(1)
Scripture Reading: Luke 1:35; Matt. 1:18, 20; Luke 1:31; Matt. 5:20; Phil. 3:9
We have seen in the two foregoing messages that the Man-Savior’s incarnation was for the fulfilling of God’s purpose in creating man. In this message we shall go on to consider the Man-Savior’s highest standard of morality. This morality constitutes the Man-Savior’s qualification and the basic factor for His dynamic salvation. The Man-Savior’s morality qualifies Him to save us. Furthermore, His morality is the basic factor for His dynamic salvation. These matters are very difficult to explain, and we look to the Lord for help through His unveiling Spirit.
The Man-Savior was conceived of the divine essence, which actually is God Himself with the divine attributes. In other words, the divine essence is God with all that He is. According to the Bible, what God is is revealed mainly in four aspects: love, light, righteousness, and holiness. God is love (1 John 4:8). Love is God’s intrinsic nature. God is also light (1 John 1:5). Light is God’s shining, His expression. Love refers to what God is intrinsically within Himself, and light refers to God’s expression. Holiness refers to God’s nature and righteousness to God’s way of doing things. According to the full revelation of the Scriptures, God is love and light, and He is also holy and righteous. These are the divine attributes, and the Man-Savior was conceived of God with these attributes.
The divine attributes are for the human virtues. The Man-Savior was conceived of God with the divine attributes for the content and reality of His human virtues.
In understanding this, it is helpful to use the illustration of a glove. If a glove is not filled with a hand, the glove will be empty. The hand is both the content and reality of the glove. Only when the hand is put into the glove does the glove have content and reality. It is the hand in the glove that causes it to have content. Furthermore, when the hand moves, the glove also moves. The glove is designed to fit the hand, but it does not have life. It is the hand that causes the glove to move. When the hand moves, the hand within the glove will be expressed through the glove.
We may say that we are a “glove” designed to contain God as our content and reality. Christ was conceived of God with His attributes to be the content and reality of the “glove” of His human virtues.
As the One who was conceived of the divine essence with the divine attributes to be the content and reality of His human virtues, Christ fills the empty human virtues. Human love, for example, is a shell that should contain the divine love. Without containing the divine love, human love is merely an empty shell. The Man-Savior was conceived of God with the divine attributes in order to fill His human virtues. With Him the human virtues are not empty. However, with us the human virtues are empty. The reason the human virtues are not empty with Jesus Christ, the Man-Savior, is that His human virtues are filled with the divine attributes.
In the age of innocence, before sin had come in, Adam was clean and innocent. His virtues, however, might not have been strong and rich. But in the Lord Jesus, the second man, the human virtues are strong and rich. In Christ’s human love, for instance, there is strength. Because His human love is a strengthened, enriched love, it cannot be broken or defeated. The Lord’s love is rich because it has been filled with the divine attribute of love. Hence, His love is a mingled love, a composition of the human love with the divine love.
We may not have the concept that Christ’s incarnation was to fill, strengthen, and enrich the human virtues. I did not realize this years ago. Through the Life-study of Luke I have been deeply impressed with the fact that the Man-Savior’s incarnation caused the empty human virtues to be filled, strengthened, and enriched with the divine attributes.
The divine attributes also sanctify the human virtues. For Christ to be incarnated means that He became flesh. Concerning this, John 1:1 and 14 say that the Word, which is God, became flesh. By the time of the Lord’s incarnation, the word “flesh” signified something that was not positive. Regarding the incarnation of Christ, the Bible says that He came in the likeness of the flesh of sin (Rom. 8:3). This means that when He became flesh, He came in the likeness of the flesh of sin, but did not have the nature of the flesh of sin. This is typified by the brass serpent in Numbers 21. The brass serpent was in the form of a serpent, but it did not have the nature of a serpent. Likewise, when Christ became flesh, He had only the appearance of the flesh of sin; He did not have the nature of sinful flesh. After Christ became flesh, it was necessary for this flesh to be restored.
Luke 1:35 says, “The angel answered and said to her, The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; wherefore also the holy thing which is born will be called, Son of God.” Because what was conceived in Mary was of the Holy Spirit, what was born of this conception was a “holy thing,” something intrinsically holy. This holy thing, however, was born into flesh. The “thing” was holy, but the flesh was not holy. However, the holy thing that was born into the flesh would sanctify, restore, flesh. Christ was conceived of the divine essence with the divine attributes to sanctify the human virtues.
The incarnation is a mystery. Through incarnation God was born into man to produce a God-man. Not only was the Lord’s conception and birth a mystery, His human living for thirty-three and a half years was a mystery as well. The One who lived in Nazareth in the home of a carpenter was not merely a man; He was also God. A man with God in Him was working as a carpenter in Nazareth. What a mystery!
The Man-Savior’s life on earth was a mystery, and our Christian life is likewise a mystery. Regeneration certainly is a mystery. It surely is a great mystery that Christ lives in us. Who is able to explain this great mystery in full? Sometimes I have pondered the matter of Christ living in me. I have asked myself how it could be possible that Christ, the embodiment of God, lives in me. Nevertheless, the Bible reveals that the Triune God became incarnate, passed through human living, crucifixion, and resurrection, and now lives in us and is our life.
After studying the Scriptures thoroughly, I am convinced that it is a divine book. No other writings can compare with it. Although it is a great mystery that Christ lives in us, I believe what the Bible says concerning it.
We have seen that the Man-Savior was conceived of the divine essence with the divine attributes so that these attributes would be the content and reality of His human virtues and that the divine attributes would fill, strengthen, enrich, and sanctify His human virtues. Now we need to see that the divine attributes are for the expression of God in the human virtues.
The divine attributes fill, strengthen, enrich, and sanctify the human virtues for the purpose of expressing God in the human virtues. According to the four Gospels, whatever the Lord Jesus did in His life on earth was the expression of God in His human virtues. In the Man-Savior the divine attributes were brought into the human virtues for the expression of God.
The Lord Jesus was born of the human essence with the human virtues created by God for man (Luke 1:31). To say that He was born of the human essence means that He was born of man, that is, of mankind, of humankind. Christ was born of mankind with the human virtues created by God for man.
One of the main aspects of God’s creation of man was the creation of man’s virtues. If man did not have virtues, what would be the difference between man and animals?
What is the difference between man and animals? Of course, one important difference is that man has a spirit. But another vital difference is that God created man with human virtues. Animals, on the contrary, do not have virtues. For example, a dog may be very nice, but it does not have any virtues. But we human beings have human virtues. Therefore, the difference between man and animals is not only that man has a spirit but also that man has virtues.
When Christ became incarnated, He put on the human virtues. He was born of mankind with the human virtues God had created. According to Genesis 1, God created man in His image. The phrase “in His image” implies the human virtues. This means that the human virtues are actually the image of God for the expression of God. Therefore, the human virtues were created by God for man so that man may express Him.
In His incarnation the Man-Savior was born in such a way as to have the human virtues. He was conceived of God to have the divine attributes, and He was born of mankind to have the human virtues. With Him the divine attributes filled the human virtues, and the human virtues contained the divine attributes. In the Man-Savior the divine attributes and human virtues are one; that is, the divine attributes and human virtues are mingled together as one. With the Man-Savior the divine attributes are in the human virtues, and the human virtues contain the divine attributes.
