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Scripture Reading: Rom. 1:3-4; 19, 8:29; Heb. 2:10-12; 1:6; 1 Pet. 3:18
I. Christ’s two natures, divine and human:
А. Christ’s human nature — His humanity:
1. According to the flesh, Christ is out of the seed of David to be the Son of Man — Rom. 1:3; John 3:14.
2. Typified by the bronze serpent — Num. 21:4-9.
3. Bearing the likeness of the serpent (the likeness of the flesh of sin), without the poison of the serpent — Rom. 8:3b.
4. Related to sin, Satan, and the world — 2 Cor. 5:21; Heb. 2:14; John 12:31.
B. Christ’s divine nature — His divinity:
1. According to the Spirit of holiness, Christ is designated the Son of God — Rom. 1:4.
2. In power.
3. Out of resurrection — the Triune God embodied in Christ — John 11:25.
II. Christ’s death — 1 Pet. 3:18:
А. For sins, the Righteous on behalf of the unrighteous, that He might bring His believers to God.
B. On the one hand, crucified in the flesh.
C. On the other hand, made alive in the Spirit. In this Spirit, Christ went and proclaimed to the fallen angels in prison (probably the victory of God over Satan their leader through the incarnation of God in Christ and Christ’s death in the flesh) — v. 19.
III. The designation of Christ’s humanity — Rom. 1:4:
А. Christ’s humanity — the flesh — was not divine but human.
B. In His resurrection His humanity was designated (resurrected, uplifted) into His divinity, that is, into His divine glory — John 12:23; Luke 24:25-26:
1. By the Spirit of holiness.
2. In the divine power.
3. Out of resurrection, which is the Triune God embodied in Christ.
4. To be the Son of God.
5. This means that He was born of God in His resurrection — Acts 13:33:
а. To be the firstborn Son of God.
b. Among His many brothers — the many sons of God — Rom. 8:29.
6. His redeemed believers were born (regenerated) with Him in the same resurrection — 1 Pet. 1:3; Eph. 2:6a.
IV. The two statuses of Christ’s sonship:
А. The only begotten Son of God — John 1:18:
1. Possessing the divine nature — divinity.
2. From eternity to eternity — Psa. 90:2; Rom. 9:5.
3. As the second in the Divine Trinity — Matt. 28:19.
B. The firstborn Son of God — Rom. 8:29:
1. Possessing both the divine nature and the human nature — divinity and humanity.
2. From His resurrection through His ascension and His second coming to eternity — Acts 13:33; Matt. 26:64; Acts 7:55-56; Rev. 1:13; Heb. 1:6; John 1:51 and footnote 3, Recovery Version.
3. As the firstborn Son of God among the many sons of God, His many brothers — 19, Rom. 8:29; Heb. 2:10-12.
The Spirit of holiness here is in contrast to the flesh in v. 3. As the flesh in v. 3 refers to the human nature of Christ in the flesh, so the Spirit in this verse does not refer to the person of the Holy Spirit of God but to the divine essence of Christ. This divine essence of Christ, being God the Spirit Himself (John 4:24), the divinity of Christ, is of holiness, full of the nature and quality of being holy.
Not the Holy Spirit but the Spirit as the essence of Christ’s divinity (Rom. 1:4; cf. John 4:24a). The crucifixion put Christ to death only in His flesh — which He received through His incarnation (John 1:14) — not in His Spirit as His divinity. His Spirit as His divinity did not die at the cross when His flesh died; rather, His Spirit as His divinity was made alive, enlivened, with new power of life, so that in this empowered Spirit as His divinity He made a proclamation to the fallen angels after His death in the flesh and before His resurrection.
