“If it’s not
about Jesus, it’s not about anything.”
(Motto of the
Fountain of Life)
PART 1 OF 2
SPS: To study the humanity of Jesus; its meaning
and its value.
INVOCATION: Our Father in heaven, we pray in Jesus’ name
that the following message presents the Word of God humbly, honestly and
truthfully as it applies to the humanity of Jesus and that it bring glory and
honor to Him.
The Vicarious Humanity of Jesus is a
thread which weaves its way through the fabric of salvation.* But, practically
speaking, 21st Century Christians don’t think much about it. Although it is given some attention during
the Christmas and Easter seasons; nevertheless it is usually not the primary
topic, or even the secondary one in those seasonal sermons.
*[For
more about Jesus’ humanity see the December 2014 and January 2015 four part
series “Freedom in Christ” on this Fountain of Life Web Page]
Jesus was human. The words are easy to understand. We can easily relate to them because, after
all, we too are human. But do the words
have a deeper, a broader meaning? For
the greater part of my life, I would answer, no; there is no need to seek deeper
meaning; it is straight forward and means what it says, “Jesus was human.” Why should we seek a subtext or read between
the lines for secret or hidden knowledge? After all a rose by another name is just a
rose, no more no less. But, Beloved, if Christ’
humanity does have a deeper meaning, what is it? How are we to recognize it? Was he human or is He human? How are we to understand it?
MORE THAN WORDS
 |
| Rev. Todd Crouch |
Rev.
Todd Crouch,
Senior Pastor of the Fountain of Life in Washington PA and of sister
congregations in Wheeling WVA and Cambridge OH, and host of the Fountain of
Life Radio Program on RKP International Radio, tells a story of attending a
2007 Grace Communion International (GCI) conference in Palm Springs.
 |
| Dr. Dan Rogers |
Dr.
Dan Rogers, Director of GCI Church Administration, was addressing the
assembled pastors on scriptures concerning the humanity of Jesus. Rev. Crouch remembers sitting in his seat
thinking that “These are things we know; things that are already in the Bible.” But then Rogers said something that focused those
scriptures for Crouch like the tuning of a kaleidoscope, where many unrelated
images unexpectedly snap into a coherent form.
The thing that Rogers said was, “Jesus
did not leave His humanity in the grave.”
Many in today’s church, consciously or unconsciously think that Jesus left
his humanity in the grave when He arose.
I once thought that way. A lot of
people think of Jesus’ humanity as occurring 2000 years ago when He was here on
earth; when He was eating, sleeping, walking and talking and breathing. But once He’s crucified, resurrected, ascended
and at the right hand of God, we don’t think of His humanity very much. His humanity becomes ancient history. We may not go as far as to deny His humanity,
but we hardly think of it any longer; we hardly believe it relevant anymore. We think of Him as fully God again.
This attitude is more common than might be expected. The statement that this attitude is common is
supported by the Christian and Secular preoccupation with things
surrounding the last book of the Bible, Revelation. From Christian scholars to Public Television
Specials, the End Times are viewed as a period of godly righteous power. Jesus is not a baby anymore, no longer a poor
humble teacher, no longer a mild forgiving savior. He is now understood in His new identity as a
divine conquering king, an invincible warrior on a great white horse coming to
deal divine justice, vengeance and godly wrath against His enemies; sending
plagues, woes, famines; hurling lightning bolts to smite the wicked. This is what I had focused upon. It is a story of power, power and more power.
And it is divine power in no way to be
confused with human power or even to be linked with humanity. Jesus’ humanity has no place in this one
dimensional portrait of Christ the conquering King. And the undercurrent in this great story of
the conquering Christ is that some special chosen Christians are finally getting
validated; are on the winning side; are not left behind.
 |
| William P. Young |
William
P. Young, author of “The Shack” has observed that, “…for a lot of people,
they’ve never been able to use any imagery of God other than Zeus. We’ve Christianized Zeus – or (made Him) Gandalf with an attitude (A good wizard character from Tolkien’s “Lord of The Rings”).
In the Americas, we celebrate two
important days. Independence Day and
Cinco de Mayo. In Europe the signing of
the Magna Carta and Bastille Day are important.
