The Nature of Christ

The humiliation Christ voluntarily took upon himself is best expressed by Paul to the Philippians: “Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus; who being originally in the form of God, counted it not a thing to be grasped [that is, to be clung to] to be on an equality with God, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, becoming in the likeness of man; and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross.” Philippians 2:5-8, Revised Version, marginal reading

 

 The above rendering makes this text much more plain than it is in the common version. The idea is that, although Christ was in the form of God, being “the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person” (Hebrews 1:3), having all the attributes of God, being the ruler of the universe, and the one whom all heaven delighted to honor, he did not think that any of these things were to be desired so long as men were lost and without strength. He could not enjoy his glory while man was an outcast, without hope. So he emptied himself, divested himself of all his riches and his glory, and took upon himself the nature of man in order that he might redeem him. It was necessary that he should assume the nature of man, in order that he might suffer death, as the apostle says to the Hebrews that he “was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death.” Hebrews 2:9

 

It is impossible for us to understand how this could be, and it is worse than useless for us to speculate about it. All we can do is to accept the facts as they are presented in the Bible. Other scriptures that we will quote bring closer to us the fact of the humanity of Christ, and what it means for us. We read in John 1:14 that “the Word was made flesh,” and now we will read what Paul says as to the nature of that flesh: “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh; that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” Romans 8:3, 4

 

A little thought will be sufficient to show anybody that if Christ took upon himself the likeness of man, in order that he might suffer death, it must have been sinful man that he was made like, for it is only sin that causes death. Death could have no power over a sinless man, as Adam was in Eden; and it could not have had any power over Christ if the Lord had not laid on him the iniquity of us all. Moreover, the fact that Christ took upon himself the flesh, not of a sinless being, but of sinful man, that is, that the flesh which he assumed had all the weaknesses and sinful tendencies to which fallen human nature is subject, is shown by the few words upon which this article is based. He was “made of the seed of David according to the flesh.” David had all the passions of human nature. He says of himself, “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.”