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Scripture Reading: 2 Cor. 4:4b; Gen. 1:26a, Gen. 1:27a; Phil. 2:7b; Gen. 2:8-9; John 1:1, 14; Heb. 2:16-17; 1 Tim. 3:16
In this message we shall continue to consider the Man-Savior’s incarnation fulfilling the purpose of God’s creation of man.
In the foregoing message we pointed out that God designed man to be one with Him. Because God designed man this way, He created man in His image and after His likeness. Image refers to the inward being, and likeness, to the outward appearance. Actually, God created man in His own image with the intention that man would be His duplication. Furthermore, for man to become a duplication of God, he must have the capacity to contain what God is. Therefore, man was made in God’s image to be His duplication and after His likeness to be His expression.
God’s purpose in creating man was that man would be His duplication in order to express Him. In order for this purpose to be carried out, it is necessary for man to receive God and contain Him as the tree of life. However, Adam, the man created by God, failed in God’s purpose and damaged God’s design. Thousands of years later, the Man-Savior came to fulfill God’s purpose in creating man.
Through the incarnation of Christ God in the Son became a man. What a great matter this is! God had created man with a purpose according to His design, but man failed Him in His purpose and destroyed His design. Instead of creating another man, God Himself came to be the second Man (1 Cor. 15:47). God came to be the second Man not in the Father nor in the Spirit but in the Son.
The New Testament way of speaking about the incarnation is to say that the Word, which is God, became flesh (John 1:1, 14) and that God was manifest in the flesh (1 Tim. 3:16). Since the first man failed God in His purpose and ruined His design, God Himself came to be the second Man. Hallelujah for the second Man!
The Man-Savior as the second Man was not created; rather, He was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of a human virgin. He was conceived of the Holy Spirit in order to have the essence of God, and He was born of a human virgin in order to have the human essence. Therefore, this Man was a composition of two essences, a composition of the divine essence and the human essence. Hence, He was the mingling of God with man. Because this wonderful One was a composition of two essences, the mingling of God with man, He was a God-man.
A crucial matter concerning the God-man is that He lived a human life filled with the divine life as its content. Contrary to what some may think, the Gospel of Luke is not merely a book of stories. This Gospel is a revelation of the God-man who lived a human life filled with the divine life as its content. As the One who lived such a life, the Man-Savior had the divine nature with the divine attributes, that is, with the divine love, light, righteousness, and holiness. The divine nature with its attributes was expressed in the Man-Savior’s human nature with all the human virtues.
Because the Man-Savior’s divine nature with the divine attributes was expressed in His human nature with the human virtues, it is difficult to say when He was living on earth whether it was God loving others or a man loving. In the life of the Man-Savior we see a love that is the love of a God-man, the love of the One who lived a human life filled with the divine life. Because the Lord lived in this way, His love was the human virtue of love filled with the divine attribute of love.
Certain cases recorded in the Gospel of Luke illustrate the fact that the Man-Savior’s love was a love in which the attribute of divine love is expressed in the virtue of human love. We see this love in the case of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), in the case of the sinful woman in the house of Simon the Pharisee (7:36-50), and in the case of the thief on the cross who asked the Lord Jesus to remember him (23:39-43). In each case the Lord Jesus exercised a genuine human love. However, His love was not merely human; it was a human love filled with the divine love and also strengthened, uplifted, and enriched by the divine love.
In reading the Gospel of Luke, we may not see that with the Man-Savior we have human love filled, strengthened, uplifted, and enriched by the divine love. Readers of the New Testament can easily realize that the Lord Jesus loves others. Children are even taught to sing, “Jesus loves me, this I know.” But what kind of love does Jesus have? Is His love human or divine? His love is not merely human love nor merely divine love; His love is human love filled, strengthened, uplifted, and enriched by and with the divine love. This wonderful love is a composition, a mingling, of the divine love with the human love. This love was the living of the Man-Savior, the living of the God-man. The Lord’s living was a matter of the human virtues filled, strengthened, uplifted, and enriched by the divine attributes.
It was this kind of living that qualified the Lord Jesus to be our Man-Savior. He saved sinners by such a human-divine living, by a living that was humanly divine and divinely human. The living of the Lord Jesus was not merely human nor merely divine; it was humanly divine and divinely human. His living was the dynamic power by which He saved pitiful sinners.
