That Christ was made “in the likeness of sinful flesh,” scripture declares; but even this shows that fallen nature, peccable humanity, was not in Him, though truly a man, without anything before the outward eye to single Him from others; a man who could be buffeted, spit upon, crucified, and slain. The Lord Jesus, thus viewed, had nothing apparently to mark Him out from the crowd. It could not have been said that He was in the likeness of flesh, any more than that He was in the likeness of God; for this would have denied the truth of His humanity and of His deity. “The Word was God;” “the Word was made flesh.” The one was and is His eternal glory; the other, what He deigned to become in time and will not give up for evermore. But it could be and is said also, that He was made in the likeness of sinful flesh; which, as far as it goes, proves that He had not the reality of sinful flesh, but only the likeness of it. Otherwise, He could not have been a sacrifice for sin; He could not have been made sin, as He was, on the cross. In “a body hast Thou prepared Me” the same truth is indicated, as we have already seen. Christ’s body, though as much a human body as that of any man, was not generated and made after the same fallen fashion as ours. Even in this His humiliation God prepared Him a body as for none else, that it should have a specific character, suited for the singular work He had to do (Heb. 10). It is all a blunder to suppose that the reality of the incarnation involves the condition either of Adam fallen or of Adam unfallen.
The dilemma is not only fallacious but heterodox that Christ must have been limited to the one condition or the other. I deny the alternative, which depends on the profound mistake of shutting us up to the condition of the first Adam, utterly ignoring the glorious contrast of the Second man. The assumption is that, if Christ took neither unfallen nor fallen humanity, He could not have taken man’s nature at all. Fatal oversight of the Christ of God I It is agreed that bare unfallen humanity, such as Adam originally had, is not true of Christ; but what an abyss of evil is the conclusion, that therefore His was fallen manhood! How plain too that the error goes very deep: for if simple unfallen humanity be exploded, and if Christ, in order to be man, can only take fallen humanity into union with His deity, it must be fallen humanity still, or He has ceased to be man. This was just the dilemma in which Irving involved himself (“Human Nature,” p. 135) when attempting to fix it on those who challenged his heterodoxy.
But Christ is contrasted with Adam as a fresh stock and a new head, the Second man and last Adam, not a mere continuation of the first, unfallen or fallen. He is not a mere living soul (as Adam was before he fell), but a quickening or life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15). “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:1010The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. (John 10:10)). Was Adam unfallen either righteous or holy? Scripture never says so, and it cannot be broken. But I go farther: what scripture does say is inconsistent with such a standing. Absence of evil, creature good,” is not holiness. There was this positive intrinsic superiority to evil in the Lord Jesus even from His very birth and before it. We are conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity; the Lord’s flesh was neither conceived nor made thus, but holy by the power of the Spirit.
It is not true that a fallen man has merely flesh and blood; he has “the flesh” besides, as we see in the Epistle to the Romans and elsewhere. All do not distinguish rightly between “the flesh,” and “flesh and blood.” In us there is both, but Christ never had the flesh in this moral sense of the expression: because He had not, indeed, God condemned it morally in His life, and executed sentence on it judicially (but in grace to us) in His death. Not only for our sins did Christ suffer, but for sin. He took on Himself as our substitute, not merely the acts and ways and workings, but the root of evil. Him Who knew no sin God made sin for us, as it is written, that we might become God’s righteousness in Him. Thus it is not all the truth that sins were laid upon Him, but He was dealt with as to the subtle principle of sin. God did what the law could not do. The law could only take up positive transgressions; but the bottom of the evil the law could not reach, still less in grace to us. The law, even the holy and just and good commandment of God, could not do what God did in sending His own Son—could not get hold of the hidden spring of evil to deal with it summarily and forever, and in mercy withal to us. Christ both manifested the total absence of the flesh in His life (for He never did anything but the will of God, and thus detected the rebellious ruined condition of every other man), and in His death bore its judgment, that we might stand before God in His risen life, free from all condemnation. “God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” This was precisely the impossibility of the law. The law could condemn the sinner; it could work wrath; it could put sin to account; it could give knowledge of sin; but it could neither blot out and forgive sins, nor execute God’s sentence on the root of sin, so as to deliver the believer. God in Christ condemned the whole principle of fallen humanity or “sin in the flesh,” and “for sin,” i.e., sacrificially: the cross was the divine condemnation of it all, root and branch.