Prayer: Lord, we worship You as the Son of God. Especially we worship You as the God-man. You are the real God and the perfect man. Lord, You are even the consummated God and the uplifted man. We are looking unto You. Lord, You are everything, and we are nothing. You are the center of God’s economy and also the goal of our pursuit. Lord, we want to know You, to comprehend You, and to gain You. You are the reality of all the revelations. We do not just want the vain revelations without the reality. Lord, in these days while we are seeking You, grant us to experience You every day as the reality of all the revelations You have shown us. Lord, cover us. We surely need Your covering. You know how the enemy is struggling to fight against the release of Your word in a deeper way. Lord, show us how You became man in Your divinity to bring Your divinity into man and how You became the life-giving Spirit and the firstborn Son of God bringing humanity into divinity. We worship You as such a One. Amen.
In this chapter we want to see the designation of Christ’s humanity. Christ is the very God, the triune, eternal, self-existing, and ever-existing God. According to His heart’s desire, one day He became a man. By becoming a man, He brought divinity into humanity. Then He lived on the earth for thirty-three and a half years. He lived a human life but by the divine life. Then He went to the cross, was crucified there, and entered into resurrection.
The first marvelous and excellent thing that transpired in Christ’s resurrection was the designation of His humanity. Designated means “resurrected.” Designated in Romans 1:4 refers to His resurrection. In resurrection Christ’s humanity was uplifted into His divinity. In His incarnation He brought divinity into humanity, and in His resurrection He brought His humanity into divinity. This divine traffic mingles God and man as one. Thus, He became the God-man.
In order to help us get into such a deep word, I want to present the designation of Christ’s humanity in the following way. First, we have to see Christ’s two natures — divine and human. The Bible is a divine revelation. Quite often, some revelations in the Bible are too deep, far beyond our human understanding. Apparently, all the Christians who read the Bible have come to know that Christ has two natures. Because He is both God and man, He possesses the divine nature and the human nature. In order to enter into the depths of the divine revelation concerning the designation of Christ’s humanity, we need to see the two natures of Christ.
According to the flesh, Christ was a human being who came out of the seed of David (v. 3). The seed of David is a descendant of David. Christ, according to the flesh as a human being, was one of the descendants of David. He was out of the seed of David, not to be the Son of God, because David was not God. David was a man. Therefore, Christ, according to His flesh, came out of the seed of David to be the Son of Man (John 3:14). In the four Gospels the Lord referred to Himself as the Son of Man seventy-eight times.
This is typified by the bronze serpent spoken of in Numbers 21:4-9. In John 3:14 the Lord Jesus Himself said, “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” The Lord as the Son of Man was a serpent but only a serpent in form, in likeness, not a serpent in poison.
Romans 8:3 says that Christ bore the likeness of the flesh of sin. John 1:14 says, “The Word became flesh.” Because flesh is a negative term, Chinese translators dared not translate this literally. Their translation of the word flesh in this verse is the word for body. But the Bible tells us definitely that Christ as the Word of God became flesh. Then Paul in Romans 8:3 gives a definition of what this means. Christ as the Word of God became flesh in the likeness of the flesh of sin.
By reading the Bible carefully, we can see that there are three big, ugly things involved with the flesh. These three things are sin, Satan, and the world, the cosmos, the satanic system. The flesh, sin, Satan, and the world are four-in-one. God is triune, three-in-one. Now Satan has become four-in-one. Sin and the world came from Satan, and Satan today is in our flesh. We have pointed out that Christ became a man in the likeness of the flesh of sin. This fact indicates that He was indirectly involved with sin, Satan, and the world, yet not in reality, just in the likeness.
Paul, who was very strong in the deeper truths, said in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “Him who did not know sin He made sin on our behalf that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” John said that Christ as God became flesh, and Paul had the boldness to say that God made Christ sin. Christ is the One who knows no sin. He had nothing to do with sin, but God made this One, who had nothing to do with sin, sin.
We can see a picture of this in Numbers 21:4-9 with the children of Israel in the wilderness. They offended God, and He sent serpents among them to bite them. When they cried out to God, He told Moses to make a bronze serpent and lift it up on a pole. Everyone who looked upon this bronze serpent would live. This bronze serpent was in the form of the biting serpent but without the poison. Such a serpent in the form of a serpent but without the poison became their savior, their deliverer. This bronze serpent delivered them from the poison by imparting life to them.
