The God Who Became Man

Our studies on the theme of “Knowing God”, on the 2024 calendar, find us on the Sunday before Christmas.

Although there is no scriptural command in the New Testament, or even suggestion, for celebrating any special event, nevertheless our faith is grounded in historical events of which the birth of Jesus the Christ is absolutely first and foremost.

The hinge of history is on the door of a Bethlehem stable. The incarnation of Jesus, the virgin conception/birth of Jesus, is the miracle of all miracles. If you can by faith accept the fact that the Second Person of the Trinity, condescended to join Godhead and manhood in one glorious person, beginning as a baby in the womb of a young Jewish virgin maid, then you won't have any problem with His miracles of healing the sick, raising the dead, walking on water or rising from the dead himself.

The late Jewish talk show host Larry King was being interviewed by another talk show personality. He was asked if he could interview any person in history, who would he choose? He answered, "Jesus Christ?" “And what would you ask Him?” queried the interviewer. King responded, “I would ask Him, "Were you truly Virgin born?" Larry knew  that if this is true, then all else can't help but be true, thus He was whom He claimed to be and did all that He claimed to do.

In the eleventh century, Anselm of Canterbury famously asked, “Why did God become man?” It is an important question to ask since it takes us into the rationale for the incarnation, and thus into the heart of the gospel. Anselm’s answer was that God the Son became man to fulfill God’s plan to save sinners by making satisfaction for their sin. No less can be said. But Scripture gives a number of reasons for why the incarnation was a necessity in the divine plan, and the most detailed text that gives us some of these reasons is Hebrews 2:5-18.

In these 14 verses, the author focuses on the centrality of the incarnation to the fulfillment of God’s redemptive plan, which is his final argument for the superiority of the Son. Although there are more than four reasons for the purpose and necessity of the incarnation, this pericope of scriptures powerfully and succinctly declare the real “reason for the season!”. Let us look at each of these glorious truths in turn in Hebrews 2:5–18:

1. God the Son Became Man to Fulfill God’s Creation Intention for Humanity (Heb. 2:5–9)

Before beginning to unpack our text in Hebrews, let me digress for a moment to John 1:14 in order to give a clear definition of the word incarnation: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”  Incarnation is the theological expression that defines the phrase, “and the Word became flesh.”  The Latin word "carne" means flesh. So, the Word was in-fleshed and dwelled among us.

Now, back to Hebrews 2:5-9, where the author uses Psalm 8 to make the point that one of the reasons God the Son became man was to fulfill God’s original intention in creating man/humanity. In its Old Testament context, Psalm 8 celebrates the majesty of God as the Creator and the exalted position humans have in creation. The Psalm reminds us of God’s creation design for humans, namely that we were created as his image-bearers to exercise dominion over the world as his co-partners in the Family Firm of Almighty and Sons. (Gen. 1–2). In fact, in transitioning from the quotation of Psalm 8:4–6 to Jesus, Hebrews stresses the honor and glory of humanity by emphasizing how God intended that all things be subjected to Adam and, by extension, to all humanity: “Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control” (Heb. 2:8b).

The fact that Jesus became man reveals the nature of true humanity. His humanity gives a glimpse of what our humanity would be, were it not tainted with sin. He shows that the problem with humanity is not that we are humans, but rather that we are fallen, Jesus' human nature shows the potential of humanity as God intended. This display of sinless humanity reaffirms God’s declaration that creation in all its original dimensions (natural and spiritual). including humanity, is by divine definition very good (Gen. 1:31).

However, as we know from Genesis 3, Adam disobeyed, and as a result, all humanity is now under God’s judgment. Hebrews makes this exact point: “At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him” (Heb 2:8c). When we look at the world, we know that God’s original creation design for humans had been rejected in man’s attempt to become little god players. Obviously, we do not rule as God intended us to rule. Dr. Steve Wellum says, “Instead of putting the earth under our feet, we are eventually put under the earth as God’s rebellious image-bearers.”

