The Bible and the God-Man

The person of the God-Man is the central figure of Biblical revelation. This theme we approach only with the deepest reverence, humility, and sense of ignorance and inadequacy. Of all the truths revealed in the Word of God, this, perhaps, surpasses the rest in grandeur and importance, as a disclosure of the divine philosophy of salvation.

We are told, in the Epistle to the Ephesians, that the mystery of Christ, which in other ages was hidden from the sons of men, was especially revealed to Paul; indeed, he seems to have had unveiled to him some seven mysteries of which he alone ti*eats in his various Epistles. The greatest of all these mysteries, in reference to redemption, is presented in fullness only in the first two chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews,* and in these two chapters some particular verses are of special importance:

Chapter I: i. God, who at sundry times and

* Perhaps the greatest argument for a Pauline authorship of this epistle.

in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,

2. Hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds;

3. Who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;

4. Being made so much better than the angels, as He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.

Chap. II: 6. But one in a certain place testified, saying. What is man, that thou art mindful of him? or the son of man, that thou visitest him?

7. Thou madest Him a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst Him with glory and honour, and didst set Him over the works of thy hands:

8. Thou hast put all things in subjection under His feet. For in that He put all in subjection under Him, he left nothing that is not put under Him;

9. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death.

crowned with glory and honour: that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man. And then from the 14th verse to the end:

14. 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;

15. And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

16. For verily He took not on Him the nature of angels (or, “laid not hold upon angels”); but He took on Him (or “laid hold of”) the seed of Abraham:

17. Wherefore in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people:

18. For in that He himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted.

In examining this theme of the God-Man, these thirteen verses need to be kept in mind. The first four afhrm unequivocally seven facts which prove that Christ was the Son of God; then seven other facts are specified in the second chapter, which prove that he was equally the Son of Man. There is no attempt to reconcile the apparent paradox; the two aspects of this duality are put before us, the two natures, combined in one personality as they never have been before, and never will be again, — constituting Him a wholly unique person The very grandeur and uniqueness of the conception forbid that it should have proceeded from man; it is a coin having the stamp of the heavenly mint upon it, the image and superscription of God.

A “mystery,” in New Testament usage, is a sacred secret, long kept hidden, and, while so hidden, absolutely impenetrable by man; a secret, however, now revealed by the Holy Spirit of God, but only to the initiated, that is, to those who learn God’s method of solution or interpretation. There is a chamber of Mystery, containing priceless and unknown treasures, whose door no man can, of himself, unlock, but to which God has given a key; and he who reverently uses it enters into and explores the wonders that are within. Such is the Bible idea of a mystery — an open secret to all believers who are ready to be taught and led of the Spirit of God. This was Bunyan’s thought in his “House of the Interpreter.”

The consummate mystery of the God-Man cannot be explained by man. Of course not; if it could, it would cease to be a divine mystery having the stamp of the inscrutable God upon it.

Both the divine and the human aspects of the God-Man are here plainly presented, each as absolutely beyond a doubt.

(i») In the first place, Christ was the final mouthpiece of God. God had spoken before in the prophets of old time, but the last of His utterances, and the greatest of them, were through Jesus Christ, as the Word of God, the very embodiment of His thought.

(2.) Christ is the universal Heir. All God’s possessions are Christ’s possessions also, and none others can get any part in the possessions of God except as “joint heirs” with Him, the Universal Heir.

(3.) He was the Creator of the worlds. “By whom He also made the worlds.” The word is “Ages,” and the idea is that the whole of the temporal order is due to Jesus Christ, who has formed it and framed it for the glory of redemption.

(4.) He was the effulgence of the glory of God; as closely related to God as the light is to the sun: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” In the beginning was the light, and the light was with the sun,

J87 and the light was the sun. He is the very shining of God, the effulgence of His glory.

(5.) “The express image of His person.” God is an invisible Spirit; once for all the Godhead has taken a visible form, and that visible form is Jesus Christ, who is as closely related to God as the body is to the soul that inhabits it, and is manifested through it.

