The Lord Jesus Christ

by C. Jones (Wales)

Paper 2 — His Holy Humanity

That Holy Thing

The incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ was necessary if men and women were to be saved. The Word of God states clearly and unequivocally that “all have sinned,” Rom.3.23, and “without shedding of blood is no remission,” Heb.9.22. “God is a Spirit,” Jn.4.24, He cannot bleed and He cannot die. If we were to be saved, a man had to bear the full penalty for the sin of the whole world, Jn.1.29, 1Jn.2.2. He had to suffer, bleed and die as our substitute. That man had to be holy and sinless and capable of infinite suffering. Only God could pay the penalty of our sins, and the Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten, eternal and beloved Son of God, in whom dwells eternally “all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,” Col.2.9, came into the world as a baby. “God was manifest in the flesh,” 1Tim.3.16.

His coming had been prophesied hundreds of years before He came. In Is.7.14 we read, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel.” Immanuel means “God with us,” Matt.1.23. Before He was born, the angel Gabriel said to Mary, His virgin mother, “The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God,” Lk.1.35. The angel said to Joseph, the man to whom Mary was to be married, “that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost … and thou shalt call His name JESUS: for He shall save His people from their sins,” Matt.1.20,21. The name Jesus means Jehovah the Saviour, and is His name as man. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who is eternally God, became man. The prophet had said long before His coming, “unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given,” Isa.9.6.

John refers to the Lord as the Word, Jn.1.1. The Lord is the very essence and substance of God and expresses the mind of God. John tells us that “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us,” Jn.1.14RV. His birth was normal but His conception was unique and miraculous, for He had no father on earth, His Father was in heaven, 1Jn.4.9. God had told Satan that the seed of the woman “shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel,” Gen.3.15, and in the fulness of time, the Lord came, “made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law,” Gal.4.4,5.

The Lord was a perfect man, having a body, Heb.10.5, a soul, Matt.26.38, Acts 2.31, and a spirit, Lk.23.46. He passed through all the stages of human development: infancy, boyhood, youth and then manhood, Lk.2.7,40,52. He experienced all those feelings a human being experiences, apart from those which are a consequence of having committed sin. He experienced hunger, Matt.21.18, tiredness, Jn.4.6, and sorrow, Jn.11.35. When He was on the Cross, the Lord “knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst,” Jn.19.28. These were the only words He spoke, while on the Cross, which referred to His physical sufferings. In saying “I thirst,” He fulfilled the prophecy recorded in Ps.69.21, and showed His Humanity. In “knowing that all things were now accomplished,” He showed His Deity. He who was called by God, “the man that is My fellow,” Zech.13.7, became “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief,” Isa.53.3, and on the Cross He died, Lk.23.46, 1Pet.3.18.

God, in Christ, has done all that is necessary to make our salvation possible, Jn.3.16. He was “in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself,” 2Cor.5.19. We have been reconciled to God “In the body of His flesh through death,” Col.1.22. He has made salvation possible for “Salvation is of the Lord,” Jn.2.9. The Lord “His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree,” 1Pet.2.24, and there, He, the Just One, suffered and died for the unjust, 1Pet.3.18. We are redeemed by the “precious blood of Christ, as a lamb without blemish and without spot,” 1Pet.1.19, for the blood He shed “cleanseth us from all sin,” 1Jn.1.7.

Holy, harmless and undefiled

God is Holy, Lev.19.2, Isa.30.15. Holiness is absolute, infinite, unchanging and eternal purity. It is the absence of moral evil. It is moral perfection. Holiness abhors and repels evil. The Lord Jesus is referred to as the “Holy One,” Mk.1.24, Acts 3.14, and that which is holy is incapable of sinning. The Lord came “in the likeness of men,” Phil.2.7, and was “found in fashion as a man,” Phil.2.8. God sent His Son “in the likeness of sinful flesh,” Rom.8.3. He looked like us, He was a real man, Heb.2.14,17, but He was not a mere man, for He never ceased to be what He is eternally, and that is God. He was and is “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners,” Heb.7.26. He was like us in every way apart from our sin, Heb.4.15. His Humanity was unique Holy Humanity.

The Lord could say “I delight to do Thy will, O My God,” Ps.40.8. He revealed God to mankind, Jn.1.18, 14.9. Heb.1.1-3, and said, “I do always those things that please Him,” Jn.8.29. He possessed Deity and Holy Humanity in One Person. God, His Holy Father, said of Him, “This is My Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” Matt.3.17,17.5.

When the Lord prayed to His Father, He never had any sins to confess for He “knew no sin,” 2Cor.5.21, “did no sin,” 1Pet.2.22, and “in Him is no sin,” 1Jn.3.5. The Lord could say to those who opposed Him, “Which of you convinceth me of sin?”, Jn.8.46, and no one attempted to do so. Satan tempted Him in the wilderness. Those temptations were tests which showed and proved that the Lord could not sin. He did not have to struggle and fight against temptation to overcome it. He could say, “the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in Me,” Jn.14.30. The Lord is eternally holy and unchanging, Heb.13.8, and cannot sin. Those of us who have been saved by grace through faith in He who completed that work on the Cross, Eph.2.8, “have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin,” Heb.4.15. Again we read, “He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted,” Heb.2.18. He is our “advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous,” 1Jn.2.1.

On the right hand of God

Death had no claim on the holy, sinless, Son of God, for death, both physical death and the “second death,” Rev.2.11, 20.6, which is eternal separation from God, is a result of sin, Rom.5.12.

The Lord had voluntarily taken “flesh and blood … that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil,” Heb.2.14. He who is the Son of God, Mk.1.1, identified Himself with man and often referred to Himself as the Son of man, Matt.8.20, 26.64, Lk.19.10. The Lord, who was a perfect Man and perfect Saviour, was dependent on His Father and even “Though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered,” Heb.5.8. The Lord, “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross,” Phil.2.8. He voluntarily tasted “death for every man,” Heb.2.9.

When He rose from the dead, He had a body. He ate, Lk.24.42,43, and had “flesh and bones,” Lk.24.39. He ascended into heaven, Lk.24.50,51, where He now is in His “glorious body,” Phil.3.21. In that body He now sits on the right hand of God, Heb.10.12, 12.2, and in that body He bears the marks of Calvary eternally. One day He will descend to take us to be with Himself for ever, 1Thess.4.16,17, and then we shall see those marks for “we shall see Him as He is,” 1Jn.3.2.

Our Lord and Saviour is fully man and fully God. He knows and understands the Father, Matt.11.27. Having perfect Holy Humanity, He knows and understands man and is the “one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” 1Tim.2.5

— to be continued (D.V.)