Or, Jesus Is True Man, Amen!
Scripture: 1 John 4:2
Date: December 8, 2024
Speaker: Sean Higgins
“Let the Amen, sound from His people again, gladly forever adore Him!”
It’s hard to get people to say, Amen!, and I don’t just mean among our more reserved, reformed, Pacific Northwest preferences. It’s hard to get people to agree to the reality and glory of the person of Jesus. Christmas would be a lot less complicated if we didn’t have to agree with all the details.
Even when Jesus fed 5000 men with five loaves and two fish, and had walked on water across the sea to Capernaum, the majority of the crowd couldn’t say amen. They asked him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him who was sent.” (John 6:28-29). As Jesus said more, they “grumbled about him” (verse 41) and “disputed among themselves” (verse 52) and “after this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him” (verse 66). The more He clarified who He was, the less amens He got.
The advent season reminds us of two great arrivals of this Jesus. The annual Advent-to-Christmas time points us to His Incarnation, and that points us to the King’s return. While we do have so many good things to do during these days as our faith is embodied in feasting and singing and giving, these messages are Advent Amens.
The angel told Mary that “the child to be born will be called holy — the Son of God” (Luke 1:35). Jesus alone has the words of eternal life, and we believe that He is the Holy One of God (John 6:68-69).
Last week we considered the crazy true that Jesus is true God. Today let us meditate on the true that Jesus is true man, amen!
It seems impossible that Mary’s baby could be God (though, yeah, she knew, see Luke 1:35). It seems no less impossible that God’s Son could be born a human baby. The apostle Peter confessed that Jesus was “the Christ, the Son of the living God,” and that confession of true divinity is the rock the church rests on. The apostle John recognized the other 100% and made confession of true humanity a dividing line.
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist… (1 John 4:1-3a)
The test of the presence of God in a man is whether or not that man recognizes that God became a man in Jesus. The confesses is “to say the same thing,” it’s to say, Amen! Spirits that are not from God say something else about Jesus. False prophets deny that God came in the flesh. Rejecting the material nature is antiChristmas.
It is one of the reasons John starts his letter with earthy witness: “that…which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life” (1 John 1:1).
Jesus is true man, amen!
Not everyone could believe this true. It might have stemmed from a cosmological error about the inherent evil of matter, that plus a theological belief that God wouldn’t be defiled and dragged through the material mud. This is the other side of the coin. Jesus couldn’t be true God if He was really man, or He couldn’t be true man if He was really God.
These are opinions raised against the knowledge of God as He Himself has revealed (2 Corinthians 10:5).
Early church heresies included denials of true divinity as well as denial of true humanity. Docetism, from a Greek word meaning “to seem,” taught that Jesus only appeared to have a human body and nature, but was not truly God incarnate. He was ghost-like. Some form of this error seems to be what John addressed (1 John 4:2-3; 2 John 7). Modern day Christian Scientists deny Jesus “in the flesh” since the material world is just illusion.
Eutychianism (pushed by a man named Eutychus between the Council of Ephesus in AD 431 and the Definition of Chalcedon in AD 451) taught that Jesus was only partially human, that the human nature was “absorbed by” or combined with the divine nature, so that He was not truly man like us.
A practical “lofty opinion” is the argument that “no one knows how I feel,” or “no one has ever been tempted like me.” This denies that Jesus was true man who was tempted in all ways like us, except without sin.
Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, … 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. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. (Hebrews 2:14a, 17-18 ESV)
For 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. (Hebrews 4:15 ESV)
Amen!
The true virgin birth is defended from both sides. Yes, Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:20), and just as true is that He was “born of a woman” (Galatians 4:4). This is part of how Jesus fulfills God’s promise to Eve that her “seed/offspring” would crush the serpent’s head (Genesis 3:15). God sent a man!
Denying Jesus “in the flesh” is the work of deceivers: “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. Such a one is the deceiver and the antichrist” (2 John 7).
He “was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man.” (Nicene Creed) Then the Definition of Chalcedon:
Jesus Christ, at once complete in Godhead and complete in manhood, truly God and truly man, consisting also of a reasonable soul and body; of one substance with the Father as regards his Godhead, and at the same time of one substance with us as regards his manhood; like us in all respects, apart from sin; as regards his Godhead, begotten of the Father before the ages, but yet as regards his manhood begotten, for us men and for our salvation, of Mary the Virgin, the God-bearer; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, recognized in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.
Unless He came “in the flesh” He could not take the judgment we deserved. “For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh” (Romans 8:3).
Godliness is great “in the flesh.”
Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. (1 Timothy 3:16)
This is Jesus, amen!
There are at least three implications, along with His righteousness in the flesh that enabled Him to be a substitute for those with unrighteousness in the flesh.
The incarnation means we have one who identifies with us, and we see true humility. The Great Descent in Philippians 2:6ff begins with “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus” who embodied the humility to do do nothing from conceit (Philippians 2:3).
The incarnation means we are not useless, let alone abominable, meat-sacks. If the reality of image-bearer privilege in the creation account doesn’t make it clear, God Himself taking on flesh in the Son certainly shows the true dignity of man.
Think The Book That Made Your World. Chapter 5 - “What is the West’s greatest discovery?” Humanity. As in, the knowledge of man (anthropology), his value and his problems, is “affirmed most supremely in the Bible’s teaching on the incarnation of Christ” (Loc. 1453).
So the incarnation means that the earth, and all the things on it that were made by the Logos (John 1:3), is good enough for the Logos to live in. Of course, materialism, as in, a view of existence that is material only, misses all of the story. But NO MATERIAL is the ACTUALLY ALTOGETHER OPPOSITE STORY. On one hand it doesn’t matter whether you make a big deal of the Advent season/Christmas Day, on the other hand, if you refuse Christmas because it’s not spiritual enough, you may be missing the man in the manger.
God “in the flesh” shows that the material earth and the material things on earth need not be avoided. Amen!
Christmas is a revelation of God’s good design for man in Christ. That Jesus is true God seems crazy, that Jesus is true man, in the flesh, means God is close. Amen!
Learn to live with your given limits as you look to Jesus. Having a body isn’t the problem, though often our bodies have problems. Christianity is not an “out of body” experience and advent is not about perfect living in heaven. Saints, let your contemplations be embodied. Amen!
But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen. (2 Peter 3:18 ESV)