(6.) Again, “Upholding all things by the Word of His power.” Not only is Christ the Creator, but the Upholder and Sustainer of the whole temporal order, which would, therefore, fall into absolute ruin but for His upholding word of power.

(7.) Last of all, “He sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on High,” Joint Sovereign, with God, of the Universe.

These are the seven proofs of His divinity. He is as closely linked with God as a word is with the thought it expresses; as a body is with the soul that inhabits it; as light is with the orb that radiates it forth; as an heir is with the owner who transfers to him all his property. There is no mistaking this teaching, and those who do not believe in the deity of Christ, might as well bum their Bibles, unless they can eliminate this Epistle to the Hebrews.

Equally strong statements are made as to
Christ’s humanity:

(i.) He came down to man’s level, made “a little lower than the angels.”

(2.) He took man’s nature without its sinfulness; He became properly and perfectly man: “Took on Him the seed of Abraham.”

(3.) He suffered man’s temptations that He might become the succourer of tempted souls.

(4.) He “tasted death for every man,” and by Himself, incapable of sin, “purged our sins.”

(5.) He made all believing saints to be one mystical body with Himself. “For both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one.” That language cannot be mistaken.

(6.) He destroyed “Him that had the Power of Death” — man’s mortal enemy, the devil.

(7.) And last, He restores to humanity the sceptre which was lost in the fall of Adam, so that the eighth Psalm is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Here are equally plain indications and affirmations of Christ’s perfect humanity, as before of His perfect divinity; so that in this scripture there is presented a unique being, absolutely God, absolutely man, yet uniting the divine and the human natures in one proper personality.

What was the problem presented by man’s fall?

Man was created with prophetic intuition of God’s will, with priestly right to God’s fellowship, and with kingly exercise of sovereignty like unto God Himself. The devil had occupied a supernal position as an angel, possibly an archangel like Gabriel and Michael, but fell from his high position and descended to the lowest depths, the infernal. When man was created and put upon this planet, with his prophetic privileges, his priestly access to God, and his sovereignty and dominion, the devil, envious of man’s position, came up from the infernal level to the earthly or terrestrial level, and, presenting subtle temptations before our first parents, accomplished their fall. The consequence was (i), that man lost the proper gift of eternal life, which is something far beyond mere immortality; (2), he lost his liberty as a son of God, and became a slave of the devil; (3), he lost his sovereignty, the devil, by right of conquest, seizing his sceptre of dominion over the earth, and becoming the God of this world.

In order to repair and restore the ruin of the fall, eternal life must somehow be given back to man, his slavery exchanged for liberty, and his lost sceptre of dominion wrested from the hands of the devil and restored to the hands of man.

That was the problem of redemption. How did

God answer and fulfil the conditions of that problem? We are told most fully in the two chapters now before us.

It was necessary, in God’s plan, that there should be a second representative of the race. The first representative had fallen, and in him the race had sunk hopelessly, and the only way to redeem mankind was to give the race, as such, a new opportunity, a new probation; and so a second representative man was needed, to stand where Adam stood, undergo similar temptations, and overcome where man was overcome.

It is conceivable that God might have permitted a second man to take the place of the first Adam, and try if he could wrest the sceptre out of the devil’s hands and regain it for the race; but, in such a case, a man would have been pitted against a fallen angel, and, as the first man fell before the subtle wiles of the devil, so might another fall who attempted to represent the race, and then the conditions would be worse and more hopeless than ever.

It is conceivable also that an angel might have

been permitted by God to identify himself with the

human race, become a son of man and undertake

to stand as the race’s representative; but this

would imply a struggle between an unfallen and a fallen angel, and should the angelic man fall under the temptation of the devil, the second experiment would end only in failure.

There was one Being who could stand for man, and who was able to cope with all the powers, lies and wiles of the devil, and that was the Son of God. He undertook to become Man, that being identified with man He might have the right to stand in his place as his representative; yet being identified, on the other hand, with God, He was too mighty for Satan to overcome, and so He undertook that work of redemption to which neither man nor angel was equal.