Thankfully, this is not the end of the story. Just as Psalm 8 challenges us to look back to Genesis 1–2, it also challenges us, in anticipation, to look forward to our restoration. Given its position in the Old Testament, especially in light of God’s “first gospel promise” (Gen. 3:15) and the unfolding development of this promise through the biblical covenants, Psalm 8 speaks prophetically. David looks forward to a day when God will restore us to our created purpose, a restoration that will occur through another man—one who comes from humanity and identifies with us, who acts on our behalf like Adam of old, but who, instead of failure by Adam’s disobedience, gives us victory by his obedience (Rom. 5:12–21).

This is precisely how Hebrews 2:9 applies Psalm 8 to Christ: “But we see him who for a little while was made lower than angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.” Jesus is presented as the antitype of Adam. He is the representative human whose obedient humiliation in his incarnation and death kept the obligations of the covenant and secured his exaltation that he will share with his people.

Wonderful, mysterious, incomprehensible is the Person who became one of us! God, the Second Person of the Trinity became a man! Yet, although He became what He was not previously ‑ man, He never ceased to be all that He was before ‑ God! The first Christmas celebration was not one of God in man. This is what happens when a person becomes a Christian ‑ God takes up his abode in man.  The first Christmas celebration was not God and man coming together to work cooperatively. It was a celebration of the God‑man ‑ Jesus the Christ. He is not God humanized nor man deified, but Godhead and Manhood joined in two natures in one Glorious Person.

A 2022 survey showed that 43 percent of U.S. evangelicals agree with the statement “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God.” Here’s the bottom line, the full humanity and deity of Jesus is essential for biblical Christianity.

As I studied the incarnation this week, I recognized that I had been holding an incorrect understanding by believing that the Son of God descended from heaven in such a way as to leave an empty place – laying down his crown and leaving an empty seat! But while reading Pastor Keving DeYoung’s article, I was convicted that this was bad theology. Because Christ was God, he can leave heaven, become man and yet still be in heaven. Christ’s incarnational descent did not involve a change to the divine nature or a change of location. If the Son of God had to leave heaven in order to come to earth, not only would that suggest a rift in Trinitarian communion, but it would also imply that the Son no longer possessed the attributes of immensity (immensity is an aspect of God’s infinity) and omnipresence, which means that the Son would cease to be something other than the fully divine Son. In the union of Christ’s two natures - human and divine – there is a joining in one person, yet “without confusion” and “without change” (Chalcedonian Definition). That is, when the Son assumed a human nature, he became as we are, without ceasing to be what he was.

John Calvin observed: “Here is something marvelous: the Son of God descended from heaven in such a way that, without leaving heaven, he willed to be borne in the virgin’s womb, to go about the earth, and to hang upon the cross; yet he continuously filled the world even as he had done from the beginning!”

2. God the Son Became Man to Bring Many Sons to Glory (Heb. 2:10-13)

Almost all – me included – have assumed that “bringing many sons to glory” means taking us to Heaven when we die to live with him there. Although this is some of the truth, it is not the main truth of Jesus’ redemptive mission. Dr. Steve Wellum notes, “In the context of Hebrews 2, the word “glory” is not a reference to heaven; rather, it is a term from Psalm 8 referring to God’s intention to restore us to what he created humans to be. The imagery identifies Jesus with Yahweh who led Israel out of Egypt in the first exodus to make them into a people for his own possession and purposes. Jesus has now brought about the new exodus through his death and resurrection. As the “founder [archēgon] of their salvation” (Heb. 2:10)—a word which conveys the idea of “pioneer” (leader/forerunner and founder/victor)—Jesus is now leading a people out of slavery to sin and death (Heb. 2:14–15) and into the covenant life and representative reign under God that he has planned from the beginning. Jesus is the first man of the new creation. He is the trailblazer/champion who has won the victory for new humanity by opening up new territory through his redemptive work.”

The writer to the Hebrew believers points them to the Messiah who is the Pioneer, the Liberator, and the Mediator.

Jesus is the Pioneer that Opened the Way into God’s New World - 2:10, “For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.

Why was it fitting or becoming that the Son of God had to suffer and die such a horrible death? It was because God the Father so valued His own glory and so valued sinful men and women like you and me, that He did not consider it unfitting for His Son to suffer horribly to recapture our loss identity and destiny. That is how much God values His glory and our good. God values His glory and our gladness in that glory so much that though it cost his Son the ugliness of the cross, He considered it worth it to recovery this race of Adam that He loves so deeply and values so highly.