But let us here consider July 4th as representative of all
important historical events. Thomas
Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. He invested his fortune, time and energy into
freedom. Poetically, he poured his
life into Independence Day.
Today we celebrate Christmas,
Good Friday and Easter in much the same way in which we celebrate Independence
Day. We turn the holy days into holidays,
into events. The Holidays mark the
beginning or the end of something.
Perhaps we too often forget what that something was. And the celebration of the event seems to
grow more important than the essence of the event itself. This holiday mind set understands the holy
days as just points on the time line of history which mark the beginning and
end of the humanity of Jesus, and become memorials or symbols of events which
happened to Him years ago.
If that is the case then the God
is Zeus perception is somewhat understandable. After all, what larger event can be imagined
by the mind of man than The End of the World?
In the holiday mindset this event overshadows everything or everyone who
ever existed. The ancillary events
leading to the Final Judgment loom ever and ever larger and take on an
importance or a life of their own. The
End Times are majestic; they are divine.
What God is more worthy to infuse them other than one who throws
lightning bolts on the wicked? That
worthy God is just waiting His turn on the time line of history to play His
part in the greatest event in history.
Where do we find the holiday celebration in a terrible Day of
Judgment?
It is found in those protected
few who recognize the signs and the times and wait eagerly for the anticipated prophesied
events to unfold before their eyes. That
celebration becomes an acute comfort and driving force in a few minds. The humanity of Jesus is very lacking in this
End Time view.
TWO POINTS of DIFFERENCE
But the Independence Day event is
not like Christmas in two very important ways. The first and most obvious one is that
Independence Day has no meaning or value to anyone who died before 1776. It has no value to anyone living outside the
jurisdiction of the United States of America.
Whereas Christmas has value to all souls born yesterday, today and
tomorrow. There is no time or
geographical limit for anyone concerning the value that Christmas has for them.
But why or how can this be? The second
point, below, answers that.
Let us consider that Thomas
Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and, figuratively, his time,
energy and life are in Independence Day; his thoughts infuse Independence Day. However, his lively participation in the July
4th event began and ended in 1776.
In reality he has no active participation in anything. His life infuses nothing, it cannot because
Mr. Jefferson is not here today. In
reality his incredible life was just a point on the time line of history. His part ended and he moved off the
stage. And that is the incalculable
difference with Christmas, Good Friday and Easter. Jesus’ part did not end.
The incarnation is not a onetime
point on the time line of history. The Incarnation which began at
Christmas inaugurated the humanity of Christ.
The Incarnation infuses Christmas, Good Friday and Easter. The Incarnation did not end at Easter. Let us rewrite the preceding two sentences
for emphasis. The humanity of Christ
infuses Christmas, Good Friday and Easter.
The Humanity of Christ did not end at Easter. And, beloved, the humanity of Christ also
totally infuses the End Times. But that
is a topic for another day.* This
continuing Incarnation is so important. Jesus’
continuing humanity labors against people who honestly think that God became a
human only for 33 years, and that the Resurrection ended that phase of Jesus’ life
when He became fully god again and left His humanity in the grave. Now that view is fraught with theological
errors. It is presented here only as
representative of common deeply held misconceptions of Jesus. But Scriptures have taught for centuries that
Jesus remained incarnate. He remained fused with and into our
humanity.
**[For more on views of Revelation see Rev. Todd Crouch’s five part series on
“Rapture and History” in the November and December 2014 drop down tags and
three part series “The 7 Churches of the Apocalypse” in the August 2014 drop
down tags on this Fountain of Life Web Page.]
 |
| Theologian Gerrit Dawson |
What is the
importance of a continuing Incarnation?
Gerrit Scott Dawson, theologian, author and pastor of First Presbyterian Church in
Baton Rouge, Louisiana has made the following statement which is theologically
sound and beautiful; almost poetical: “That means that the same Jesus who gathered the little
children in his arms and touched them and blessed them, the same Jesus who
accepted the tears of the sinful woman and pronounced forgiveness to her, the
same Jesus who was willing to touch someone with a terrible disease and to heal
them, that’s the same Jesus that we relate to now. He still has the memory of walking among us on
this earth. He still has our flesh. He’s
still the Jesus that we meet in the Gospels.”
