Incarnate Son of God

Dr. Bob

You have asked a question that has troubled me ever since I became a Christian and I still don't know. I have read very little about this matter. John Gill, commenting on John 1:14, seems to say that Jesus Christ will never put off the human nature, that is, will always be the God-man. [The New Geneva Bible, page 1660, also makes a similar statement.] The verse and Gill's remarks are as follows:

John 1:14, KJV
14. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

John Gill's comments:

“The same word, of whom so many things are said in the preceding verses; and is no other than the Son of God, or second person in the Trinity; for neither the Father, nor the Holy Ghost, were made flesh, as is here said of the word, but the Son only: and "flesh" here signifies, not a part of the body, nor the whole body only, but the whole human nature, consisting of a true body, and a reasonable soul; and is so called, to denote the frailty of it, being encompassed with infirmities, though not sinful; and to show, that it was a real human nature, and not a phantom, or appearance, that he assumed: and when he is said to be "made" flesh, this was not done by the change of one nature into another, the divine into the human, or the word into a man; but by the assumption of the human nature, the word, taking it into personal union with himself; whereby the natures are not altered; Christ remained what he was, and became what he was not; nor are they confounded, and blended together, and so make a third nature; nor are they separated, and divided, so as to constitute two persons, a divine person, and an human person; but are so united as to be but one person; and this is such an union, as can never be dissolved, and is the foundation of the virtue and efficacy of all Christ's works and actions, as Mediator:”

Whether Gill means that the union is eternal I do not know. It appears that he does. I know that the love of God demonstrated in the incarnation is beyond human comprehension but to consider that God the Son remains the God-man frankly blows my mind.

If Jesus Christ is to lay aside His human [though now glorified] nature I would say that it would not occur until His work of redemption is complete [1 Corinthians 15:23-28].

I am curious as to your thoughts and those of others.

 

I believe Jesus is in his glorified body and that it is forever. Since he is the firstfruits of all the believers who will have glorified bodies, then He must still be in one Himself.

PS: I don't think Jesus was born anywhere near Dec. 25.

 

Good point Marcia.

 

That's what I believe too.

 

He put off his human flesh when he died, but raised with his glorified human flesh.

 

Well, it is a bit more technical than that, but hopefully I don't have to explain more than what I put.

 

Dr. Bob, I have heard scholars who believe that this was part of the sacrifice that God made. Although Jesus put off the actual flesh of the body he had on Earth sometime during or after His ressurection, he now has the glorified body that we will have.

Since God is thought to be spirit and not matter as we know it, could this be part of the ultimate sacrifice of giving His Son to be confined to a physical body as a human will be. . . for eternity?

It makes you wonder just how much freedom and what we will actually be able to do with our glorified body, doesn't it?

 

The only man-made things in Heaven are the nail-prints in the Saviour's hands:

Zechariah 13:6 And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.

 

In my opinion it was a two stage process:

When He shed His blood the flesh was made inoperative:

Leviticus
11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.

At the resurrection Jesus was made alive in His glorified body by the Spirit and not oxygenated blood,

1 Peter 3
18 For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the Spirit:

We shall all share in His resurrection:

Romans 8
11 But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

HankD