Ultimate Fulillment Found only in Christ, in Body & Soul!
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Dear Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Our witness includes the main character, the setting - creation and its purpose, the problem - not just sin but our sinful nature and the resulting curse, brokenness, alienation, not living in love and community as God designed. But once you’ve got the story started, the whole rest of a story is on the action of how that problem gets resolved come to a resolution better than the beginning. And the middle part of our witness is all about that action in salvation and what it does in our lives and world But Articles 16,17,18 - Election God’s Master Plan in love and justice; the covenant Promises of Genesis 3:15, and now the identity of the one who is the promises and fulfills the promises, that’s the hinge on which the confession turns. And so this evening who is this surprising seed, the Son - and this brings us to the heart of our witness - it is true the climax will be the Cross and the resurrection the proof and fruition of what Jesus will do, but the world’s turning point is the incarnation. - the stupendous fact of God undertaking to come to us in human flesh, in our human nature to make contact and work savingly with, in and for us! This is not just a a question of historically or scientifically figuring out who was Jesus, this is about the God beyond all our history, beyond the grasp of scientific understanding, really becoming in the person of His Son, human in body and soul, and still and forever being the God-man - who has and must forever be the One who intervenes for us in every way. You know how John describes it at the beginning of his gospel: John 1:14
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
That is the stupendous fact of of Christianity that changes everything, without out there is no real deceive intervention of God in our world, and in our lives. The incarnation, says something about God and who He is and how He loves, and its says something about man - about what the purpose of human life really is, and how it can only be achieved as God and man are joined to together in and through this Christ, in body and in soul! The great fulfillment of life is only in the Christ, only in the eternal life - we get through this God-man. Listen to how John begins his first epistle: 1 John 1:1-3
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.
Do you get what the purpose and the place of the incarnation is? Humanity has chosen her path, pursuing her project on her own, Adam and Eve hiding from God, and orientating their lives to created things, not the Creator, no matter the promised pleasure from Satan, he has tricked them and they are estranged, trembling all over - instead of holy and happy in communion, they are sinful and miserable. But God in pure divine freedom pursues man. It it is the way of the pursuit that is most startling, he met with Adama and Eve in the garden in Spiritual communion, but now it will be through a Seed that God will intervene. In Jesus Christ, we are going to meet God coming after us but this Person of God the Son, meets as no other than a brother, a fellow human, and yet he is God’s self in human flesh. Fully human, yet also the full presence of God’s self on earth!
We need to get this solution this type of intervention firmly fixed in our hearts and minds: the seed isn’t an it, salvation isn’t an idea, the seed and salvation is through a Person,. We can’t even begin to think about election, redemption, the atonement - without thinking about this Christ, this mediator of the covenant of grace, chosen from all eternity to be our Saviour!
The whole truth of the OT revelation flows towards this moment, and the expansive significance of the rest of the NT flows as water from a fountain from - Christ’s coming! And this must the core of our witness, not ethics, not rituals, not views of government, not - no the core is Immanuel!
Key Truth: God’s great intervention to rescue the seed of Eve and crush the serpent’s head, required His great Incarnation!
Key Truth: God’s great intervention to rescue the seed of Eve and crush the serpent’s head, required His great Incarnation!
The first point that our confession makes is not how awesome Jesus character was, that He is a super-human, the ideal that we should strive to be like. Not is the first point that the Seed Jesus i going to have all the divine characteristic of God. No the first point it makes is that Jesus Christ comes the incarnation is in fulfillment of not a hundred and one promises, but of one particular promise:
Belgic Confession Art. 18a So then we confess that God fulfilled the promise which he had made to the early fathers by the mouth of his holy prophets when he sent his only and eternal Son into the world at the time set by him.
A. The SEED is Sent to be the Mediator
A. The SEED is Sent to be the Mediator
Do you see that with one mouth the holy prophets, though they described various aspects of what the coming Seed would do and be like, they all with one witness say, God is sending a miracle child and the reason why is to be a Covenant mediator for His lost people!
Adam had failed as the first head of humanity, and God stepped in right away to say a seed would be sent - that seed will have to fulfill what Adama didn’t, have to win by perfect obedience confirmed eternal life, and that seed will have to take Adam’s place in incurring the curse and wrath and death - the seed will indeed have his heel busied in crushing Satan and winning victory over all the destruction he has wrought.
And think of it when the Son did enter our world at just the right time in world history, the pregnant moment. in the fullness of time … Do you remember what Jesus said, when they started to connect the dots of what the prophets had promised? Luke 24:26-27
Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
That is a remarkable statement. Jesus fulfills all the promises and brings all the old administrations of God’s covenants to completion and fulness and says, all the prophetess speaking of This - me coming being the Seed, the Promised Covenant Fulfiller, the Renewer the Savior!
