Orange Moon Cafe “A Divine and Human Christ”

The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe

"A Divine and Human Christ"

     

    Without relinquishing His substance and nature as God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ nevertheless embraced a humanity whereby He lived in complete dependence on His Father and the Holy Spirit.

    "The Son can do nothing of Himself… I live by the Father… The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He hath anointed Me to preach the Gospel" (John 5:19; 6:47; Luke 4:18).

    The Lord Jesus serves as the perfect example and prototype of humanity dependent on Divinity.  Born as baby so helpless that his human parents had to flee earthly rulers to guard His life, our Savior lived a lifetime experiencing the realities of existence as a man - "in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin" (Matthew 2:12-23; Hebrews 4:15).  He spoke as a man, taught as a man, healed as a man, hungered and thirsted as a man, grew weary as a man, suffered and died as a man, rose from the dead as a man, and presently, "there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (I Timothy 2:5).  Again, none of these human experiences constitute the Lord Jesus as less than the God He is.  However, if He was to be our Savior, our Lord had to become and forever remain human, devoted and dependent on His Father and the Holy Spirit, and consecrated to our eternal benefit.  "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil" (Hebrews 2:14).

   In the wilderness temptation, Satan tempted the Lord Jesus to act as God (Matthew 4:1-11).  Had the devil been successful, all hope for our salvation would have been forfeited.  Indeed, had the Lord Jesus ever acted as God rather than man dependent on His Father, the Divine purposes of our triune God could not have been fulfilled.  To redeem humanity, God the Son had to become humanity and live accordingly.  "God was manifest in the flesh" (I Timothy 3:16).  The Lord Jesus is the God who became man, and the man who remains God.  All this speaks to a sacrifice unimaginable to our hearts and minds.  From infinity to infirmity.  From the limitless span of eternity to the constraints of time.  From omnipotence to weakness.  From joy to sorrow and suffering.  From life to death for One so vibrantly and eternally alive that Scripture titles Him "the Prince of life" (Acts 3:15).  From existing solely as Divine to eternity as "the Word… made flesh" (John 1:14).  These and countless other condescensions bear witness of a Divine and human Christ whose wonder can never be fully fathomed, ultimately understood, or adequately appreciated.

Long, long ago,

in a manger hold

lay a little lamb,

the great I AM, 

the great I AM.

Holy mystery,

God made flesh as a baby.

How can it be?

A little lamb...

the great I AM.

Fall to your knees,

in the light of this glory.

That God for you and me

became a lamb,

the great I AM.

"Seeing then that we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession.

For we 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."

(Hebrews 4:14-15)

Weekly Memory Verse    

   For by Thee I have run through a troop.  By my God I have leaped over a wall."

(II Samuel 22:30)

  

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