We need to see Jesus as the Pioneer who opened the way into God’s new world. If you were to check other translations of this verse, you would find the Greek word “archegon” translated as “founder,” “leader,” “hero,” “originator,” “author,” or “captain.”   Jesus is called “the pioneer of our salvation” in Hebrews 2:10, and “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith” in Hebrews 12:2.  Jesus is our “pioneer.” A pioneer is a person who goes on ahead of the others and makes a sure and safe way for others, where there is no way, no signs, no trails, no maps, and where no one else has ever been. Remember, WHO I am Following will Determine WHERE I am Going!

b. Jesus Personally Blazed a Cross-shaped Trail into God’s New World Order! - Hebrews 2:5 speaks of the world to come. This is “the new world-order” inaugurated by the pioneering work of Jesus as He with the cross as His instrument blazed a trail through sin, death and the devil’s territory. The image of a pioneer gives us a deep look at the One we follow. Jesus was first - He opened up a way through the impassible and impossible; he went into the wild, untamed territory of the broken law of God’s demands, the devil’s death accusing palace and death’s prison house. He satisfied the law’s precepts and suffered its penalty, bound the strongman Satan and plundered his palace, then blasted a cross-shaped hole through the back-end of death’s prison house that will never be closed again!

Jesus brought us into the real world known as the kingdom of God. Graeme Goldsworthy aptly defined the kingdom as – God’s people in God’s place under God’s rule. It is the reality which replaces the preceding world of shadows in the OT. The writer says to these baffled, beaten down, believers - "the world to come" has come and you’re in it now. It was an era that would restore what was begun at Creation, by the bringing in of a new creation in Christ. (Read Hebs 12:22-24)

c. Jesus Permanently Brings His Brethren from their Old Sin-cursed Position into a New Saint-blessed Position and Process – 2:11- He is the Pioneer that has set His people apart for a special use – to be God-possessed and Person-driven. They are sanctified in Him, He being made sanctification to them (1 Cors 1:30); and they have their sanctification from Him, all their grace and holiness; and they are sanctified by Him, both by His blood, which pays their sin debt and removes the guilt of them, and by His Spirit, as He carries out the work of interior renovation by working internal principles of grace and holiness in them, who are by nature, guilty and unclean.

d. Jesus Proudly Becomes One of Us in Order to Bring us into His Forever Family – 2:12-13 - Jesus isn’t ashamed to be identified with His people! Christ's God is their God, and His Father is their Father; they are of one body, Christ is the head, and they are members; they are of one covenant, Christ is the surety, Mediator, and messenger of it, and they share in all its blessings and promises; they are of one man, Adam, Christ is a Son of Adam; Christ has taken part of the same flesh and blood with them.

Jesus leads His Brothers into Special Revelation of God’s Name and joins His Brothers when they meet in Worshipful Adoration of God’s Fame – Hebrews 2:12

Jesus reveals that His Brothers have access to the same resources He did – Hebrews 2:13a - In saying, “I will put my trust in Him”, Jesus is revealing that, even though He was God, yet He lived as man filled with the Spirit of God. He had to live by faith in precisely the same way they did and you and I do! Most of us have never thought that way about Jesus.

Jesus confidently assures His own that they will make it through the tough times and to their final destiny! – 13b, “And again, Behold I and the children which God has given me.” This is really a prophecy that assures the believers that whatever their lot, it would be well with their soul; that though their trip would be very rough, their arrival was even more sure; that all those that the Father had given the Son, he would lose none!

3. God the Son Became Man to Destroy the Power of Death and the Devil (Heb. 2:14–16)

Hebrews directly connects the incarnation with the destruction of all that holds the new humanity back from its divinely planned and promised glory. In short, the destruction of our slave-master and our deliverance from the stronghold of fear requires that like us the Son would come to “share in flesh and blood.”