Do you see it all God was shadowy showing through Abraham’s seed Issac, , all showing through Moses as an intercede, and even more as a prophet and God says, I will raise up a prophet greater than you… showing through the priests and their sacrifices. All God was showing through David as covenant King, who also led praises of Israel ‘ this role of prophet priest and king ‘ that´s what the prophets with one voice putting it together ‘ the ministry of Jesus fulfilling the covenant of grace for us!
The Messiah was understood to serve as the one mediator between God and man (cf. 1 Timothy 2:5).
For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
This idea of Messiah, Redeemer, Mediator is the great expectation of Israel: Isaiah 59:20
“And a Redeemer will come to Zion, to those in Jacob who turn from transgression,” declares the Lord.
God will do as he promises. He will send a redeemer from the line of Jacob and from the tribe of Judah, a redeemer who is David’s son and holds David’s scepter in his hand.
Why in our text Isaiah 9:6 not so much focus on sweet little baby in manger but on that tender child given to the world of lost sinners as the saving mediator, the king of the kingdom of God
For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
And do you see the incarnation - each of those titles of the one fulfill the human office of prophet priest king - all God expected Adam to fulfill but he didn’t, they are all to be fulfilled by this one who is at the same time - PELAH - God of Wonder, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace! He is God Himself.
Josh McDowell an atheist began researching - 61 specific prophecies fulfilled in detail by Jesus. And after he fulfills this bruising this enduring the curse, this taking on the consequences of Adam’s broken covenant - the NT declares Col 2:13-15
And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.
But next notice that our confession stress we must witness to why this Seed came not only to be our mediator, but he had to do so by becoming truly human even though He remains fully God!
B. The Incarnation Means God was FULLY Human to Truly Moving Towards Us
B. The Incarnation Means God was FULLY Human to Truly Moving Towards Us
Now that may be a comforting thought and it is. God wanted to relate fully to us, so he became like us in every way. Like parent on knees prattling to infant. Or like Eric and the Insecten World. But the reason for God becoming like us goes beyond that and was much more costly to God than that. Our confession emphasizes this
Belgic Confession Art. 18b The Son took the “form of a servant” and was made in the “likeness of man,” truly assuming a real human nature, with all its weaknesses, except for sin;
He wasn't born to be the ideal human general characteristic live good human life. No, he was born like any human being, implantation of a zygote, cells dividing, growing in mothers womb, birthed like you and me, vulnerable as any other tiny child. Grew up experiencing pain, terror, fear, delight, joy and hope. He was limited in his full human nature like you and me, in town Bethlehem. He was born mortal in his human nature which would die.
But what is more and so emphasized his physical genealogy is particular history of the house of David, the race of Abraham, the patriarch through the promise of the seed rested. He’s not the hero of human dreams, he is the fulfiller of God’s promises to Abraham to Israel to the world!
But look at the third paragraph, how human did the Son of God become and why?
Belgic Confession Art. 18c And he not only assumed human nature as far as the body is concerned but also a real human soul, in order that he might be a real human being. For since the soul had been lost as well as the body he had to assume them both to save them both together.
Do you see why he is becoming human, “with all its weaknesses” after the fall? The Messiah didn’t come into this world like an Adam before the fall, but after. The Christ didn not “ride above” human feelings of sorrow and pain, of temptation and anxiety. He was really tempted, really anguished. Jesus really underwent physical and soul pain. In becoming truly human for a time the Son by reason of his human nature - emptied himself and limited himself in his human nature from using his divine nature’s - . Didn’t know how all things would pan out - Mark 13:32
“But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
The point is that in addition to all these wonderful things the Messiah would do as Mediator - prophet, priest, and king, he also was stepping in to our human condition for us as our substitute and representative. Christ became human all the way down, except for actual sin. Do you get what he was doing being born in the horror of a life of human separation from God with all its consequences? The Messiah began to experience that sharing our condition being born under the law and the curse and becoming that curse for us. Though he didn’t sin, becoming fully human in weakness - the Messiah was being bruised for us 2 Cor 5:21
For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Jesus was born under the judgment of death. God was placing His Second Self - His Son under the judgment of sin, to share our humanity to the fullest. He would go that far, even to death, and even to being forsaken to rescue us!
By way of application do you feel the wonder of this. The Seed is truly our companion, our Messiah Immanuel - God with us in the lowliest places. Karl Barth said, what going on is God is gone to the far country - He’s going to the waste places of your living and mine . Do you get the wonder of his coming in our weakenss under the law under the curse for us? Psalm 139:8-9
If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
Do you know this God who is present in the wilderness of your suffering, for the orphan, the abused, the refugee - God is present with us, in our lowliest places!
