Topical Studies
What the Bible says about
Jesus Christ as God Incarnate
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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Luke 1:26-38
For his part, Luke treats his material with precision, dignity, and grandeur. He immediately gives concrete details of time and place, setting the miraculous in the real world (Luke 1:16-27). The speech of both the angel and Mary is measured and dignified, though he is careful to include the young woman's "troubled" reaction to the angel's greeting, her consternation that she could become pregnant while still a virgin, and her humble, Hannah-like acceptance of God's charge (verses 29, 34, 38). Luke does not overpaint the picture with gaudy details, reporting the simple yet astonishing announcement with respectful restraint, which adds to its solid reality. Though the virgin birth is central to Luke's passage, its emphasis is not on the uniqueness of this situation but on the divinity, nobility, and capability of the One it will produce. This is God's way of putting matters in their proper perspective. The virgin birth is merely a miraculous means to an end - the advent of the Son of God in human form to perform the works that will bring salvation to humanity and eventually the Kingdom of God to this earth. Such a marvelous Person requires an astounding entrance to mark Him for His far-greater future accomplishments. The emphasis, then, is not on Mary and her condition but upon her divine Son and His purpose. Finally, it should be noted that the angel admits that the virgin birth, along with Elizabeth's pregnancy in old age, are things men consider "impossible." His answer is to make us realize that in this matter we are not dealing with the things of men: "For with God nothing will be impossible" (verse 37). It is this assurance of God's ability to turn reality on its head - from a human perspective - that elicits Mary's declaration of faithful submission to God's will: "Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word" (verse 38).
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
'Behold, A Virgin Shall Conceive . . .'
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John 1:3
Paul adds in Colossians 1:16, "For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him." These verses reveal the Word, who became Jesus Christ, as the agent of creation, performing the work necessary to carry it out. He is not only God but with Another who is also God. "Through Him" implies that this other Being authorized the works of creation carried out by the Word. Does this not indicate two distinct Personalities, both called God by inspiration, working in harmony to accomplish a work?
John W. Ritenbaugh
God Is . . . What?
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John 17:5
Whatever this glory is that He asks to be restored, it is something He did not have as a human, but He did have when He truly was fully God. He had it before He was born of Mary, did not have it during His physical life, and had it returned to Him upon His resurrection and ascension. In the New Testament, glory is used in the sense of anything that brings honor and praise upon a person. It can be one's works, attitude, manner of living, skill, strength, wisdom, power, appearance, or status. Some or all of these could be included within the framework of Christ's request. The Bible does not clarify or expand on what He specifically meant, but whatever it was, it was lacking in Him while He was human. Therefore He could not have been "fully man and fully God."
John W. Ritenbaugh
Fully Man and Fully God? (1994)
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John 17:5
The first thing Christ does in this prayer is establish that He was with the Father. In this case, the word with means "beside" or "alongside of." This agrees with John 1:1, "In the beginning was the Word [Christ], and the Word was with [along side of] God, and the Word was God."
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Nature of God: Elohim
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Philippians 2:6-7
Phillips renders this, "For he, who had always been God by nature, did not cling to his privileges as God's equal, but stripped Himself of every advantage by consenting to be a slave by nature and being born a man." Moffatt translates, "Though he was divine by nature, he did not set store upon equality with God, but emptied himself by taking the nature of a servant; born in human guise and appearing in human form." As in other scriptures, He was God, divine by nature, with—beside, accompanying—a different personality also called God!
John W. Ritenbaugh
God Is . . . What?
