Jesus Christ - God and Man (1)

Let us consider how the Holy Spirit presents the Lord Jesus before us, beholding Him in His glories, as they are spread out that our souls may feed and rejoice.

It was given to the apostle John, who lay in His bosom at supper, to portray the full Godhead of the Lord, and to him was given also to express the truth of His full humanity. His whole Gospel brings before us that which the Son of God ever was and also that which He became in grace for us. As he says, “We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Here, as in other Scriptures, we find our Lord Jesus brought before us, as truly God and truly Man in one glorious Person. At times He is spoken of as though He were only God, at other times as though He were only Man; but always as one undivided Personality. And it is this completeness in the divine and human natures which makes Him so dear to the heart of the believer.

Being this He can be the “One Mediator between God and men” (1 Tim. 2:5). He is great enough to meet all the claims of the throne of God. He is lowly enough to lay hold of sinful men and to bring them to God in perfect righteousness. The “Daysman,” longed for by the patriarch Job, is provided in Him. He is the one who can “lay His hand upon us both” (Job 9:33).

“He is the true God” (1 John 5:20), “God with us” (Matt. 1:23). He is also “the Man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). And faith neither “divides the Person, nor confounds the natures.” They are united by a bond unique and inscrutable. He is the God-Man. He is God in all that God is. He is Man in all that man is, sin apart. He speaks of His spirit (Luke 23:46). He speaks of His soul (John 12:27). He speaks of His body (Matt. 26:12, 26). He claims Manhood as He claims Godhead, but ever speaking of Himself as a single personality “I”. These truths of His Person are the foundation of that which the believer has for time and for eternity. All that He is gives efficacy to all that He has done and is doing.

The atonement made by Him at Calvary and His present ministry as Priest and Intercessor on high, and everything which flows from these, depend upon the truths of His Godhead and Manhood together. So loving Him we are called to hold fast the revelation though it is beyond the realm of human reasonings.

And He will be the object of wonder and of worship to the redeemed as they bow before Him in the courts of light and cast their golden crowns at His pierced feet. As we gaze upon Him now, in something of that same spirit, we sing,

“The Person of the Christ,

    Enfolding every grace,

Once slain, but now alive again,

    In heaven demands our praise.”

That which He has accomplished—His finished redeeming work of Calvary—gives peace to the conscience and enables us as “worshippers once purged” to consider Him Himself, and thus have our hearts and lips filled with praise and adoration. That He was truly Man enabled Him to suffer and die for man in making atonement on his behalf. That He was truly God gives that atonement its infinite value.

I.F.

Article series: Jesus Christ - God and Man