Just what He did, though all this pertains to the deepest things of God, is revealed here, the key, at least, being given in this Epistle. He undertook to taste death for every man, and to purge away sins in behalf of a fallen race.

In the God-Man is again suggested that idea or representation, already found to be a necessary factor in the redemption scheme. In this passage in Hebrews, more light is thrown upon this particular theme than from any other one scriptural point of view. We are wont to think of the Lord Jesus Christ as the representative of the whole body of believers — what is called His mystical

body — the Church. This is grandly true; but the question often arises whether, as the Second Man, His representation reaches any further than the redeemed Church. He is called, in the fifteenth chapter of I Corinthians, both “the Second Man” and the “Last Adam.” The Second Man, because there was a first, before Him; the Last Adam, because there shall be none after Him. When this fact of a larger representation of the Adamic race is first brought out clearly in the fifth chapter of Romans, we read: ‘’Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of Him that is to come (‘the figure of the Coming One’)” Thus the first time that Adam, as the first man, is explicitly declared to be the figure of Jesus Christ as the Coming One, the Second Man, the Last Adam, it is in immediate connection with the statement that death had reigned even over those who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression. The Holy Spirit makes no mistakes. There must be some reason why that conception of Christ, as the New Head of the Adamic Race, should be first brought clearly to view in the New Testament, as having some bearing on the mystery of the reign of death over so many that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression. Jesus Christ

193 is declared to be “the Saviour of all men, especially of those that beheve;”* and again to be “the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world, “f

This is no field for idle and profitless speculation; but it would appear that, in some sense, Jesus Christ represents, not only the redeemed believing Church, but the world of humanity, the race of Adam. What that representation is, we now inquire. Perad venture these scriptural hints may help to an answer.

The key-note is doubtless given in this fifth chapter of Romans, in the very sentence already quoted: “Death reigned from Adam to Moses even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression.’’ Thousands and millions of little children died then, as now, before the period of intelligent moral agency, and, therefore, before they could intelligently and voluntarily sin after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, — before they could either know God’s law, or, knowingly, violate it. What became of their departed spirits? Is it conceivable that they were consigned to hell? But, if they were admitted to heaven, it must be through the atoning work of Christ, otherwise there would be human beings in

* I Timothy iv;10. 1 1 John ii:2. See Greek.

heaven that come there without connection with the atonement; but, if they are there through His mediatorial work, it must be on the principle of this new Adamic representation. Beside these millions of infant children, other millions, not children in years, never reach the age of moral responsibility, — imbeciles, idiots, and others whom God sees not to be morally responsible or accountable, for reasons of which we know nothing, and of which He alone can judge. If they are saved, as all of us believe, must it not be likewise through this wider representation of the whole race in this Second Man? All disciples hold a sort of unwritten belief that such are saved, and that, on the ground of Christ’s work, those who have not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression may be saved without the similitude of Adam’s faith. In other words, that, so far as the offspring of Adam have fallen only generically in him, they rise absolutely in Christ; but, when they individually fall, for themselves, by voluntary sin, they must rise, for themselves, that is, in connection with the exercise of voluntary faith. That unformulated creed seems to accord with the doctrine of Holy Scriptures; and, if this construction be correct, the divine philosophy of salvation makes provision for the salvation of little children and all

195 other irresponsible descendants of Adam who die without having sinned after the similitude of his transgression.

Some speculative theologians have argued that the whole race were present in spirit and actually participated in Adam’s sin. If so, no one has certainly any recollection of it. The fact is, human philosophy and theology utterly fail to solve this great enigma; but a view seems to be presented here which is open to no objection, and solves the problem. God extended no mercy to fallen angels; they appear to have had no redeemer or offer of redemption; possibly, because each fell for himself, there being no family relationship, involving unborn generations. But His love yearned over the unborn children of Adam, who would inherit the consequences of his sin without sharing its guilt; and, immediately after his sin and fall, God graciously gave the first promise of redemption, — that the Seed of the woman should bruise the serpent’s head.