In John 3:14 the Lord Jesus revealed that He was the reality of that bronze serpent in the wilderness, indicating that when He was in the flesh, He was in the likeness of the flesh of sin, which likeness was equal to the form of the bronze serpent, which did not have the poison of the serpent. Verse 15 goes on to say that whoever believes into Him will receive eternal life.
God’s making Christ sin is a very deep and bothering point in the entire Bible. His being made sin includes all sins. During the last three hours of His death on the cross, in the eyes of God Christ was made sin, so He was judged by God and even forsaken by God (Matt. 27:45-46 and footnote 451, Recovery Version). God made Him sin to die for us sinners in the form, the likeness, of the serpent, without the poison of the serpent. If He had had the poison, He could not have been our Redeemer. Also, if He had not been in the likeness of the serpent, He could not have been our Redeemer. He had to be a serpent in the likeness of a serpent but without the poison; then He could be our Redeemer.
I hope that by this simple explanation we can realize that Christ became flesh to be indirectly involved with sin only in the likeness of the flesh of sin but not in the reality. He bore the likeness of the serpent (the likeness of the flesh of sin), without the poison of the serpent (Rom. 8:3b). In this sense, His becoming flesh caused Him to be indirectly related to sin, Satan, and the world. His becoming related to sin is seen in 2 Corinthians 5:21. His being related to Satan is seen in Hebrews 2:14. This verse shows that Christ destroyed Satan by partaking of blood and flesh. By becoming the flesh, Christ crucified, destroyed, Satan on the cross. When God judged Christ on the cross, Satan was destroyed in the flesh. Then John 12:31 tells us that when Christ was judged by God on the cross, the world was also judged. By that one death, that one crucifixion on the cross, four things were cleared up: the flesh (the fallen man), sin, Satan, and the world. When we speak of Christ’s human nature, we have to understand all these points.
Romans 1:4 says that Christ’s humanity “was designated the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness out of the resurrection of the dead.” Here the Spirit of holiness is different from the Holy Spirit. In the Divine Trinity there are three persons, and the third One is the Holy Spirit, but the Spirit in Romans 1:4 is the same as that mentioned in John 4:24, where the Lord Jesus said, “God is Spirit.” This does not mean that God is the Holy Spirit. To say that God is the Holy Spirit is right, but John 4:24 does not refer to the Holy Spirit of the Divine Trinity. It refers to the Spirit as God’s essence, God’s nature. To say that God is Spirit is like saying that a stand made of steel is steel. Steel is the very essence of the stand. In the same way, Spirit is the essence of God. When Christ became a man, picking up humanity, He did not give up His divinity. He came to be a man in His divinity, and that divinity is the Spirit, as mentioned in Romans 1:4 and John 4:24.
Christ, while He was on the earth, was both God and man. According to His being a man, He was the flesh. According to His being God, He was the Spirit. Christ is one person of two natures, the divine nature and the human nature. The human nature is the flesh, and the divine nature is the Spirit.
First Peter 3:18 says that when Christ was being put to death on the cross, His flesh was being put to death, not His Spirit. His Spirit, at the same time, was very active, was made alive. One person was crucified on the cross. According to His flesh, He was crucified, but according to His Spirit, He was very active, made strong.
According to the Spirit of holiness, Christ was designated the Son of God. According to the flesh, He was the son of David. But according to the Spirit, He was the Son of God. According to His humanity, He was the Son of Man, but how could His humanity become the Son of God? This is one of the hardest points in the Bible for us to understand.
We are human beings, so we are all sons of man. How can God make us His children? God does this by regeneration. Human beings are the sons of man. God’s children are the children of God. We human beings have been made children of God by regeneration. Regeneration is God coming into us, into our spirit, to be an element added into our human spirit. In regeneration our human spirit was made divine. When we were regenerated by God, we were made divine.
