Who Is The Unique Savior--Part 4

The norm for Christology is given by the Holy Spirit through Paul in Philippians 2:5-11. “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE SHOULD BOW, of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (NASB).

Paul named the Person who was in the form of God and took upon Himself the form of a servant. His name is Jesus Christ. This passage by Paul proves not only Christ’s condescension but His preexistence. Hence, the same statements that prove His human nature also prove His Divine nature. The Divine Person did not become a mere man. He did not lay aside His Deity, but He did lay aside His privileges as the eternal Son of God. This condescension is called the hypostatic union―two natures united in one Person. The Divine nature never has a human attribute, and the human nature never has a Divine attribute. However, the God-Man may be spoken of as having both Divine and human attributes.

Christ’s preexistent nature is strikingly described in Philippians 2:6—“…He existed in the form of God….” The Greek verb huparchon is a present active participle of huparcho, which means to exist, to be, to belong, or to subsist. The present tense and active voice makes it read, “Who is existing in the form of God.” Furthermore, the word morphe (form) speaks of who Christ is essentially. The word in its original meaning carried the idea of reality that does not change regardless of how it might be manifested. Therefore, He who was in the “form” of God does not cease to be God, even though He chose to manifest Himself in the form of a servant. The mystery of God was manifested in the flesh. “And by common confession great is the mystery of godliness: He who was revealed in the flesh, Was vindicated in the Spirit, Beheld by angels, Proclaimed among the nations, Believed on in the world, Taken up in glory” (I Tim. 3:16 NASB).

The mode of manifestation is not identical with the essence itself. He who was with God was God (John 1:1). Paul used an expression which indicates the relation of the second Person to the first Person of the Godhead. There is an eternal subordination without inferiority of nature. There cannot be a Father without a Son. The eternal Being must have an image. Therefore, Jesus Christ is both the form of God and the express image of God (Phil. 2:6; Col. 1:15; Heb. 1:3). We must not think of Jesus Christ apart from both His Divine and human natures. Since the incarnation, Jesus Christ is the God-Man forever.

In Philippians 2:7 and 8, the reality of Christ’s human nature is set forth by three expressions: (1) “Form of a bond-servant” proves the reality of the human nature. Christ took the human nature in order that He might serve and die in it. The Greek noun morphe (form) is used to describe the reality of Christ’s Divine and human natures (Phil. 2:6, 7). Christ existing in the “form of God” and taking the “form of a bond-servant” are two different things. The “form of God” refers to the Son’s eternality, and the “form of a bond-servant” refers to what He became as the God-Man. (2) “Likeness [homoioma] of men” indicates that Christ is different from all other men. He who was eternally begotten was begotten in time by the Holy Spirit. Paul leaves room in his definition for all the range of difference between Christ and the elect of God. (3) “Found in appearance [schema] as a man” completes the description of the incarnation. It has been suggested that “form” describes who Jesus Christ was and “likeness” describes what He looked like. Paul desired to give a contrast between who Jesus Christ was in Himself and what He appeared to be before men.

Jesus Christ did not change one form of being for another in the incarnation. He changed His appearance by assuming another nature which was the form of a servant. However, He did not cease being God, because He is immutable (Mal. 3:6; Heb. 13:8; James 1:17). The Lord Jesus did assume the form of a servant, and He became what He was not before, the God-Man. The real difference between the “form of God” and the “form of a servant” is revealed in the tenses of the participles used in this portion of Scripture in Philippians. The participle huparchon is the present active of the verb huparcho, and it means “who is existing in the form of God.” In the three expressions to describe Christ’s human nature, there are three participles: (1) labon, aorist active of lambano, which means “taking the form of a servant”; (2) genomenos, aorist middle of ginomai, which means “being made in the likeness of men”; and (3) heuretheis, aorist passive of heurisko, which means “recognized in fashion as a man.” Therefore, He who exists in the form of God did not cease being God when He assumed the form of a servant.

The union of the “form of God” with the “form of a servant” has made Jesus Christ the complex Person that He is and will ever be. John tells us that the Word who was with God was the same Word who became flesh (John 1:1, 14). The Word became that which first became by Him. Therefore, the Word did not cease to be what He eternally was by becoming flesh. He only entered into a new mode of being, but He does not become a new being. The Godhead did not become flesh, but the second Person of the Godhead became flesh. (See Luke 1:35; Rom. 1:3, 4; 9:5; I Tim. 2:5.) The names of the Persons of the Godhead remained unchanged in the incarnation. Therefore, it was fitting that the Father commissioned the Son to become flesh instead of the Son commissioning the Father. It has been suggested that the middle Person of the Divine Trinity has become the Mediator between God and man. Man now occupies the middle position between angels and beasts in the scale of created creatures.

The eternal Word becoming flesh must be distinguished from transubstantiation. In the incarnation, the phrase “and the Word became flesh” (John 1:14 NASB) does not mean that the Word that was God ceased to be God. That would be transubstantiation. Transubstantiation is the change of an entire substance in which one substance is entirely destroyed and an entirely new one takes its place, without any change of appearance. This is one of the chief doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. Their Catechism states, “The priests of the church continue to exercise this power to change bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ by repeating the words of Christ: ‘This is my body…this is my blood’, at the moment of consecration (the time when the sacred change takes place) in the mass….The change of the entire substance of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ is called transubstantiation.” (See the New Baltimore Catechism #2.) Roman Catholics make a god out of the Mass and then become cannibals, devouring what they believe is Jesus Christ.

