His humanity and Incarnation - Chambers, Oswald
The only life of the lord Jesus is the new testament. There are phases of the life of our lord presented in the new testament that no other life, so-called, deals with. If you start with the theory that Jesus Christ was a man who became god, you have to leave out any number of new testament facts; if you say that Jesus Christ was god and his manhood a seeming phase, you have to miss out other facts. The person of Jesus Christ revealed in the new testament is unique god-man. In him we deal with god as man, the god-man, the representative of the whole human race in one person. Jesus Christ is not a being with two personalities; he is son of god the exact expression of almighty god, and son of man the presentation of gods normal man.
A great many of the books written on what is called the psychology of Jesus are an attempt to understand the person of Jesus through an under- standing of ourselves. That is fatally misleading because Jesus Christ does not begin where we begin. All things have been delivered unto me of my father: and no one knoweth the son, save the father . . . (Matthew 11:27 RV ). The basis of the person of Jesus is not the basis of ours unless we have been born again of the holy ghost. The tendency to- day to annul, i. E. Dissolve by analysis, the person of Jesus, does untold damage to moral and spiritual understanding (see 1 john 4:13). Immediately we introduce a rationalism that does not accept the new testament revelation, we get confused. We will not bring to the subject the innocence of mind which the spirit of god demands; we bring objections which spring from preconceived notions.
Analogy of the first Adam and last Adam
(Romans 5:12, 19)
There are only two men in the bible: Adam and Jesus Christ, with all humanity hanging at their girdles.
And the lord god formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. (genesis 2:7)
The holy ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee: there- fore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the son of god. (Luke 1:35)
The new testament reveals that the birth of jesus was an advent, not a beginning an advent that put him on the plane, humanly speaking, that Adam was on. The first Adam and the last Adam came direct from the hand of god. God did not create Adam holy, he created him innocent, without self-consciousness (as we under- stand the word) before god; the one thing Adam was conscious of was god and only of himself in relation to the being whose commands he was to fulfill; the main trend of his spirit was towards god. Adam was intended by god to take part in his own development by a series of moral choices whereby he would trans- form innocence into holiness. Adam failed to do this, Jesus Christ came on the same platform as Adam and did not fail. Supposing Adam had transformed the natural life into the spiritual by obedience, what would have happened? Transfiguration; he would have spiritualised the natural life and made it all that god wanted it to be. The natural life is neither good nor bad, moral nor immoral; it is the principle within that makes it good or bad, moral or immoral.
And the child grew, and waxed strong, filled with wisdom: and the grace of god was upon him (Luke 2:40 RV). The innocence of Jesus was not the innocence of a babe born into our order of things, it was the innocence of adam as god created him, the innocence of an untried possibility of holiness. Innocence is never safe, it is simply full of possibility. The holiness of god is absolute, not progressive; that is, it knows no development by antagonism. Mans holiness must be progressive. The holiness of Jesus developed through antagonism because he revealed what a holy man should be.
Our lord transformed innocence into holiness by a series of moral choices. Satan tempted him along this line: do gods will according to your own understanding; don’t sacrifice the life of nature to the will of god. Jesus made invariably one answer for i am come down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me ( john 6:38).
How are we to follow his steps? By imitating Jesus? We cannot begin to. How are we going to have the innocence that Jesus had? In one way only, by being born again from above. Marvel not that i said unto thee, ye must be born again ( john 3:7). We can be brought into a state of pristine childlike innocence before god by the regenerating work of his grace. God does something infinitely grander than give a man a new start: he re-makes him from the inside. We have the power, because we have received it, to transform the natural into the spiritual even as Jesus did, because the life generated into us is his own life.
A) resources of life
God created Adam to have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth (genesis 1:28); the one thing Adam was not to have dominion over was himself. God was to have dominion over him, and Adam had to partake in his own development by obeying gods rule over him, not his own wisdom. The source of life in Adam was his obedience to god. Jesus Christ, the last Adam, states over and over again i can of myself do nothing ( john 5:19, 30; see 7:16; 8:28; 12:49; 14:10). The birth of Jesus throws a striking light on our regeneration. Our new birth is the birth of the son of god into our human nature, and our human nature has to be transfigured by the indwelling life of the son of god. We have the power now to sacrifice the life of nature to the will of god, keeping our minds dependent on jesus Christ as he was dependent on god. To-day the characteristic is spiritual insubordination; we will not bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.