In the same principle, while Christ was on the earth before His resurrection, a part of Him, His humanity, was not divine. That human part was the Son of Man, not the Son of God. In His death His human part was crucified. Then in His resurrection God the Spirit as Christ’s divinity was made strong, very active, to put divinity into the humanity of Christ to make it divine. This is the same principle of our regeneration. Before Christ’s resurrection Christ’s humanity was just human. But in Christ’s resurrection His divinity as the Spirit was made strong to impart Himself into His humanity to make it divine. Thus, Christ became the Son of God in His humanity.
The Son of God in resurrection is different from the only begotten Son of God. The only begotten Son of God was only divine, without humanity. But the Son of God in resurrection is both divine and human, so this Son of God is not the only Begotten but the Firstborn among many brothers (Rom. 8:29). Thus, we may say that Christ in His humanity was the first one regenerated, so He became our firstborn Brother, and we became His many brothers. He and we all were regenerated in His resurrection.
Ephesians 2 reveals that in our spirit we were dead in offenses, but when Christ in His resurrection was made alive, we were made alive together with Him (v. 5). His humanity was crucified, but in resurrection His humanity was made alive by the Spirit. Ephesians 2 says that we were made alive and resurrected with Christ (vv. 5-6). This confirms Romans 1. We were regenerated by being made alive with Christ, by being raised up with Christ. First Peter 1:3 tells us that in the resurrection of Christ, God has regenerated all the believers.
Power in Romans 1:4 is the power of life. The phrase in power corresponds with 1 Peter 3:18, which says that Christ’s flesh was put to death, but His Spirit was made alive. To be made alive means to be empowered.
Christ came to be a man. He came out of the seed of David, so the seed of David is the source of Christ’s flesh. Then Christ’s humanity through resurrection became the Son of God out of resurrection. As the Son of Man, He came out of the seed of David. As the Son of God, He came out of resurrection. The resurrection is the Triune God embodied in Christ. In John 11:25 the Lord Jesus, the embodiment of the Triune God, said, “I am the resurrection.” This means that the Triune God is the resurrection. If there were no God, there would be no resurrection in the universe. Resurrection is God, and this is the source out of which the firstborn Son of God came into being.
First Peter 3:18 says, “Christ also has suffered once for sins, the Righteous on behalf of the unrighteous, that He might bring you to God, on the one hand being put to death in the flesh, but on the other, made alive in the Spirit.” It is true that Christ died on the cross for our sins that we might be forgiven and redeemed. But here Peter says that Christ died for the purpose of bringing His believers to God. He not only brought us to God but also brought us into God.
On the one hand, Christ was put to death in the flesh, so He was crucified on the cross in the flesh.
On the other hand, Christ was made alive in the Spirit. Man put Him to death in the flesh, but God made Him alive in the Spirit. One death was going on, but two things were happening. This is what happens to a grain of wheat that has been sown into the earth. On the one hand, the grain dies, but there is another element in the grain, the life element. When the grain is dying, its life element grows.
John 12:24 says clearly that Christ was the grain of wheat. He was dying on the cross, on the one hand, in the flesh. On the other hand, He was growing in the Spirit. Verse 23 says that this was Christ’s glorification. Christ gained the glorification through that kind of “dying death” and “living death.” On the one hand, He was dying a “dying death.” On the other hand, He was dying a “living death.” We need to see that while Christ was dying in the flesh on the cross, He was living.
Peter says that in this made-alive Spirit, Christ went and proclaimed to the fallen angels in prison probably the victory of God over Satan their leader through the incarnation of God in Christ and Christ’s death in the flesh (1 Pet. 3:19). On the cross Christ was made alive by God to accomplish God’s purpose and even to proclaim God’s victory over Satan.
First Peter 3:18 shows that in Christ’s resurrection, His divine part was made alive to impart divinity into His humanity, making His humanity divine. In this way God, in Christ’s resurrection, begot Christ. Acts 13:33 says that on the day of resurrection God said, “This day have I begotten You.” That begetting equals our regenerating. Christ was begotten and we were regenerated in the same resurrection, at the same time. This resurrection was a big birth, a big delivery. Among the human race, no one has ever had twelve children at once. But in the universe there was a divine birth, a divine delivery, in which millions of children were born together with Christ as their firstborn Brother.