There are some who believe that Christ who existed in the form of God emptied Himself and became something less than He was originally. Liberal theologians press the sense of “emptied” until nothing of the form of God remains. They insist that the Son of God emptied out of Himself the attributes of Deity. This would be transmutation, the change from one nature to another nature. This is the opposite of the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, the change of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Transmutation is heresy regardless of which way it goes―from God to man or from bread and wine to the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

“The eternal Word became flesh” must be distinguished from consubstantiation. Some believe there was a mixture of the Divine and human natures in the incarnation. In the fifth century A.D., Eutyches taught there was a mixture of the two natures in the incarnation, thus making a third person which is different from both. Eutychianism is mentioned to show that the Lutheran Church has partially received the heresy of Eutyches. The Christology of Martin Luther was clear on some points but indefinite on others. His favorite illustration on the union of the two natures was derived from heated iron. Two substances are united. The one interpenetrates the other. The iron receives the attributes of the heat, making it glow. Where the iron is, there the heat is; but the iron remains iron and the heat remains heat. This ingenious illustration, however, does not explain how Divine attributes are transferred to the human nature and human attributes are transferred to the Divine nature. Divine attributes are not attributed to the human nature, and human attributes are not attributed to the Divine nature. They are ever distinct but performed by the God-Man. Therefore, the properties of the Divine essence never became the properties of the human. The Divine never becomes human, and the finite never becomes infinite.

Lutheran Christology is reflected in their doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. In their doctrine of consubstantiation, they believe the substance of the body and blood of Christ coexists in and with the bread and wine of the Eucharist. Luther affirmed, “Not only the accidents but the reality of bread and wine remained in the sacrament of the altar….The bread and wine are really bread and wine and the true flesh and blood of Christ are in them in the same fashion and the same degree as they (i.e. Roman Catholics) hold them to be beneath their accidents….Fire and iron are two substances, yet they are so mingled in red-hot iron that any part is at once iron and fire. What prevents the glorious body of Christ from being in every part of the substance of bread?”

We are not living in a time of orthodoxy but heterodoxy. There are more persons propagating unorthodox rather than orthodox views about the Person of Christ. However, the people of God have never been without conflict concerning the most important principle of the Christian faith, namely, the Person and work of Jesus Christ. It seems that in the last of the last days believers are bombarded not only with a revival of old heresies but also some new ones.

In the first century A.D., the Ebionites denied the reality of Christ’s Divine nature. They believed Jesus Christ was nothing more than a man. Docetism denied the reality of Christ’s human body in the second century A.D. In the second and third centuries A.D., Monarchianism denied the Trinity. They were divided into two schools of thought. Theodetus represented the Dynamic school of thought which denied the incarnation of the Logos. Sabellius represented the Modalistic school who accepted the Deity of Christ, but they denied His independent and preexistent personality. The life of Christ was only a theophany to this school. To this school, God was one; and the names Father, Son, and Holy Spirit signified no more than different manifestations of the Divine essence. Both schools were condemned by the Synod of Antioch in A.D. 268. Arianism was a reaction from Sabellianism in the fourth century A.D. Arius denied the Deity of Christ.

The fourth and fifth centuries reveal the Christological conflict that has not subsided. To summarize the heresies of that period, it may be said Arianism denied the true Godhead of Christ; Apollinarianism denied the true humanity of Christ; Nestorianism denied the unity of the two natures of Christ; and Eutychianism denied the distinction of the two natures of Christ. The heresies of our time are just as blatant, but it must be acknowledged that they are more subtly stated.

During the first five centuries of Christianity, Christology was a subject of great conflict; but out of that period of controversy came the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D. The four Chalcedonian adverbs point out how essential it is to the Person of Christ that one must believe that He possesses both Divine and human natures “without mixture,” “without change,” “without division,” and “without separation.” This formula has dominated the orthodox exegetes to the present day. Hence, Chalcedon has been called the terminal point of Christology. For Christians, however, there is but one terminal point in the study of Christology, and it is given in the words of Christ Himself. He said, “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son, except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him” (Matt. 11:27 NASB). Here we have Christ’s reaction to being rejected.

Like so many Biblical facts, Divine concealment is a subject religionists refuse to discuss. All truth originated in God, and He reveals some truth to some. “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of the law” (Deut 29:29 NASB). However, God conceals truth from some, and Christ praised God for concealing truth from some. Christ said, “I praise Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that Thou didst hide these things from the wise and intelligent and didst reveal them to babes. Yes, Father, for thus it was well-pleasing in Thy sight” (Matt. 11:25, 26 NASB). If there is no reprobation, there is no election; no election, no grace; no grace, no salvation; no salvation, no body of Christ; and no body of Christ, all are doomed to endless torment.

This study concerning Christ is being brought to a conclusion. Before we begin our teaching next Lord’s Day of Matthew 16:18 and 19, three things in the preceding verses in Matthew must be recalled: (1) Christ’s question in verse 15, (2) Peter’s answer in verse 16, and (3) the Father’s revelation to Peter in verse 17. “He said to them, But who do you say that I am? And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answered and said to him, Blessed are you Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 16:15-17 NASB).