Thus in our Lord personally, besides His being the eternal Word, the Son of the Father, there were these two distinct things: first, that which answered to the type of the mingling of the oil with the pure flour unleavened (Lev. 2:55And if thy oblation be a meat offering baken in a pan, it shall be of fine flour unleavened, mingled with oil. (Leviticus 2:5)); next, that which corresponded to the pouring oil thereon (6). The first is the action of the Holy Ghost described in Luke 1 from the very outset of His humanity, in order that what was conceived and born of the Virgin should be “holy.” The second is what is described in Luke 2; 3:22 and Acts 10:3838How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him. (Acts 10:38). It is the force of the former truth that so many in our day, as of old, and doubtless all through, are apt to overlook, confounding it with the latter, which is quite another matter. Consequently they have so far lost the person of Christ. They have (as regards the human side of His person) reduced the Savior, the Salvation of God, into a mere child of Adam, singularly blessed no doubt, but far beneath the Christ of God. They apprehend not the mystery of His person, in itself altogether distinct from the anointing of the Holy Ghost, which accordingly only came on Him when He was baptized in the Jordan before He entered on His public service some thirty years after His birth. His person then is the truth at stake, nor can anything be so truly fundamental.
The anointing in question points not to the formation of human nature in absolute purity (though of the virgin) for the person of Christ, but to the Spirit’s conferred energy over and above that pure nature. It was for His public work; it was with a view to the display of divine power in the humble and obedient Man: “Him [the Son of man] hath God the Father sealed.” His own internal experience was not more really holy or acceptable to God afterward than before. The point was the manifestation of the mighty grace of the Spirit in man to others. No doubt Satan did then come and try our Lord—did set in movement every possible engine of temptation, as we are told in Luke 4:1313And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season. (Luke 4:13). But “temptation” here is used, as scripture ordinarily uses the word, not for the working of inward frailty or evil, but for the solicitations of an external enemy, for the devil’s presentation of objects here to allure from the path of God.
The first of the three great temptations, when the forty days’ exposure to the devil had ended, was the suggestion which appealed to the Lord’s feeling of hunger. “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.” Why not? He was God’s Son, He was hungry. Surely it was an admirable opportunity to prove His divine mission, as well as to satisfy the natural need of the body. Could He not turn stones into bread? This was what may be called the natural appeal. The second (at least in the Gospel of Luke, who was inspired to present the temptations in their moral order, whether or not the order of historic sequence was preserved) was the worldly appeal—the offer of all the kingdoms of the world on condition of Christ’s doing homage before the devil, The third (in Luke—for Matthew here keeps to the simple order of the facts, and shows it was the second historically) was the spiritual appeal, and so not merely on the pinnacle or edge of the temple, but through the word of God. But in all the Holy One of God defeated the devil, and this through the word used in obedience.
Thus we, have seen the Lord entirely refuses the temptations to make the stones bread. It was the devil’s suggestion, not God’s word, which itself, and not bread, is the true food of the believer’s life. With unwavering perfectness Christ lives as man, the Son of God on earth, by the word of God; He does homage to Jehovah His God and serves Him only, as the Son of man; and trusts Him as the Messiah, not tempting Him as did the people of old in the desert. And here remark a feature in this scene which distinguishes Christ from others who might seem to approach Him, at least circumstantially. Moses and Elijah fasted forty days; but Moses was in the presence of God, sustained so long on high; and Elijah was miraculously fed by an angel before entering on a similar term of abstinence. It was not so with the Lord Jesus, Who was in the presence of Satan, unlike the one, and was without any such previous sustenance as the other had enjoyed.
It is true the Lord Jesus did not come into an earth stainless and happy, but fallen. But to argue thence that He was in a fallen condition of humanity is utterly, inexcusably, impiously false. He could and did suffer, no doubt, from hunger, thirst, and weariness; but these things are in no way the index that human nature was fallen in Him, but of the circumstances through which humanity, holy or unholy, might pass. In his innocence Adam had no such experience; after his fall this and more was his lot. The holy person of Jesus did know these circumstances, and magnified God in them: what have they do with the state of His humanity? with its holiness as contra-distinguished from a fallen or an unfallen Adam’s? Who will venture to affirm that Adam, if kept from food even in Eden, would not have suffered from hunger? The argument is worthless, save to betray the will to depreciate the Lord of glory. The grand vice of it all is merging Him as much as possible in the fallen condition of the race. If innocent human nature had to do with a Paradisiacal state, certainly neither fallen humanity nor holy humanity when here below was spared from tasting the bitterness of a wilderness world. This therefore does not affect the momentous point of the different state of humanity in Adam fallen and in Christ even while living here below. Thus the argument founded on our Lord’s suffering hunger and thirst and weariness is a manifest sophism, because it confounds the circumstances which humanity may experience with humanity itself; it assumes from these circumstances an identity in the state of manhood, contrary to the most express teaching of the Bible and to all true knowledge of Christ. God tells us the facts to enhance our sense of the Savior’s grace and exalt His moral glory in our eyes; man, set on by Satan, hastens to pervert the facts so as to tarnish His humanity and debase His person.
