false.
c. The whole book of 1 John is intended to keep believers focused on worshipping only Jesus, understanding Him to be the incarnate God.
1.) Read 1:1-3 (first verses)
2.) Read 5:21 (last verse)
2. The way that we can know God.
a. One of Jesus’ purposes was to reveal to people the nature and character of God.
b. John 1:18 says, “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, [Jesus] has made him known.”
c. Jesus is the “exact imprint of God’s nature” (Heb. 1:3) so that when we look at, read about, study on Jesus we are actually getting to see God.
d. We know about God because we can touch and see Jesus.
e. It is one thing to read the description that God is compassionate (James 5:11). It is another thing to see Jesus “deeply moved in His spirit” and weeping (John 11:33, 35) because His friend Lazarus had died.
3. The Incarnation helps us is in seeing that the God of the Universe came down to our level.
a. He humbled Himself to meet us where we are at.
b. There is nothing we can do to reach up to Him – no works or no level of self-righteousness can be good enough to reach Him – He had to reach down to us.
c. He did this by taking on flesh and tabernacling among us.
d. He did this by emptying Himself of His rightful position, making Himself nothing and taking the form of a servant (Php. 2:7)
4. It enables us to have a personal relationship with God.
a. Is. 59:2 says that the effect of sin in our life is like God turning His back on us. Sin separates us from God.
b. Because Jesus was man, He could offer an atoning sacrifice on behalf of all people.
c. Because Jesus was God, His sacrifice would be sufficient for the removal of all sins, for all time.
d. We are able to have a relationship with God - be reconciled to God - as we believe in this truth.
1.) Jesus’ death on the cross was the sacrifice that atoned for my sins and for yours.
a.) 1 John 3:5 says that Jesus appeared in order to take away sin.
2.) Coming to Christ by faith, meaning acknowledging our sin and our desperate need for a Savior, and receiving His gift of grace that our sins are forgiven, removes the wall of sin that separates us from God and removes God’s wrath towards us because of our sin (propitiation).
3.) It is only in Christ, that we can come to God. “No one comes to the Father, except through [Him]” (John 14:6)
5. The Incarnation also helps us is in that it provides for us an appropriate advocate before God. We have a priest who is able to mediate between us and God because Jesus has been through everything we are going through.
a. Scripture tells us in Hebrews 4:15 that “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”
1.) He has experienced our weaknesses: hunger, thirst, fatigue, stress, anger, frustration.
2.) He has been tempted in the same areas of life that we have.
3.) He knows everything that is going on with us, because He has been through it Himself.
a.) He can sympathize with us.
b.) He can help us.
c.) He can encourage us.
d.) We can give Him all of our cares and anxieties, because He cares for us and understands what they are.
b. He is the only one qualified to be our mediator before God, to intercede in prayer on our behalf, and to be our advocate; our defense attorney.
6. Because of the Incarnation, Jesus is the model by which we are to live.
a. Jesus said that He only does the things that pleases the Father.
b. 1 Peter 2:22 says He committed no sin.
c. Because of these things, Paul says in Philippians 2 that He is to be our model; we are to have His mind regarding all things.
d. Isn’t that how we want to live? Without sin and always pleasing the Father?
IV. Conclusion
A. Why include this doctrine of the Incarnation in our series “Foundations for the Future”?
1. One author said, “Without this doctrine, Jesus is just another human being; without this doctrine there is no salvation for us in him; and without this doctrine it is wrong for people to worship him.”
God had to take on flesh:
so that He could have feet to walk from town to town spreading the good news,
so that He could have knees to bend down and wash His disciples’ feet as a model of
humble service,
so that He could have hands to heal people,
so that He could have arms to be stretched out on the cross,
so that He could have shoulders to carry the burden of our sin,
so that He could have a head to carry the crown of thorns and the shame of rejection by
those He loved,
so that He could have a heart to beat with compassion for those who are lost,
so that He could have blood to be shed as a sacrifice to remove our sins,
so that He could have a name to be called upon by faith for salvation and to be elevated
and magnified as a Name above all other names.
2. The Incarnation, God coming to us in the flesh, is vitally important for us today. In a world becoming more and more virtual, it gives us something to hold on to. Because God came to us in the flesh, we can come to Jesus.
B. Prayer