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Philippians 2:7
The clause, "He made Himself of no reputation," more literally reads, "He emptied Himself." Instead of asserting His rights to the expression of the essence of Deity, He waived His rights and relinquished them. Compared to the fullness of God, He must indeed have felt empty once He gave up "the form of God"! The word form in verse 7 is the same Greek word as in verse 6. The grammatical structure of the sentence demands that the "taking the form of a servant" preceded and caused His "making Himself of no reputation." Remember, form is the outward expression of inner nature. The sentence, though, indicates an exchange of such expression. Therefore, being a servant was not something of His inner nature that had been previously expressed. It was not His usual mode of outward expression. Before, He conveyed glory and sovereignty over all things, but afterward, He manifested servanthood. An event in the life of Jesus may help explain this exchange of expressions. What happened in His incarnation was the exact opposite of what occurred at the transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-5; Mark 9:2-7). Luke writes that His "appearance . . . was altered" (Luke 9:29), and Peter, James, and John "saw His glory" (verse 32). On the Mount of Transfiguration, He was changed from His normal, human outward expression as a servant to the outward expression of Deity. Of what did He empty Himself? He did not empty Himself of His Deity, but rather the outward expression of His Deity and all it implies. As one author puts it, "He emptied Himself of His existence-in-a-manner-equal-to-God." He set aside His legitimate and natural desires and prerogatives as Deity so that He might express Himself as a servant.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Fully Man and Fully God? (1994)
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Hebrews 1:10-12
In Psalm 102, these words apply simply to the eternality of God, but here they are applied directly to Christ without qualification. By God's Spirit in us, He has also made us understand that Jesus was the God of the Old Testament. As far as we know, not many Jews grasped this reality, but the passage presupposes this fact. The writer of Hebrews uses it as another opportunity to exalt Jesus Christ above angels. Unlike them, He lives eternally. The author's remark about clothing helps as it addresses the subject of created things in contrast to the eternal God who created all physical things. The quotation's mention of clothing that will be rolled up and disposed of illustrates an eternal truth. All of the physical creation is slowly but constantly wearing down. It is absolutely, relentlessly perishing. From this, we extract a fundamental truth of life: Jesus Christ, the Creator God, began the universe, and He will end it. A new heaven and a new earth will be established (Revelation 21:1), but through it all, He remains the same (Hebrews 13:8).
John W. Ritenbaugh
Why Hebrews Was Written (Part Eight): Hebrews 1
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Hebrews 4:14-16
The Word of God became a man, Jesus of Nazareth, so that He could completely feel both joy and pain as mankind does. As a God-Being, to that point He knew life only as an eternal, all-powerful Deity. He put on a human form—that of a servant (Philippians 2:7)—to feel our frailty and to know our limitations and weaknesses. As Creator, God has always had great compassion for His children, but for Jesus Christ to be a perfect High Priest, with perfect compassion—for Him to suffer along with His creation—He had to become a human being. What did He experience to give Him the ability to empathize with us? During His life, Jesus lived with a large family, interacted with neighbors, and dealt with many different kinds of people. He was a carpenter and had to run a business. He worked hard and became tired and hungry. He paid bills, taxes, and tithes. He had to deal with government. He saw firsthand the death of His friend, Lazarus, and likely the death of His own earthly father, Joseph. Of course, He was hounded by the Jewish authorities, arrested, tried, convicted, scourged, and crucified. Because He experienced these things and many others, He now knows what human life—and its many difficulties—is really like. Notice what is written in Mark 6:34 about our Savior's compassion: "When [Jesus] went ashore He saw a great crowd, and He had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And He began to teach them many things." (English Standard Version) Jesus' compassion was more than just a feeling. His compassion for others' weaknesses and hardship led Him to exert Himself in positive actions. Whether it was healing the sick, casting out demons, or giving people proper instruction, His compassion motivated Him to work to make peoples' lives better. Of course, Jesus is our Example to follow, so we need to be expressing this same kind of active compassion to the brethren and to others we encounter. As we saw previously in Colossians 3:12, as Christians, we are to be clothed with compassion. How do we go about putting this superior kind of compassion on? It is reasonable to assume that the principle of compassion is based on the Golden Rule, "Do to others what you would have them do to you," which Jesus states in Matthew 7:12 (New International Version). In turn, His instruction in the Golden Rule is a summation of the last six of God's Ten Commandments, which outline our duty to our fellow man. Jesus summarizes them in another way in His Second Great Commandment, which appears in Matthew 22:39: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." All that Jesus did throughout His life and ministry provide examples of real compassion. Because we must love others as ourselves, it may be necessary at this point to define the word "self." Philosopher and psychologist William James wrote, "In its widest possible sense, however, a man's self is the sum total of all that he can call his, not only his body and his psychic [mental] powers, but his clothes and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors and friends, his reputation and works, his lands and horses, and yacht and bank account." He called this idea of self "the empirical self." His definition covers a great deal of ground—not just our bodies, but also everything we consider to belong to us. It illustrates how extensive our love needs to be for others. If our love for ourselves is this broad, our love—including our compassion—for others must be equally as broad. While we can never literally do exactly what Jesus did, we can and should, to the best of our abilities, become that suffering person and make that suffering our own. As much as we can, we must place ourselves in his shoes, as it were, and truly experience and feel his suffering, mentally and emotionally, even physically. Then, continuing in our Savior's example, we need to take whatever steps are in our power to lessen and, if possible, relieve that suffering. When we suffer their pain or suffer from our own hardships, we then need to use our experiences in coping with them to help others make it through their distresses, as we would want others to help us.
John Reiss
Compassion (Part Two)
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