In St. Andrew’s, Scotland, an epitaph in the churchyard both evidences and expresses the substance of this belief and hope as held by our ancestors, that Christ was, in some sense, a representative of the whole race, and that many,

196 alike incapable of voluntary transgression or voluntary faith, reach heaven through His death:

“Bold Infidelity, turn pale and die, Beneath this stone four infants’ ashes lie;

Say, are they lost or saved? If death’s by sin, they’ve sinned, for they are here; If heaven’s by works, in heaven they can’t appear.

Reason. Oh, how depraved. Turn to the Bible’s sacred page, the knot’s untied, They died, for Adam sinned; they live, for Jesus

died.”

We are taught that, in order to share man’s suffering, sorrow and temptation, in order to be made “sin for us” and a “curse” in man’s behalf, the Son of God must become man, for only as man could He die; but it was equally necessary that He should not remain under the power of death, for as the Son of God, He was the Prince of Life and could not die, but had a deathless life. Therefore, great as the mystery is. He became man that He might suffer death for man, but being the Son of God, He could not, even as to His humanity, be holden under the power of death; and so resurrection from the dead, and ascension to the right hand of the throne of God, were the natural and necessary return of the Son of God to His own place in

197 heaven and on the throne. Thus a wonderful work was wrought for man. The fall brought death here, and, after death, a second death, beyond which is no life; but the Son of God came to give the believer life here, and life hereafter, and beyond that life, no death. The exact reversal of all the previous conditions was possible through the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The climax of this mystery is reached, however, only in identification, which is a double fact; for, if Christ were identified with man, man must be correspondingly identified with Christ. There cannot be a one-sided identity. By as much as a husband belongs to a wife, she belongs to him; and by as much as Christ became one with man, by so much did man become one with Christ. This is the crowning conception that the whole revealed scheme of redemption puts before us.

Had a second man been permitted to stand for the race, and had conquered him by whom the first man was conquered, he could have done nothing more than put man back where he was when he fell, restoring him to a terrestrial level of sovereignty and dominion. If an angel had become one with man, and had overcome Satan in man’s behalf, all he could have done would have been to

lift man at best to an angelic level. But, when the Son of God became man, and identified man with Himself, and overcame the devil, it was inevitable that He should lift the believer, past the human and angelic, to a divine level. Such is the teaching of this very Scripture. The chapter that demonstrates that Christ was more than an angel, infinitely lifted above the highest angelic ranks, tells us at the close, that the angels are all ministering spirits sent forth to minister to them that shall be heirs of salvation. The children used to sing in Sunday-school: “I want to be an angel,” but in Jesus Christ the believer is lifted to a higher rank than angels, for,

“Never did angels taste, above,
* Redeeming grace and dying love.”

The humblest believer can preach better than Gabriel could, for he can say, “I am a sinner saved by grace,” which no angel can say. And, in the mystical unfoldings of truth in the Apocalyptic visions, whenever saints and angels are seen together, the saints are next the throne, and the angels are round about the saints. Not an angel in all that vast host can say that he belongs to Christ as a member of His body; or in the same sense with the believer, ‘’I am a son of God, and a

joint heir with Jesus Christ.” Some angels might

199 envy saints, and gladly change places with God’s redeemed ones. This is overwhelming, and when it first bursts on the view of a believer, he can hardly restrain himself. He feels as though he had suddenly been lifted up to the highest heaven, and was looking on scenes and hearing sounds which it is “unlawful for a man to utter.”

In an American city, a lawyer, much esteemed and high in social life, found in the northern part of the State, among the Indian tribes, a young Indian maiden, in whom he became deeply interested, and whom he ultimately married. He brought her to the city, totally undisciplined and uneducated, though virtuous and ingenuous. He then secured educational culture for her through teachers in English, drawing and music, and gave her such opportunities as wealth and love could afford. Meanwhile, however, she was accepted in society as the wife of a distinguished citizen.