That the Lord Jesus was liable to sin is not only the denial of His perfect humanity, but evinces, to say the least, the grossest ignorance of His person. It is an insult to the Son because of His humiliation, which no consideration can palliate, which man’s unbelief and Satan’s malice can alone account for. Certainly He was tried and did suffer to the uttermost; but thence to infer or allow that He had from the fall such frailty and inwardly temptable nature as ours is, I must regard and denounce as a heinous libel on Christ, as a lie most destructive to man. Scripture, while it clearly reveals the manhood of the Savior, seems more careful to uphold His unstained glory than that of any other person in the adorable Trinity. And no wonder. God is jealous lest the Savior’s unspeakable grace should expose Him to dishonor. How painful that He should be wounded afresh in the house of His friends!
Some doubtless do not go so far or fast as others; there are too misled as well as misleaders. But there are not a few who stop short, for the present at least, of the natural consequences of the system they have somehow admitted into their minds. They may not allow liability to sin, and yet contend for fallen humanity, in Jesus. But will they affirm that He could have fallen nature in His person without touching the unsullied glory of His person? It is hard to see how the person stands if one of the natures composing it be fallen. Let them beware lest the only door of refuge be that of Nestorianism which divides the Lord’s person, virtually setting up a double personality in sharp antagonism (not two natures united in one person), in order to save His divine glory from being darkened by the shade of a fallen manhood.
Take a single chapter of Matthew—the very one from which men have drawn a weapon against the Savior’s glory in humiliation, willing to wound and not afraid to strike in His case—chapter 8. and let us see the perfect man in Him Who was perfectly a man. “Lord,” says the worshipping leper, “if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth His hand and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.” The hand of man, the power of Jehovah, was there: who else could? who else would? He was come of woman, come under law: had this been all, He must have been defiled Himself instead of cleansing the leper. But as He was thus God, He was open to the need of man, not of the circumcision only, but of the uncircumcision also, were there but the faith that caught a glimpse of His true glory. And there was. For the Gentile centurion confessed Him supreme in His power and authority, so that not His bodily presence only (ever sought by the godly Israelite) but His word would suffice. “Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof; but only say with a word, and my servant shall be healed. For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. . . And on hearing it, Jesus marveled.” He was indeed very man; but how much more! He said to the centurion, “Go; and as thou hast believed, be it done to thee.” And his servant was healed “in that hour.” Next, He comes to Peter’s house and sees his mother-in-law laid down and in a fever; but in divine goodness He touched her hand; and not only did the malady leave her, but, restored to strength, she arose and served Him. Nor was it only where a special tie existed. He was here below in grace, passing through a ruined, needy, sorrow-stricken world, ready to help any that came, all that were brought, demonized or sick; and a word was enough for the worst. Thus was fulfilled Isaiah 53:44Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. (Isaiah 53:4) (not yet the vicarious work of verse 5, et seqq.). Certainly that was not sacrificial; still less does the application sanction the revolting idea of our Lord’s liability to our infirmities and diseases. It was the very reverse; it was the power that dispelled sickness from every patient in contact with Himself; and this withal as One not in un feeling distance, but Who (in love as deep as His power) took all, bore all, upon His spirit with God. Divine grace and human sorrow filled His heart, guided His mouth, and directed His hand. Yet none the less, but the more, was He the outcast Son of man. The foxes had holes, and the birds of the air had nests, but He—? He had not where to lay His head. It was not law; nor was it necessity of circumstances or position; it was His grace in a world gone from God. If flesh offered to follow, it had better weigh whither Jesus goes and leads: for He does claim the heart, even at cost of breaking the nearest ties of nature. The burial of a father must yield to the paramount call of the despised Nazarene, if indeed we know His glory and have heard His voice. Jesus is Lord of the living. Those who do not follow Him are dead; they love their own. Leave the dead to bury their own dead. Is it not so, O faithless disciples? Do you presume to have greater love than His? to know His mind better than the Master? I do not say that there are not storms, and that the bark in which the disciples follow Jesus is not frail; but the Man who slept in it through all was the Divine person Who arose at their cry and stilled their unbelieving fears by the word which rebuked the winds and the sea. Such was the Man who next cast out demons after a sort that could not be mistaken; but the world preferred the swine, demons, and all, to Jesus, unanimously beseeching Him to depart out of their coasts! Such is man; and such was Jesus even here below in the days of His flesh.
(To be continued, D.V.)