Scripture teaches that death is not normal to God’s creation; rather, it’s the result of sin (Gen. 2:17). Death is God’s penalty for our disobedience (Rom. 6:23). In judgment against our sin, God gave us over to the power of Satan (2 Cor. 4:4; Eph. 2:1–3; Col. 1:13). Created to rule over God’s creation as his image-bearers, we now cower in fear before God as those who are spiritually dead, which ultimately shows itself in our physical death. Our only hope is found in our “pioneer” (Heb. 2:10) who goes before us and defeats our enemies. We need a Savior who can deal with sin, death, and Satan by first sharing our common humanity. We need a Savior who would suffer and die in that humanity so that by his death the power of death is destroyed.

a. Jesus is the Liberator that Defeats the Enemy and Leads His Brethren in a New Exodus – 2:14-16 - A much better translation is the American Standard Version’s “…might render powerless him who had the power of death.” Christ came to deliver us from the fear of death and make us free, by rendering the devil powerless in his destructive use of death!

What is it that we are afraid of when it comes to death? We fear the mystery of death. We fear the potential misery of dying. We fear the possible marooning factor of death – its aloneness and loneliness. But topping the list in the why we fear death question is meeting God. If and since there is a God to face at the end of it all, if and since there’s an accounting to be given, we’re afraid that we’re going to be weighed in the balances and found wanting.

Timothy Leary, the former Harvard psychology professor who came to prominence in the 1960s for his experimentation with psychedelic drugs, was diagnosed with terminal cancer in January 1995. He then turned his impending death into a celebration of sorts, announcing that he would commit suicide on the World Wide Web. He was going to show America that death was not to be feared but enjoyed. But as death drew near, the act wore thin. Ram Dass, an original partner in Leary's psychedelic research, recalls "Looking for long periods into his eyes and seeing no one looking back," and he remembers "seeing how far back he was behind/beyond his theater piece of dying." Leary didn't commit suicide, and he died privately. Carol Rosin, who was with Leary when he breathed his last, writes that he "shook with fear and sobbed with regrets and loneliness. He became nasty, hateful." In the tragic final act of Leary's life, fear stole the show.

There is a connecting revelation between Hebrews 2:14 and 17 that shows that the way Christ renders powerless the devil is by making propitiation for our sins. This truth reveals that the only lethal weapon in the artillery of Satan is our own sin. If all our sins are covered by the blood of Jesus, if they are forgiven, and if the wrath of God against us is gone and in its place is omnipotent grace working for our good, then we can cry out to any human or demonic bondage maker and death dealer: "Death is swallowed up in victory. O death where is your victory? Death, where is your sting?" (1 Cors 15:54-55). The body they may kill, but that is all. Instantly we are at home with the Lord (2 Corinthians 5:8).

4. God the Son Became Man to Become a Merciful and Faithful High Priest (Heb. 2:17–18)

The mention of Jesus as our high priest introduces the office and work of Christ that the author of Hebrews will explore in great detail throughout the rest of the book (Heb. 4:14–5:10; 7:1–10:25). In the context of Hebrews 2, however, the high priesthood of Christ places a capstone on the argument for the purpose and necessity of the incarnation. The author begins by stressing the mandatory and comprehensive nature of the incarnation: “Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect” (Heb. 2:17a). In other words, to come according to the plan of God, the Son could not take on a partial or pseudo-human nature. The Son was under obligation by the Father to take on our humanity that exactly corresponds to our human nature, except without sin.

More specifically, two purpose clauses tell us that God the Son had to become a man, (1) “so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God”; and (2) “to make propitiation for the sins of the people” (Heb. 2:17b). Or, in the language of the early church, the Son could not redeem what he did not assume; representation requires identification. If the Son did not become one with us, he could not have redeemed us by his entire life and death for us.

These four gigantic points from Hebrews 2:5–18 gloriously explains why the divine Son had to become human to redeem us from our sin and to restore us to the purpose of our creation. It’s no wonder that Jesus alone can save us, given our plight before God and the kind of Redeemer he is. May we ever learn to glory in Christ Jesus our Lord who loved us and gave himself for us.

If what we’ve studied is true, and it is, this gospel is too good to keep to ourselves! The words of the late missionary, theologian, Bishop Leslie Newbigin should summarize our attitude: “If, in fact, it is true that Almighty God, creator and sustainer of all that exists in heaven and on earth, has—at a known time and place in human history—so humbled himself as to become part of our sinful humanity, and to suffer and die a shameful death to take away our sin, and to rise from the dead as the first-fruit of a new creation, then to affirm it is not arrogance. To remain quiet about it is treason to our fellow human beings.