JESUS, THE GOD-MAN

 

JESUS

THE GOD-MAN

 

WHY DID OUR SAVIOR HAVE TO BE GOD?

 

The wages of sin is Eternal Death 

Rom 5.23 For the wages of sin is death; 

 

The gift of God is Eternal Life
Rom 5.23 ...but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

 

Only God is Eternal – no beginning, no end.

 

Since the penalty for sin is ETERNAL DEATH and the free gift of God is ETERNAL LIFE, only an ETERNAL GOD could satisfy the eternal debt and provide this eternal gift. 

 

This could be a little confusing to say that "Eternal" means no beginning and no end yet refer to our gift of salvation as eternal. Our gift of salvation is not eternal, as referring to no beginning and no end. Man is not eternal. He had a beginning at conception. Our salvation is eternal in that the source of "eternal" salvation is given by our Eternal Savior. "Eternal" means that our eternal salvation was given to us by our Eternal Savior. The source of our salvation is from the Eternal God. Further, after we are conceived, we are created to be infinite - having no end. We will continue on even after separated from this fleshly body as souls without end, either in heaven or hell...forever.

 

As a side note out of the purview of this paper, though, in the stretches of the doctrine of eternal election, we were preordained to be saved from eternity past before the world was ever created. We were “in the mind of God” from eternity past to be His elect – chosen before the foundation of the world.

 

This is the only way I can perceive that our salvation could be referred to as "eternal"...in the mind of the Eternal God before we were ever created, we were gifted with salvation…from eternity past.

 

Ephesians 1.3-6

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved

 

Additionally, only God could cover the breadth and depth of wages for ALL mankind, throughout all the past ages and all the future ages in one event in history. 

 

WHY DID OUR SAVIOR HAVE TO BE MAN?

Because it was MAN who sinned, thus, it must be MAN to pay or bear the wages. 

 

So, God became a man and was our substitute and Representative for Paying the wages Himself. 

Jn 1.1-3, 14: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being....And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. (The Immaculate Conception) 

 

Also... John 3.16
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. “

 

Ultimately, Jesus would be our substitute Who would take our sins upon Himself and give us His righteousness that we might be right with God.

 

After this great unequal swap, giving us His righteous credit for our wages of death, God the Father would love us the same as He loved His Son. God sees us now through the filtered righteousness of the Son.

 

John 17.23

I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.

 

2 Corinthians 5.21

He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

 

Only ...There is ONLY ONE. 

 

There is none other. He is unique – Undiminished deity and humanity in ONE UNIQUE person; Never before, never again. 

 

Begotten... God became flesh - Born/begotten - The Incarnation – what we celebrate at Christmas. 

 

Son...The designation of the Second Person of the Trinity – not generated, but order of the Trinity. Not second best or lesser but position. 

 

The child in the womb of Mary was called the Son of God. 

He would be true humanity and undiminished deity united together in one person by the miracle of the virgin birth. 

Without the virgin birth He would have a sinful nature like us and would not have been qualified to become our substitute for sin.

(Sin’s nature and penalty is passed down through the male. Rom 5.12-18) 

 

As true humanity, he could be our representative; as sinless humanity, he was qualified to die for our sins...not His own – He was Impeccable. It was not required to be sinful to be human. Adam, pre-fall, was sinless and human.

 

Without the conception in the womb, he would not have been truly human. 

 

The incarnation did not make Him Son of God,
it was the means by which the Son of God became man that He might die for our sin.

 

WHAT DOES “SON OF GOD” MEAN?

Son of God. Our Lord used this designation of Himself (though rarely, John 10:36), and He acknowledged its truthfulness when it was used by others of Him.

(Matt. 26:63-64). What does it mean? 

Though the phrase “son of” can mean “offspring of,” it also carries the meaning “of the order of.” 

Thus in the Old Testament “sons of the prophets” meant of the order of prophets (1 Kings 20:35), and “sons of the singers” meant of the order of the singers (Neh. 12:28).

The designation “Son of God” when used of our Lord means of the order of God and is a strong and clear claim to full Deity. 

Thus for Christ to say, ‘I am the Son of God’ (John 10:36)
was understood by His contemporaries as identifying Himself as God, equal with the Father, in an unqualified sense” 

‘Son of man,’ especially as applied to Christ in Daniel 7:13 and constantly in the New Testament, essentially means ‘The Representative Man.’ (Jn 3.13-14; 5.27) 

WHAT DOES “ONLY BEGOTTEN” MEAN?

The word “if” is a conditional statement of certainty... “If” equals “It is true that...” If Jesus is said to be the only begotten Son of God (using the figure from human language to make the point), then Jesus has the same nature as the Father. 

If Jesus has the same nature as God the Father, then Jesus is divine and eternal as well.

If he is eternally God, then there was never a time he was literally begotten— which is why we know the language is figurative to describe his nature, and not his beginning.

To call Jesus “the only begotten Son” means that he is fully divine and eternal. He is unique and one of a kind. He is God the Son.