Christ’s humanity, the flesh, was not divine but human.
In His resurrection His humanity was designated (resurrected, uplifted) into His divinity, that is, into His divine glory (John 12:23; Luke 24:25-26).
The Spirit of holiness is Christ’s divine part, His divinity. By His divinity His humanity was made divine.
Christ’s humanity was designated in the divine power. The reality of the power of Christ’s resurrection is the Spirit.
Christ’s humanity was designated into His divinity out of resurrection, which is the Triune God embodied in Christ.
By resurrection Christ was designated the Son of God with His humanity. He is the firstborn Son of God, possessing both divinity and humanity.
This means that He was born of God in His resurrection (Acts 13:33) to be the firstborn Son of God among His many brothers, the many sons of God (Rom. 8:29).
First Peter 1:3 and Ephesians 2:6 reveal that Christ’s redeemed believers were regenerated with Him in the same resurrection.
Christ as the Son of God has two statuses.
Christ is the only begotten Son of God (John 1:18), possessing the divine nature, divinity, from eternity to eternity (Psa. 90:2; Rom. 9:5) as the second in the Divine Trinity — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit (Matt. 28:19).
Christ is also the firstborn Son of God (Rom. 8:29), possessing both the divine nature and the human nature — divinity and humanity — from His resurrection through His ascension and His second coming to eternity. He is the firstborn Son of God beginning from and not earlier than His resurrection (Acts 13:33). The firstborn Son of God had not come into being before Christ’s resurrection.
In Matthew 26:63 the high priest asked the Lord Jesus if He was the Son of God, but He answered with “the Son of Man” (v. 64). He said that when He comes back, He will be the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven. From the time of His resurrection, all of Christ’s activity is not as the only begotten Son of God but as the firstborn Son of God in both His divinity and humanity. So in Christ’s ascension He is still the Son of Man. Both Stephen and the apostle John saw this (Acts 7:55-56; Rev. 1:13). In His first coming He was God’s only begotten Son. In His second coming He will be the Firstborn (Heb. 1:6). For eternity He will be the Son of Man (John 1:51 and footnote 3, Recovery Version).
Many Christians do not realize this deeper truth. They would agree that Christ was both God and man, but they might feel that Christ was no longer a man after His resurrection and ascension. Unconsciously, they may think that Christ was a man only for the thirty-three and a half years from His incarnation to His resurrection.
Joseph from Arimathea took the body of Jesus, and he and Nicodemus bound it in linen cloths and laid it in a new tomb (19:38-42). On the morning of Christ’s resurrection, Peter and John saw the linen cloths lying there in the tomb and the handkerchief which had been over His head folded up in one place apart (20:5-7). Christ’s body was gone because His body had been resurrected by being transformed from His humanity into His divinity. If you say that Christ was a man only for thirty-three and a half years, then I would ask, “Where is His body today?” The Bible tells us that when He resurrected, He left only the linen cloths and the handkerchief in the tomb. He did not leave His body there. His body was resurrected by being transformed from His humanity into His divinity, and that transformation was God’s begetting. God begot Him in resurrection.
These are the deep details in the Bible. After this fellowship I hope that you will be made very clear. Christ’s humanity was put on in His incarnation, but this humanity was transformed, begotten by God, from His humanity into His divinity in resurrection. So today He is still the Son of Man, not in the original human form but in the transformed, divine form. In resurrection we were regenerated with Him, but we were not transformed with Him. When He comes, He will transform, or transfigure, our body to be conformed to the body of His glory. Christ is the firstborn Son of God among the many sons of God, His many brothers (19, Rom. 8:29; Heb. 2:10-12).
Question: At what point did Christ’s divinity become mingled with His humanity? Was it in incarnation or resurrection?
Answer: From incarnation to resurrection Christ was God and man, and this man and God were one. But at that time the mingling had not been consummated. The mingling was consummated by resurrection. Before resurrection His humanity was not brought into His divinity. The mingling of God with man was completed by resurrection.