Our Lord Jesus Christ came down into this world to redeem and wed as His bride a believing humanity. He did not, however, stay on the level of humanity, but He carried humanity back with Him toward His own level; and the ultimate end of man’s redemption will be that “he that overcometh shall sit with Him on His throne, as He also overcame,

and is set down with His Father upon His throne.”

No man would dare to say that, were it not written in the Holy Scripture, (Rev. iii: 21.)

Four levels are suggested in these two chapters in Hebrews:

(i.) High up above all others, the divine level.

(2.) Far below it, the angelic level.

(3.) A little below that, the human level.

(4.) And below that, the infernal level, that of the fallen angels.

Man was originally on the human or earthly level. Satan comes from beneath — his own level — overcomes man, takes his sceptre, and drags him down to the infernal level; for in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew we are told that the same “fire prepared for the devil and his angels” awaits those whom Christ finally condemns as workers of iniquity.

Jesus Christ, coming down from the highest

heavens, passed the angelic to the human level;

in a sense. He descended to the infernal, that He

might there contest the whole matter with the

betrayer of man, and “destroy him who had the

power of death,” and demolish his empire. But,

having taken man’s nature and betrothed a believing

humanity to Himself, was it not in the necessity

of the case that, when He went back to His own

level He should carry back with Him, past the

201 angelic level to the heavenly, the redeemed body of humanity that He had wedded? The man whose story has been told did not go down to the plane of the poverty and ignorance of her he wedded, but rather lifted her to his own plane of wealth, intelligence and social position; and our Lord Jesus Christ knew, when He identified Himself with nlan, that, in so far as He was wedded to a believing humanity. He would lift that believing humanity beyond the human or angelic plane, into the very atmosphere and presence of God. (Comp. John XVII: 21-26).

The glimpse given us here of this marvellous truth, also hints the reason why that mystery of Christ can never be fully unfolded in the present age, but waits for future unveiling — as we are told in the Epistle to the Ephesians: “That in the ages to come, He might show what is the exceeding greatness of His love and grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”

Believing children of God, however delighting

in fellowship with Him, are painfully conscious

of so many defects, deficiencies, inconsistencies

and sins that it is impossible to realize such a

future as before them; but the eternal God, with

Whom is no past, present or future, and to Whom

all coming realities are equally present facts, looks past existing imperfections, faults, and whatever is due to the taint of sin in the nature, and sees the absolute faultlessness which will be apparent when Christ presents the believer before the presence of His glory. In God’s eye, every saint is already perfected in Christ Jesus. We do not see it, here; angels do not see it now, though they desire to look into the boundless, unfathomable depths of infinite grace; and so it remains to be seen in the ages to come, when corruption shall be left behind forever, and even the body of this himiiliation shall be changed into the likeness of the body of His glory. Then, in eternal youth, in the cloudless atmosphere of an untainted joy, with a perfected holiness, believers will stand before Him; and then, by the Church, shall be made known to the principalities and powers in heavenly places, how stupendous was the problem of redemption, and the divine solution of it.

Such a future lies before every believing child of God. There may be a cripple, a child of crime, born of drunken and depraved parents, and in the very body carrying the terrible penalty of the sins of generations that preceded; and yet in God’s eyes that poor crippled body is lustrous with transfigured glory. The taint of human heredity is

gone, and only the holy heredity of Christ is left.

The corruption of the human blood is displaced by the cleansing of the blood that purges from sin; and that humble disciple, — bodily, mentally and morally a cripple, — contests with angels beauty of character, likeness to God, and unspeakable bliss. It is incredible, but for God’s revelation; it is unmatchable, even as a revelation.

Every man makes his election as to who shall be his representative, the first Adam, or the last Adam. Repentance is turning from the first Adam to the second. And, somewhat as we elect a representative in Parliament or Congress, sending one to be the man of our choice, we may elect whether Adam the first or Adam the second shall stand as our representative, before God. The first Adam represents fall and ruin; the last Adam represents rising and restoration, and we may choose between the two. Repentance gives up and renounces all connection with the first Adam, and faith takes the Second Man as representative, henceforth, to call Him Saviour and Lord. This is translation from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light, and from the power of Satan unto God.

