God the Son-Part 2
Absolute
Curriculum
Intro
In
our last lesson we looked at God the Son in His eternal state, as the
second member of the Trinity, Creator of all things, and the One who
holds all things together, as it says in Hebrews, “by
the word of his power.”1
Today we want to look at Him as He came down into human history, the
man Christ Jesus.
Before we
dive in I want to read the two passages that we will mostly lean on,
two passages the I hope are becoming familiar to you:
In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God. 2 He
was in the beginning with God. 3 All
things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made
that was made. 4 In
him was life, and the life was the light of men...And the Word became
flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the
only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth...No one has ever
seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made
him known.2
Long
ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the
prophets, 2 but
in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed
the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. 3 He
is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his
nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After
making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the
Majesty on high, 4 having
become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is
more excellent than theirs. 3
He
came down
The
first thing I want us to notice from these passages is the Jesus, God
the Son, the Word, came down to earth. And He not only came to earth,
He do so by becoming a man. John 1:14 says that “the Word became
flesh, and dwelt among us.” He didn't just come for a visit, and He
didn't come down in His heavenly glory. He became flesh, and in doing
so took on all that it means to be human.4
Perhaps you are familiar with the story of how this came to be; an
angel appears first to a young girl named Mary, and then to her
fiance Joseph, and tells them that though Mary is a virgin, she is
going to become pregnant with a Son. This Son will not be just any
Son though, this Son will be the Son of God Himself, the One sent to
redeem His people from their sins. Fast forward nine months, and this
young couple is in a small village called Bethlehem, and because
there is no room in the inn, the are forced to deliver the baby in
the company of barnyard animals. What a way for God to become man!
His birth wasn't announced to kings, but to shepherds; the lowest of
the low in their society. This was a most unlikely story. The Son of
God not only became a man, He became the humblest of all men, the Son
of poor, insignificant people living in a rural village.
Why
He came
So
why did God the Son come to earth and take on humanity? Why did He
humble Himself5
and become flesh? Well we see one huge overarching reason, that is
accomplished by two things. What is the reason? Hebrews 1:1-2 said
that, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God
spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but
in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.” And if you
recall in John 1:18 it said, “No one has ever seen God; the only
God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.”
So
we see that Jesus, the only God who is at the Father's side, the Son,
came to make His Father known. It is through Him that we can see what
God is like. Remember from our first lesson we noted that the
heaven's declare God's glory6
such that all men are able to tell not only that God exists, but also
they are able to see something of His divine nature and power.7
But to know God in the truest sense possible, to have a relationship
with Him, to know Him as we were meant to know Him, requires a fuller
revelation. We need to know more than just His power right? We need
to know about love, and mercy, and grace, because we are sinners who
have rebelled against God. And so to know His power is really only
enough to know we are in big trouble. But to know more about Him we
are going to need to see a clearer picture of His character than we
get in creation, and too some extent, even clearer than we can get in
the Old Testament. We need a representative from God to come tell us
what He is like.
So
Jesus comes. But Jesus is better than a mere representative, He is
God Himself.8
As Jesus puts it in John 10:30, “I
and the Father are one.”
How
He reveals
We
see the Son revealing the Father in two main ways.
The
first is through the very essence of His being. In John 1:14 it says,
“and we have seen his
glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and
truth.” Now we know from the Old Testament prophecies concerning
Jesus9
that this glory wasn't some kind of physical brilliance that we might
conjure up what God would look like as a person. It wasn't a big arms
or a chisled jaw that made it clear that Jesus was God's Son. Rather,
His sinless manner of life, His miracles, and His authoritative
teaching are what made clear the glory of God in this man's life.
These things made it clear that Jesus was
not
just a man. He Had a glory that came from God Himself. As we saw
above in John 10, Jesus said He is one with the Father, Colossians
1:15 says that He is, “He is the image of the invisible God,” and
our passage in Hebrews one says that, “ He is the radiance of the
glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.”10
So Jesus revealed God simply by His presence as the Son of God.
But
there is another way in which Jesus displayed the glory of God the
Father, and revealed more of His character than perhaps anything else
He could have done. He came, as it says in Luke 19:10, “to seek and
to save the lost.” Jesus came down to reveal the person and the
glory of God by becoming God's perfect, substitutionary sacrifice for
our sins. Romans 3:21-26 puts it this way,
“But
now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law,
although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22 the
righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who
believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for
all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and
are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus, 25 whom
God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by
faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine
forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It
was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might
be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”
Jesus
came to earth, lived a perfect human life, and was sentenced to a
brutal death on a Roman cross. But unlike the story many folks will
tell you today, this isn't just a tragic tale of a young
inspirational teacher being cut down before his time, dying a
martyr's death. Rather, this was the plan of God before the
foundation of the world11,
to send His Son into human history, to bear the sins of men, that
those who believe in Him might not perish, but have eternal life.12
Jesus goes to the cross, and because He is a man, the only perfect
man, He is an acceptable substitute for us. As a man, He can die in
our place. But a mere man would not have been able to bear the weight
of his own sin, let alone the sins of the world. This is why it is so
pivotal to know that Jesus is God. Because as God, He was able to
take take on all of our sin, and the wrath that God has toward those
sins, and He bore them in His own body on that tree.13
He propitiated, or totally drank up and satisfied, the wrath of God
toward you and me. Jesus makes it possible for me to be cleansed of
my sin, and to be called a child of God, if I will place my faith in
Him.14
And
now?
So
where is Jesus now? Hebrews 1:3 tells us that, “After
making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the
Majesty on high.” What this sitting down of the Son signifies is
that He has finished all that is necessary for us to be saved. His
work is enough. You don't need to work your way to Him, He has
already done all the work, such that He is able to sit down at the
right hand of God on high.
This
is not the end of the story though, because we also read in Scripture
that Jesus will return.
“And
just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes
judgment, 28 so
Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will
appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are
eagerly waiting for him.”15
For those
whom He has saved, our response should be that of the apostle John at
the end of the book of Revelation,
“He
[Jesus] who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming
soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
21 The
grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.”16
1
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2001). (Hebrews
1:3). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society. All scripture taken from the
ESV, unless otherwise noted.
2
John 1:1-4,14,18
3
Hebrews 1:1-4
4
The Westminster Confession puts it quite ably, “The Son of God,
the second person in the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one
substance and equal with the Father, did, when the fullness of time
was come, take upon him man's nature, with all the essential
properties, and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin; being
conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the virgin
Mary, of her substance. So that the two whole, perfect, distinct
natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined
together in one person, without conversion, composition, or
confusion. Which person is very God, and very man, yet one Christ,
the only mediator between God and man.” Westminster Confession
of Faith, Chapter 8, section 2,
as printed in Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand
Rapids: Zondervan, 1994) pg 1183.
5Philippians
2:8
6Psalm
19:1
7Romans
1:20
8John
1:1
9E.g.,
Isaiah 53:2
10Hebrews
1:3
11Ephesians
1:3-14
12John
3:16
131
Peter 2:24
14John
1:12
15
Hebrews 9:27-28
16
Revelation 22:20-21