If we understand this, we shall realize that the divine love merely by itself could not save us. Of course, mere human love could not save us. The love that saves us must be a composition of the human love and the divine love. The mingling of these two loves is a saving love.
A living where the human life is filled with the divine life and the human virtues are strengthened and enriched by the divine attributes is what we have called the highest standard of morality. In the Gospel of Luke we see a life filled with human virtues that are strengthened, uplifted, and enriched by divine attributes. In such a living we see the composition, the mingling, of God with man. This living is both the saving power and the qualification of the Lord Jesus to be our Savior. In His status as a God-man the Man-Savior is qualified to save us.
As sincere Christians following the Lord Jesus, we need to know Him to the extent that we know Him as the One who lived a life in which the human virtues expressed the divine attributes. Our Man-Savior is such a man. Because He lived in this way, He was able and qualified to save us.
This One, our Man-Savior, accomplished an all-inclusive death on the cross for our redemption. Then God raised Him from among the dead as God’s verification of and God’s sanction to His life and work. This resurrected God-man has ascended to the heavens, has been enthroned and crowned with glory and honor, and has been made the Head of all. Oh, we all need to know this wonderful Person!
The Man-Savior’s incarnation was mainly to bring God into man. His incarnation was also to restore, to recover, damaged humanity. God made Adam in His own image and after His own likeness, but Adam became fallen. Now within the fallen humanity there is sin — the evil nature of the Devil (Rom. 7:17; 1 John 3:8). Nevertheless, the humanity created by God still remains. When Christ, who is the very God, was incarnated, He restored the lost and damaged humanity. God sent His own Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin (Rom. 8:3), that is, in the likeness of fallen humanity.
Christ became flesh not only to save man but also to restore the fallen humanity. Yes, He came to save man. But He will not save man and then leave him unrestored. The Lord will not save a fallen person without restoring him.
Christians look forward to going to heaven. But anyone who goes to heaven will be a restored person, a transformed person. To be transformed is to be restored, recovered.
When the Lord Jesus was on earth, He had a humanity that had been rescued from the state of the fall. Through incarnation, He put on a recovered, restored, humanity. As the God-man was living in such an uplifted humanity, all those around Him, including His disciples, were living in a fallen, damaged, humanity. Their humanity was not the humanity originally created by God. On the contrary, it was a damaged and deformed humanity. For example, after the Lord Jesus told the disciples that He was going up to Jerusalem and would be put to death and raised up on the third day, they were debating among themselves concerning who was greater. Here we see two kinds of humanity — the uplifted, restored, and recovered humanity of the Lord Jesus and the deformed, damaged, and lost humanity of the disciples.
Through the Man-Savior’s death and resurrection, the fallen humanity of His disciples was recovered. In chapters one and two of Acts we see that the disciples had another kind of humanity, an uplifted and restored humanity. In the Gospels they were arguing about who was greater. But in Acts 1 they could pray persistently and perseveringly in one accord for ten days. They could do this because they had another humanity. Their humanity had been uplifted, restored, and recovered. Not only had they been saved, but their humanity had been restored, recovered, through the Spirit’s regeneration and transformation.
Adam should have lived in the garden of Eden the kind of life Peter and John lived in the first chapters of Acts. But because Adam failed in God’s purpose, God came through incarnation to be the second Man. This second Man uplifted, restored, and recovered the deformed, damaged, and lost humanity. Through the Man-Savior’s restoring, Peter, John, James and the other disciples participated in His humanity. How marvelous!
We should not think that the Lord Jesus came down from His glory merely to save us and bring us to heaven. If this is His intention, then heaven will eventually be filled with people with a deformed humanity. This, however, is not the Lord’s intention. Do you think that the one thief who asked the Lord to remember him in His kingdom will be brought to heaven still with a thief’s fallen nature? To be sure, no one in heaven will have the nature of the thief. Every person brought to heaven will be a restored human being. The restoration of our humanity was made possible by God’s incarnation to be our Man-Savior. The Man-Savior’s incarnation was for the fulfillment of God’s purpose in the creation of man.
