Where is God Amidst All This Chaos?
Special: Counseled by God Free Video Event and up to 50% off!

Unsearchable Part 4: The Heart of the Mystery

Steve Stewart's picture

“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact expression of His nature, sustaining all things by His powerful word.” (Heb 1:3) 

“This is how you can know God’s Spirit: Every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ came to earth as a human is from God” (1 Jn 4:2)

Throughout this series, we have been looking at the mystery of Christ, a term that Paul uses seventeen times. Now we come to what I believe is the heart of that mystery: the Incarnation. During the first four centuries AD, this mystery carried such truth in tension that the church had to continually struggle and strive to articulate and defend it.

The Apostle John, recognizing the centrality of the Incarnation, began his Gospel with a poetic description (Augustine called these the most sublime words over penned):

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (Jn 1:1, 14)

John was declaring that Jesus is the full revelation of God. The Nicene Creed states of Him, “the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God.” The doctrine of the Incarnation expresses the mystery that Jesus Christ is fully human and fully God. (Theologians call this hypostasis.) This union of God and man is not merely a moral or spiritual union; it is a physical union of two natures so as to make One Person. Christ did not set aside His divinity in order to come “dwell among us”. In the first centuries of the church, many pushed against this full unity of two natures, leading to heresies like Gnosticism and Docetism which denied the full humanity of Christ, and Arianism that denied the full Divinity of Christ. Arianism became the central controversy for about one hundred years and resulted in the leaders of the church gathering on three occasions to debate what the Scriptures teach about the Incarnation. The result was the foundational creeds that form the basis of Christian doctrine.

So, why does this matter?

As I have written earlier, Jesus is the Son of God, the second Person of the Trinity. When the Word became flesh, God could never again be understood as an abstract or faceless Deity. Paul wrote to the Colossians, “For the entire fullness of God’s nature dwells bodily in Christ” (Col 2:9). Jesus was the perfect expression of the Father. Jesus declared, “I and the Father are One…If you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen the Father” (Jn 10:30; 14:9). Jesus, now on earth, unveiled God in heaven.

It is vital that we absorb this truth: Jesus Christ is the full revelation of God. He is not just one facet of God. God did not become Christlike; this is who He has been from all eternity. Whenever we are unsure or insecure about what God is like, we need to remember and meditate upon this. There is no aspect of the Triune God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) that is not revealed in who Christ is. He is exactly like the Father. Exactly. The Incarnation means that the eternal Triune relationship has now come to earth.

I have stressed this truth because I am convinced that our 21st century evangelicalism has missed this truth. Jesus did not come as the Father’s representative. He did not come to teach us more of what Father God is like. He did not come as a smaller version of God. We have imagined and preached too small a Christ. And a smaller Christ means a smaller Gospel. As Brad Jersak has written, “Jesus is the decisive revelation of who God is and the radical re-definition of what God is like.”1

As we take time to meditate on the Incarnation, its implications grow… Since Christ came as fully God, then while He was walking on the earth, He was at the same time holding all of creation together (“and by Him all things hold together” Col 1:17). As we read of Jesus healing the sick and teaching the multitudes, we must understand that He was orchestrating all the activity of the cosmos. As the Word, Jesus “was not hedged in by His body, nor did His presence in the body prevent His being present elsewhere as well.” 2

The Incarnation is the eternal union of Man and God. For all eternity, the Son of God, the second Person of the Trinity, is one of us. He became human; He will remain human. Because the Incarnation is not just about the birth of Jesus, but of all His life, His Ascension is also part of this eternal union. Therefore, the Incarnation is not over; Jesus continues to live out His Sonship as a human. There is a Man right now as a member of the Trinity (1 Tim 2:5).

In becoming human, Jesus entered into our fallen existence. In the Incarnation, Jesus brought together the Triune life of God in all its purity, joy, righteousness and fullness, and human existence with all its brokenness, fear, corruption and disease.3 Jesus entered into our condition, but He was never tainted by it; Light conquered darkness. This is how He conquered. Without the Incarnation, God could look upon our condition with compassion, but in the Incarnation, He joined us in our failure, alienation and darkness, but never yielded to them. He fully entered humanity, but refused to live His life as anything but the Son of God. This is why the Apostle Paul calls Christ “the last Adam”. While the first Adam yielded to temptation in his desire to be like God, the last Adam was God Who became man in order to defeat the very powers and temptations that defeated the first Adam. As Baxter Kruger has written, “Jesus stood in Adam’s shoes but refused to be Adam.” 4

In the mystery of the Incarnation––this perfect union of man and God––lies an infinitely deep and beautiful truth, one worthy of a lifetime of meditation and adoration. This is the beauty of God revealed. This is the beauty that reconciles the whole cosmos.

