The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
"The Word, Made Flesh"
Someone exists who perfectly identifies with both God and human beings.
"The Word was God… the Word was made flesh" (John 1:1; 14).
The Lord Jesus Christ knows how God thinks, feels, speaks, and acts. He knows the same about human beings. From everlasting, He has existed as God the son, the second Person of the divine Trinity (Hebrews 1:8). From His conception in the womb of Mary, He has existed as the son of man, "the second man" and head of the spiritual race of human beings born again by His saving grace (I Corinthians 15:47). He forever exists as the God who became man, and the man who remains God. His divinity is, of course, primary regarding His glorious nature and being. However, this does not minimize the wonder of His humanity, nor its vital place and importance in God's purposes. To redeem the Creator and His creation into proper relationship required the work of God and man, again, as administered by the sublime One whose being somehow spans divinity and humanity. "There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (I Timothy 2:5).
Regarding His identification with us, two realities were required for the Lord Jesus to serve as our Redeemer. He had to "in all points be tempted like as we are." He also had to be "without sin" (Hebrews 4:15). A bulletproof Savior, as it were, and one whose humanity could not have been enticed to sin, would not have served the divine justice of the God who required a man to die for humanity because He was genuinely human. Christ had to "touched with the feeling of our infirmities" to be qualified as a proper sin offering. Indeed, the blood of bulls and goats sufficed as a foreshadowing of atonement (Hebrews 4:15; 9:13). However, the blood of a human being - "the man Christ Jesus" - had to be shed to make full and righteous atonement. He had to identify so completely with us that God could look upon His Son as our sin-bearer, and as the One "made… to be sin for us" (I Peter 2:24; II Corinthians 5:21).
Our Lord also had to be "a Lamb without blemish and without spot" (I Peter 1:19). He had to be the One who could die for our sins because He none of His own for which to suffer. This escorts us to a most holy place of solemn observance, namely, the Lord Jesus is the only human being who ever lived who was "tempted in all points." In more than three decades of life as a man, how many temptations would this have included? We will never know. We do know as believers that overcoming temptation always involves sacrifice in some mode or measure. Thus, our Redeemer felt the realities of temptation like we do, but sacrificed those sensibilities every time He was tempted. He overcame all. Indeed, I sometimes wonder that the devil failed to realize how severely he had been trounced by the Lord Jesus during His earthly lifetime. Did Satan not know that instigating His death would only result in a far more ignominious defeat? Apparently not. But we know, and we fall to our faces in loving devotion and awe when pondering what it cost our Savior to be "a Lamb without spot or blemish."
If we could somehow gather and unify the cumulative love for the Lord Jesus of every believer who has ever lived, or ever will live, it would not be enough. It would not begin to adequately express the devotion, affection, commitment, and service for which He is worthy. This will be the case forever. We will better know this when we have passed through the valley of the shadow into that holy place where "the Lamb is the light thereof" (Revelation 21:23). Yes, the God who became man, and the man who remains God forever exists as the wonder beyond all wonders. Doubtless, we will enjoy glancing upon golden streets, gates of pearl, glorified saints, and fascinating angelic hosts when we dwell in Heaven. However, our gaze will forever be fixed upon the One for whom our eyes exist. As the old hymn exults, "Jesus will outshine them all." He will, and He does.
"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."
(Philippians 2:5-11)
Weekly Memory Verse
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 4:15)
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