Chapter 6: God Manifest In the Flesh

"And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.”  John 1:14

No words could more plainly show that Christ was both God and man.  Originally only Divine, He took upon Himself human nature and passed among men as only a common mortal, except at those times when His Divinity flashed through, as on the occasion of the cleansing of the temple or when His burning words of simple truth forced even His enemies to confess that "never man spoke like this man."

Paul to the Philippians best expresses the humiliation, which Christ voluntarily took upon Himself.  "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 men; 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.  And so we may reconcile Christ's unity with the Father with the statement, "My Father is greater than I."

It is impossible for us to understand how Christ could, as God, humble Himself to the death of the cross, 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.  If the reader finds it difficult to harmonize some of the statements in the Bible concerning the nature of Christ, let him remember that it would be impossible to express it in terms that would enable finite minds to grasp it fully.  Just as the grafting of the Gentiles into the stock of Israel is contrary to nature, so much of the Divine economy is a paradox to human understanding.