1 Brad Jersak, A More Christlike God (CWR Press, 2015)  
2 Athanasius, On the Incarnation (Pantianos Classics, 1944) 
3 C. Baxter Kruger, The Great Dance (Regent College Publishing, Vancouver, BC, 2000) 
4 ibid

~ Steve

 

Add new comment

Add new comment

CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.

Results

Results 421 - 430 of 479

Pages

Unique Gifts Make Winning Teams Digital Videos

The content of these videos is the same as the Unique Gifts Make Winning Teams DVD Set but in digital format. Receive your product immediately with no shipping costs!

Price: $39.95

Your Extraordinary Life Digital Video Downloads

Mark Virkler | 16 Digital Video Sessions

Can you imagine starting new believers off with the Holy Spirit! What if the first thing you were taught as a newborn Christian was how to connect easily and daily with the Holy Spirit Who was living inside you, anointing you, empowering you and transforming you?

Price: $39.95
4 Keys to Hearing God's Voice MP3 Download

4 Keys to Hearing God's Voice MP3s

by Mark Virkler | 10 Sessions

As seen on the Sid Roth "It's Supernatural" program, this audio download of the 10-hour course will draw you into a classroom experience with others who are learning to hear from God right alongside you. It follows along with the LEARN 4 Keys to Hearing God's Voice notebook.

Price: $59.95

4 Keys to Hearing God's Voice MP3s - Abridged Edition

by Mark Virkler | 10 Sessions of MP3

A complete description is available by clicking here, where you will find information on the 60-minute version of this product. The main difference is that these 10 sessions are shorter, averaging 40 minutes each. You asked for it and it's finally available! The same core teaching now abridged, making the sessions easier to fit into your Sunday School class, home group meeting or lunch hour Bible study.

Price: $39.95

Counseled by God MP3 Download

by Mark Virkler | 13 Sessions

Just Released – 35th Anniversary Edition

The foremost training in the world helping you become emotionally whole by hearing the voice of the Wonderful Counselor! ?You will receive an impartation as you listen to the 13 sessions of Mark Virkler sharing life-transforming principles on how to restore your heart by receiving daily counsel directly from God.

Price: $59.95
Language of the Heart

Language of the Heart - 10 Musical Renditions

Wayne Tester

Do you desire more freedom from anxiety, depression or past hurts? Do you need more inner healing, but you don’t know how to get it? 

Price: $9.95
Prayers That Heal the Heart MP3 Download

Prayers That Heal the Heart Audio MP3 - Revised & Expanded 20th Anniversary Edition

by Mark Virkler | 15 Sessions

Prayer counseling that breaks every yoke! Everything you need to experience deep healing of your soul and spirit. Did you know that you don’t need to be continually plagued by negative thoughts, feelings, pictures or memories?

It is not part of the "human condition" to feel the constant nagging of doubt, insecurity, or anger. No matter what sin you are trying to overcome, what lie you think you’ll always believe, or what traumas your heart has suffered in the past, you will receive total freedom and restoration by praying these prayers in faith.

Price: $59.95

Everyday Angels MP3s

By Charity Virkler Kayembe

You can partner with Heaven’s angelic hosts!

Do you have guardian angels? Does God want you to know them? Find out what Scripture reveals and how YOU can interact with the company of Heaven!

The supernatural realm permeates our natural world! Therefore, experiencing angels should be an everyday occurrence–we simply need to open our spiritual eyes to their reality and role in our lives.

Price: $49.00
Hear God Through Your Dreams MP3s

Hear God Through Your Dreams MP3s

by Mark Virkler | 5 Sessions

A newer version has just released: Click here for Hearing God Through Your Dreams MP3s by Charity Kayembe and Mark Virkler (featured on Sid Roth in November, 2016).

Price: $24.95
Hearing God Through Your Dreams MP3s by Mark Virkler and Charity Kayembe

Hearing God Through Your Dreams MP3 Downloads

Receive divine counsel nightly. Increase emotional health, wisdom and creativity

Learn How to Hear God’s Voice, Even When You Are Sleeping

Recorded live at Catch the Fire in Toronto!

Price: $39.95

Pages