Studies in the Person And Work of Jesus Christ: Chapter Five

The Incarnation Chapter Five

Pg 33  What religions believe, rather that God descending to become man but man ascending to become God?

The incarnation is the foundation truth upon which Christianity rests

[Berkhof:  The incarnation was necessitated by the fall of man. (Luke 19:10; John 3:16; Gal. 4:4; 1 John 3:8)  In the last analysis, the incarnation (as well as the entire work of redemption) was contingent upon not just sin, but on the good pleasure of God.]

    --Jesus is God manifest in the flesh
    --His Person was not deprived of absolute perfection
    --nor did He surrender His Oneness with the Father

[Berkhof:  When the Word became flesh, He did not cease to be what he was before; His essential nature was not altered rather He acquired an additional form, without in any way changing His original nature.  He remained the infinite, unchangeable Son of God.  He did not take on a human person, but rather a human body and soul.]

Read and Discuss 2nd paragraph
    Flesh (Jn 1:14; 1 Tim 3:16) signifies nature

Bottom pg 33 to top of pg 34
    Re: the Holy Spirits role in the incarnation

Role of the Trinity in the incarnation

Read and Discuss bottom paragraph, pg. 24 re: three great dispensations

--the dispensation of the Father began with creation and continued to the beginning of Christ’s public ministry

--the dispensation of the Son was the important period in which redemption was worked out objectively (Christ’s public ministry through Pentecost)

--the dispensation of the Spirit began with His descent on the day of Pentecost and continues to the end of the age
“It is the work of the Holy Spirit to subjectively apply the redemption which was objectively purchased by Jesus on the cross and electively purposed by the Father”
    
Pg 35 Jesus Christ did not cease to be God in the incarnation

Christ did not identify Himself with the fallen race, but with man viewed in Divine grace (by election)

He was like them in nature as viewed in Divine Grace, yet uncontaminated by the fall

Bottom pg 35 “no eyewitness to the conception”
    Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary
    Genesis 1 the Spirit “brooded over the waters”
    Both were creative acts/ both were hidden

Pg 36  “The Lord Jesus hid the glory of His eternal nativity under the veil of an earthly nativity.”

3 fold glories of Christ
    
    Personal (essence)
    Official (in His offices of Prophet, Priest, and King)
    Moral    (His obedient life) –imputed to us

Since He was free from sin, He was the efficient sacrifice for sin”

Pg 36  Union of 2 Natures in One Person
     Jesus was the God-man, not the Man-god
Discuss the form of God/ form of a servant

*a change of form—not of content.  He did not surrender His Divine nature, but took on a human nature.  Thus, we have an unfallen human nature united to the Divine nature in one indivisible  Person (hypostatic union)

Bottom Pg 37:  “His human nature did not act independently of the Divine, nor the Divine of the human; consequently, all His acts were the actions of on indivisible Person acting in the fullness of both natures.