But the third thing is not just that Christ comes as Mediator, nor as fully human, but Christ comes bringing God full and saving, and communion Presence in our midst.
C. The Incarnation means Jesus was FULLY GOD with us
C. The Incarnation means Jesus was FULLY GOD with us
So many religious people want to make faith and salvation about human’s work. About a spiritual project of us human self-improvement, even with a little help from the great beyond. This is why at the beginning of the last century, people not only threw out Creation by supernatural God who still continues to work in this world, sometimes miraculously, but they through out the virgin birth. Oh, they could still have the idea of a Jesus and even a A Christ, but he’d be not only fully human, he’d be only human, and God maybe chose him to be a great example and teacher - but in no way would this Jesus be God Himself in the flesh. Spirit of God may have filled Jesus like a hand in a glove but God and Man were not joined in one Person.
But the witness of Scripture that Guido so earnest to defend - is that it was God who was at work already in the conception. Matthew 1:18b
Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.
We make a big deal of Jesus birth - public entrance into the world. But the shrouded mystery is in his conception. God didn’t pick a virtuous human being and say I will fill this human to do my will. NO, here is God’s project, not a group project of human and divine. God made an utterly new beginning. God freely and really enters human history to do something promised, something radically new.
The Son of God, came to earth, as the Holy Spirit took an egg of Mary’s and with that fully human DNA, in perfect union the Son of God was joined to our human nature - fully God - but now the Son of God limits Himself as one person with a human nature. Jesus wasn’t God taking on a human disguise, but joined fully to our human nature through Eve, yet without sin as preserved fully holy by the Holy Spirit. This is a full-bodied incarnation - full souled.
DO you get it? It is important to be a precise as Scripture here: In the incarnation, God does not turn into a man, nor does Jesus cease to be God. Jesus is both fully man and fully God
As Gregory Nazianzus, famously put it - That which He has not assumed He has not healed.
he could not redeem that which he did not assume. The Son of God becoming fully human in body and soul - to restored our bodies and soul - our whole human nature - to bear all the consequences of broken covenant, to fulfill that covenant in our human flesh - to mediate the fulfilled covenant of grace!
Adam, and we with him have corrupted our whole nature - liable to physical and spiritual death. We participate in that corruption and condemnation. And Christ takes on a full human body and soul, to become the second Adam, so that He and He alone could be the One who redeems us totally - body and soul, in life and in death!
But there is a last move that the church that would confess this central truth afresh in our age must do.
D. Defend the Doctrine of Incarnation Against All ERROR.
D. Defend the Doctrine of Incarnation Against All ERROR.
In the age of the reformation, Menno Simons, one of many of the Radical Reformation, those who said the Reformation didn’t go far enough, get rid of all tradition, not just tradition over Scripture, must have no creed. Through out infant baptism, treated world as evil and civil government as something Christian couldn’t participate in. Though not all followed him, Menno Simons said the doctrine of the Incarnation was a blasphemy and un Christian.
He taught that, and a number of the Dutch Anabaptists followed him in this and were asserting that God created the physical body of Jesus Christ within the womb of the virgin, just as Adam’s body had been created in Eden. This means that Mary was merely a divine incubator for the God-man supernaturally implanted inside her. She was not truly the mother of our Lord.
This error, of course, denies that Jesus took his human nature from his mother. If true, this means that Jesus Christ is not truly human and therefore, unable to redeem us from our sins.8
But “if the Son of God had not accepted our flesh and our blood, there would be no connecting link between us and the last Adam. Not on new flesh or new blood, but on our flesh and our blood, the wrath of God abided, to be borne and removed by our Substitute, in all things. So we witness to the incarnation with Guido quoting Hebrews 2:14,17
Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,
Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
Apollinarius and other Docetists, had taught this error in the early church too. That the Son became a third something - without full human soul, that his intellect and spirit were divine, and the Son didn’t have a human mid or soul, just a human body. He was not really fully man, but a third something! But born of a woman, from the Holy Spirit the Scriptures tells us body and soul when became one with us, to save and redeem and glorify both our bodies and souls!
Today, both errors exists, with Jehovah Witnesses and Mormon saying Christ is a divine creation somewhere between God and man, but neither fully. But even more our neighbours will deny any divinity to Christ, and see Jesus as merely human with a divine spark. But we are to drive home the point that Jesus is the Son of God the appointed Intervener, God come to save!
Christ by highest heaven adored. Christ the everlasting Lord. Late in time behold him come, offspring of a virgin’s womb. Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, hail the incarnate deity. Please as Man with man to dwell; Jesus our Immanuel with man in man to dwell Jesus our Immanuel!