(b) Retrogression from life
When the apostle Paul says that sin entered into the world through one man, he did not mean a man like ourselves; he was speaking of the federal head of the human race, the noble being that god created. The third chapter of genesis reveals how sin was introduced into the world. Watch the subtlety of satans reasoning: and he said unto the woman, yea, hath god said . . . ? The one thing he was aiming at was the dominion of god over man. For god doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as god, knowing good and evil (RV), i. E. You will become god over yourself. Sin is not a creation, it is a relationship. The essential nature of sin is my claim to my right to myself. When our lord confronts men, he confronts them on that basis. Read the new testament, and you will find that Jesus Christ did not get into a moral panic over the things that rouse us. We are staggered at immorality, but Jesus faced those things in the most amazingly calm way (see Matthew 21:31).
When he was roused to a state of passionate indig- nation it was by people who were never guilty of such things. What our lord continually faced was the disposition behind either the morality or the immorality. If i had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin . . . ( john 15:22). Any man would have known without his coming that it was wrong to take life, the law is written in him; any man would have known that immorality was wrong; but no man apart from Jesus Christ would believe that my right to myself is the very essence of sin. When we realise what jesus means when he says, if you would be my disciple, give up your right to yourself to me, we begin to understand that the carnal mind is enmity against god. I will not give up my right to myself; i will serve god as i choose. Jesus christ came to remove this disposition of self-realisation.
(c) Readjustment into life
Sin interrupted the normal development of man, and it required another man to take up the story where it was broken off and complete it, without the sin. Ye have not [this] life in yourselves, said Jesus ( john 6:53 rv). What life? His life he had, the life that is at the true source. Eternal life means the life Jesus lived. And this is the record, that god hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his son (1 john 5:11). Eternal life is the life Jesus lived; the life of god in a mortal being, transformed by gods regen- erating power into harmony with himself.
In him was life; and the life was the light of men ( john 1:4). Why did Jesus live thirty-three years if all he came to do was to die for sin? He lived thirty-three years because he had to show what a normal man after gods pattern was like. He died that through his death we might have the source of life that was in him (see Romans 5:17). That is why it is so absurd to say, i accept Jesus as a teacher only. Try to apply the teachings of Jesus to your life without an understanding of his death and you will find it cannot be done; it would either make you commit suicide or take you to the cross and give you an under- standing of why it was necessary for him to die.
Preaching about the life of Jesus awakens an immense craving, but it leaves us with the luxury of sympathy with ourselves oh well, i know that is very high and holy, but i was not born that way and god cannot expect that kind of life from me. We like to hear about the life of Jesus, about his teaching and his words, about his sympathy and tenderness, but when we stand face to face with him in the light of god and he convicts us of sin, we resent it. Men crave for what the gospel presents but they resent the way it is presented by Jesus. That is a point that has been lost sight of nowadays, and every now and again the church succumbs to the temptation to which Jesus Christ did not succumbthe temptation of putting mans needs first, with the result that certain features of the gospel are eliminated. Never separate the incarnation and the atonement. The incarnation was not for the self-realisation of god, but for the purpose of removing sin and reinstating humanity into communion with god. Jesus Christ became incarnate for one purpose, to make a way back to god that man might stand before him as he was created to do, the friend and lover of god himself. The atonement means infinitely more than we can conceive, it means that we can be morally identified with Jesus Christ until we understand what The apostle Paul meant when he said, i live; yet not i, but Christ liveth in me. All the mighty efficacy of the death of Jesus, of his resurrection and ascension to the right hand of the throne of god, is implanted into us by regeneration. And the lowest and most sin- stained can go that way. The measure of the salvation of jesus is not that it does for4 the best man we know, but that it does for the worst and most sin-stained. There is no son of man that need despair, Jesus Christ can reproduce his saving work in any and every man, blessed be the name of god!
Do we know anything about this sublime innocence which is the outcome of regeneration, and are we developing along that line? Are we transforming innocence into holiness by a series of moral choices, or are we paying too much attention to the natural life? When we are rightly related to god as Jesus was, the spiritual life becomes as natural as the life of a child. The one dominant note of the life after sanctification is the simplicity of a child, full of the radiant peace and joy of god. Except ye . . . Become as little children . . .