In America many years ago, in Boston, Wendell

Phillips, the great anti-slavery agitator, heard Dr.

Lyman Beecher preach upon God’s creative and redemptive right in man. He was so overwhelmed with this thought of what Jesus Christ had done for a lost race, and the claims of redemption upon himself, that he went straight home, literally fell down on his face on the floor of his bedchamber, and said, “O, my God, I belong to Thee. Take Thou thine own.” And from that time forth to the day of his death, he bore testimony that he had never seen a thing to be contrary to the will of God without hating it.

We may add that, to a true student of Holy Scripture, there is neither a question that Jesus Christ is Deity, nor that to Him, as Deity, worship belongs.

The late Dr. Fuller, of Baltimore, was a popular, interesting and evangelical preacher. Being zealous for Christian unity, he preached one morning on the necessity and duty of magnifying things that unite, and minimizing the things that divide, believers. He represented this truth in the light of the heavenly state, showing that it is not worth while in this world to make so much of that of which we shall make so little when we meet fellow believers above. In order to show the absurdity of sectarian divisions, he represented those who belong to various Christian bodies, and who were

unduly jealous of their denominational history and tenets, as being in heaven and looking around to find their fellow Christians who belonged to the same particular branch of the Church: Baptists looking for their immersed friends, Methodists for their fellow members of class-meetings, Presbyterians for the zealous defenders of Presbyterian ideas of law and order, and Episcopalians looking for the true Apostolic Succession. At the close of his sermon, a Unitarian friend said: “Dr. Fuller, I am surprised at your lack of charity; you really did not represent any Unitarians at all as being in heaven.” Dr. Fuller replied: “If you will come to-night, I will give you a glimpse as to the feelings of a Unitarian there.” In the course of his sermon, he imagined a Unitarian as stationed with John on the Island of Patmos, and permitted to look and enter through the open door and see the things which should be hereafter, and he described his emotions. In the first place, he witnessed that scene in the fifth chapter of Revelation, where the Book was in the right hand of Him that sat upon the throne, and no man nor angel dared to touch or even to look upon it. The Lion-Lamb of God, slain for sin, but triumphant as a King, came and took the Book, and then he heard the acclamations of the saints: “Thou art worthy to take the Book,

and to unloose the seals thereof, for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood,

out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and

nation, and hast made us unto our God kings and

priests; and we shall reign on the earth.” And

round about that company, he observed countless

angels, ascribing to the same slain but risen Lamb,

all worship: “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain

to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and

strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.”

He went along a little further, and saw a great

multitude standing on the sea of glass, and they

were lifting up their voices in similar acclamations,

and ascribing “Salvation unto our God, and unto

the Lamb.” “Why,” he said, “there are no

Unitarians in that company.”

He went a little further, and saw a white horse,

and a Conqueror riding upon him, and upon His

vesture, and upon His thigh was the mysterious

name written: “King of kings, and Lord of lords,”

and a countless band of worshippers and warriors

followed in his train. He went yet further, and

saw the New Jerusalem let down from God out of

Heaven, having the glory of God. He saw no

temple therein, and found that the reason was that

the “Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the

Temple of it.” He found no light even of the sun

therein, and learned that “The Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the Light of it.” And he found on the throne, as joint Sovereigns, God and the Lamb that was slain. “Why,” he said, “There is nobody here that does not worship the Lamb jointly with God Himself. I cannot stay here unless I join this worship.” And so he moved among the throng and waved his palm; he struck his harp, and cried out: “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain! Salvation unto the Lamb!”

Dr. Fuller concluded his sermon. His Unitarian neighbour walked up the aisle, shook his hand earnestly with both his own, and said: “Jesus Christ has conquered. Let me bow here, and, like Thomas, say ‘My Lord, and my GodT”