(47) Conclusion

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So what? I’m sure you knew that question had to be coming! How do we make all this practical? How should we be changed by these truths? First, we should have a change in our thinking that leads to a change in our approach to life and leads to worship.

The more I study and come to understand these glorious truths about the person of Jesus, the more I am convinced that I don’t even begin to understand. What I am saying is that even though I believe I understand the uniqueness of the person of Jesus far better than I ever have before, I am left feeling utterly ignorant. That’s right, ignorant. I am left bewildered, overwhelmed. Words fail me to express how humbled I feel before the glory of my Jesus. It leaves me with an intense awe and wonder. It leaves me with a heart of profound reverance. It leaves me broken before His glory. Tears stream from my eyes as I am convicted of the way I have allowed my view of the glories of Jesus to slip from my view.

I am convinced that my view of life, my life, and the world around me has been so distorted by my small view of Jesus. I am inspired to greater trust in Him who is so gloriously complex and amazing. I realize my most complex and confusing circumstances don’t even make Him break a sweat! He can handle it. I am spurred on to greater reliance on Him who is so incredibly unique rather than on myself, my thinking, my ideas, my solutions, my abilities. I am challenged to believe Him for strength, victory, and great accomplishments according to His glory and for His glory. I am challenged to stop thinking simple and small.

I am captivated by a passion to bow before Him and worship Him. In my heart I prostrate myself before His glory that I cannot begin to comprehend. I am filled with a passion to give my life to Him in complete surrender. Oh Jesus, may I be completely Yours for the honor and glory of your name!

How about you? Do you approach life with your mind and heart filled with a view of our glorious Jesus? I mean, is there a vision of God doing glorious things in and through your life? Or are you defeated, discouraged, just getting by? Isn’t your Jesus bigger than that? He is.

How do you approach life? Do you make your plans and decisions based on your thinking and knowledge, or are you passionate to see the plans your glorious Jesus has for you? Do you approach life with confidence, hope, expectation? How great is your Jesus? He is beyond comprehension!

The real Jesus is gloriously amazing and beyond comprehension. He wants to lead you to a life that is gloriously amazing, even beyond comprehension to the world around you. A life that springs from the life of the One who lives within you who is so amazing!

But there’s another incredibly profound truth for us to apply in all this. To really understand the “so what?” of these doctrines, we need to go back to one of our key passages, Philippians two. Paul did not talk about Jesus giving up the glories of Heaven just to teach a doctrinal truth. He taught it to bring about a change of thinking, attitude and action in his readers.

Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 6who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:5-8 NAU)

“Have this attitude” that Jesus had. What is that attitude? It is an attitude of humility, self-sacrifice, servant-hood. We need to look closely at this attitude.

It is an attitude of humility. Jesus rightfully had a position of great exaltation. He resided in a place of incredible wonder, majesty, beauty, and perfection. He continually received the adoration and worship of the angelic hosts. He was ministered to day and night. This was His rightful position. He deserved it. He was worthy of it. He gave it up.

Again I remind you, Jesus went from glory to grime. He went from worship to wagging fingers. He went from words of adoration to words of accusation. He went from perfection to imperfection. He went from comfort to conflict. He went from mansion to manger. He went from supreme to servant. These are not just poetic thoughts, this is truth!

Who am I? When I stand before such majesty it becomes all to clear. And I am indeed humbled. You know, we are so mixed up and so devoid of worship and passion for God just because we don’t get this one truth right. We are nothing, He is everything. I must remind you who we are apart from the infinite grace of God in Christ. We are vapor, dust, worms, grasshoppers. Feeling small? You should – apart from grace. Apart from God’s grace in Christ, we are dead, dumb, darkness, defiled, depraved. Felling lost? You should – apart from grace.

But God – those are the two most beautiful words I know of. I was nothing BUT GOD made me His child and showers His love and blessing upon me. I was dead BUT GOD made me alive.

Now, if Jesus could step down from glory to take the position of a servant, what’s stopping me from being a servant? Simple. Pride and selfishness. See the amazing difference? He had it all and deserved it all. I had nothing and deserved nothing and was given everything. He stepped down to serve. And I am proud and selfish. Who do we think we are? Be humbled before the glorious Jesus, up close and personal.

What happens when we have the attitude of humility? It leads to self-sacrifice and service. Are you willing to give up your desires for others? Are you a servant? Want to know if you have a pride problem? Answer the questions, “Is there anyone I won’t serve?” “Is there any task I won’t do?” Get to know Jesus up close and personal. Be Jesus to someone, up close and personal.


Next:  (48) Jesus: Old Testament Hope - Introduction

(46) Summary

Let’s try to wrap all this up and summarize it. There are three main doctrinal concepts we have looked at in this study that are very important. We can summarize them as follows.

Paradox: A paradox is a statement or idea that seems illogical or seems to present two opposite ideas that are in fact both true. It is when there are two ideas that seem to be opposite or it seems like they can’t both be true but they really are. It is when scripture clearly teaches two things that seem to be opposite.

Hypostatic Union: The two natures of Christ (deity and humanity) are united and cannot be separated. They are united without being mixed and without a loss of separate identity. He remains forever the God-man, fully God and fully man, two distinct natures in one Person forever.

Kenosis: Jesus eternally existed in Heaven possessing all the nature, glory and position of God demonstrated in the visible display of that glory. Jesus did not regard this position as something to be held tightly to for His own benefit. Instead, He acted in unison with the triune God-head and for the glory of the triune God-head. He gave up this position of exalted glory and added humanity to His deity. He did not give up any attribute of divinity, only the external display of His deity. He chose to act primarily within the confines of humanity. He took on the state of pre-fall humanity. He entered into humanity in a low position of poverty, obscurity, and servant-hood.


Next:  (47) Deity in Humanity - Conclusion

(44) Steering Clear of Error

[Jesus,] who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. (Philippians 2:6-7 NAU)

Let me go back for a moment and deal with some of the error that has come out of this passage. One error is stating that Jesus actually emptied Himself or gave up some of His divine attributes when He took on humanity. This must be rejected. If He gave up any attribute of deity, He would have ceased to be fully God. In Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form (Colossians 2:9).

Again, the explanation of William MacDonald is right on the mark:The

Lord Jesus did not lay aside any of the attributes of God when He came into the world. He was still omniscient (all-knowing). He was still omnipresent (present in all places at one and the same time). He was still omnipotent (all powerful). What He did was to empty Himself of His positional equality with God and to veil the glory of Deity in a body of human flesh. The glory was all there, though hidden, but it did shine forth on occasions, such as on the Mount of Transfiguration. There was no moment in His life on earth when He did not possess all the attributes of God.

Jesus was not limited by His humanity, He limited Himself or chose to act within His humanity. For a period of time, Jesus chose to limit Himself to act within the confines of human existence.

Neither Christ's divinity, nor His Divine attributes, nor the use of those attributes, nor His glory, was in any way emptied. Rather, these were "concealed under a veil of flesh." There is a distinct difference between emptying and concealing. The answer is that Jesus cooperated with the limitations of humanity and voluntarily did not exercise His attribute of omniscience. He still was divine but was moving and living completely as a man. – Matthew J. Slick

Jesus chose to act within the limitations of humanity in cooperation with the Father and the Spirit. The incarnation and the Kenosis of Philippians two is not focused primarily on Jesus giving up anything of deity, but rather, on His taking on humanity and servant-hood.

One of my favorite theologians is Millard Erickson. He does an excellent job of helping us understand this more clearly.

Picture the following analogy. The world’s fastest sprinter enters in a three-legged race, where he must run with one of his legs tied to a leg of a partner. Although his physical ability is not diminished, the conditions under which he exercises it are severely circumscribed. Even if his partner in the race is the world’s second fastest sprinter, their time will be much slower than if they competed separately; for that matter it will be slower than the time of almost any other human running normally. Ability is not in essence diminished, but the conditions imposed on its exercise limit actual performance.

This is the situation of the incarnate Christ. Just as the runner could unloose the tie, but chooses to restrict himself for the duration of the event, so Christ’s incarnation was a voluntary self-chosen limitation. He did not have to take on humanity, but he chose to do so for the period of the incarnation. During that time his deity always functioned in connection with his humanity.

Next: (45) Deity in Humanity

(42) Hypostatic Union

The next theological idea we should get familiar with is what is called the “hypostatic union.” That’s not another way of describing a marriage in a science fiction movie. It is a very important theological title for the doctrine that explains how Jesus is both God and man. It literally means “union of persons.”

The doctrine of the hypostatic union states that the two natures of Christ (deity and humanity) are united and cannot be separated. They are united without being mixed and without a loss of separate identity. He remains forever the God-man, fully God and fully man, two distinct natures in one Person forever.

The hypostatic union emphasizes three main facts:

● Jesus has two distinct natures: humanity and deity.

● There is no mixture or combining of the two natures.

● Although Jesus has two natures, Jesus is one Person.

Why does this matter? First, it matters because we must hold firmly to the biblical teaching that Jesus always was and is God. We need to be careful that in our thinking about Jesus, we don’t think that He became less God when He became human. In fact, the last part of that statement isn’t even a very good way of expressing this. Jesus, the eternal Son of God, did not go from being God to becoming human. I prefer to say that He took on or added humanity to His deity. Do you see the subtle difference? Deity was not replaced by humanity or even put into humanity. Humanity was added to deity.

It is important that we hold firmly to the truth that Jesus was, is, and always will be 100% God. We must also hold firmly to the truth that Jesus did take on true, pre-fall humanity. He was 100% man. In fact, remember with me what Hebrews says about the importance of Jesus’ humanity.

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. (Hebrews 2:14, 17 ESV)

It is critical that we realize that Jesus is 100% God and that Jesus is 100% human. But then, we must also realize that these can’t be mixed. It may not seem clear to us why this is so critical for deity not to mix with or affect humanity, but, if humanity mixes with deity, it is no longer deity. Ok, a bit confusing? Think of it this way. If the humanity of Jesus mixed in anyway with the deity of Jesus, than deity would be diminished by humanity. Infinite would be polluted by finite. Omnipotence would be mixed with weakness. We could go on. If you don’t get anything else, get this: If Jesus humanity was mixed in anyway with His deity, it would have polutted His deity. Deity is deity. Humanity is humanity. God is God. Man is man.

There is one last important point that Paul Enns states.

Jesus must be viewed has having these two distinct natures, but, He must be viewed as one person. Jesus is 100% God and He is 100% man, and He is 100% one person. How do I make this clear? Well, I can’t. At least not completely. But I must hold on to these truths. Jesus was fully, 100% God. He was fully, 100% man. Jesus was one person. He acted as one person. He did not act sometimes as God and sometimes as man. Every word and action came from the one person, Jesus in the unique combination of deity and humanity.

Next: (43) Kenosis