Dawson continued: “To know His true humanity, that He is both fully God but fully human in the
way that we are human, that when the Son of God came to us He penetrated into
our lost and forsaken condition, or as Douglas Sparrow says, He pursued us all
the way to the place of our fallenness. Not
just abstractly in some philosophical sense—He did it by becoming what we are,
taking up real humanity, He truly embraced us.
He keeps that humanity and remains the one who knows what it’s like to
be tempted. He knows what it’s like to
have suffered. He knows what it’s like
to struggle and have burdens. It is His
vicarious humanity which guarantees that He’s no stranger to what we’re
feeling.”
 |
| Church Father, Tertulliann |
Church Father, Tertullian (160 – 220
AD), wrote about the Ascension and saw in Ephesians 1:13-14 what he called
a double pledge that the Ascension gives to us.
Ephesians 1:13-14 reads: “You were sealed with that holy Spirit of
Promise. Which is the earnest of our
inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise
of his glory.”
Tertullian shows that this is where the Holy Spirit of promise is the double earnest, or down payment, or guaranty of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession.
Tertullian shows that this is where the Holy Spirit of promise is the double earnest, or down payment, or guaranty of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession.
We Brethren, you and I are
that purchased possession. Jesus’ humanity,
today in heaven, is the guarantee or the down payment of that promise in two
ways. First: It is the guarantee of our hope of being
united to Christ in heaven. Second: Tertullian adds that the body of Jesus in
heaven is the guarantee, the partner pledge of how we are united to
Christ – Dawson explains this second pledge:
“That because He’s holding our flesh in heaven, it’s the down payment
that we will not live some airy spiritual existence only, but we will be
embodied in a full glorified resurrection body. Jesus is the pledge of that.”
This observation of Tertullian is really important. It touches upon the fact that we have the
guaranty of eternal life. That means
that Jesus’ mission and ministry continues. His work of redemption did not end at the
cross. But by ascending bodily into
heaven, He is still continuing to be the God-man. He’s still holding our
humanity inside Himself, inside the God-head, continually uniting Himself to
us.
What about our humanity in eternity? What about our “airy spiritual existence”? How many of us see our heavenly reward as
just sitting on a cloud playing a harp into eternity? Paul writes in Philippians 3:20-21 that He will transform our lowly body to be
like His glorious body. What does that
mean? It means that in your resurrected
body you retain your individual identity.
That body is not designed to sit on a cloud. You are still you, and I am still me.
I know you and you recognize me. And this is guaranteed by the fact that Jesus
retains His humanity in His body; resurrected, transformed and glorified, but
still His body in which He was crucified, died, buried, and ascended; the same
body which is seated in heaven (Ephesians
2:6); the same body which stands amid the seven candlesticks (Revelation 1:13). In terms of what happens to us in the future,
that’s really important; really exciting.
The awareness of His vicarious humanity also impacts how we understand our salvation.
As mentioned above, we often think of
our salvation as simply an event, a onetime transaction that occurred at and on
the cross. Yes, at the cross Christ took
the sins of the world, your sins…my sins upon himself. This destroyed our sins and freed us from the
penalty of death. But His ministry did
not end there. Jesus not only was
our atoning sacrifice offered yesterday 2000 years ago; Jesus is our
atoning sacrifice today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). He reconciles God and humanity by being, in Himself
human and divine; the one who brings those two natures together. So our
atonement continues because Christ’s incarnation continues.
We find some examples of this atonement in the Old Testament. We see the holy of holies, ancient Israel, the
Tabernacle and then the Temple. The Day
of Atonement ritual points to the fact that separation exists between God and
men, a mediator is needed. Sin is
costly, it leads to death. Man is
helpless and needs a substitute to provide atonement.
Once a year, the High Priest was able to enter
the temple and approach God and perform the ritual of atonement on Yom Kippur. The High Priest would bring a sacrifice to
God on behalf of all the people. Exodus
and Leviticus record that the High Priest would get dressed with a breastplate
upon which were inscribed the names of the twelve tribes of Israel.
As Dawson describes it: “That, in a sense, meant that he was writing
onto his very heart the names of God’s people and he was, in a sense, bearing
all of Israel with him as he prepared to go in to the holy of holies.”
Following the narratives in Exodus and Leviticus we read that firstly he
would prepare himself by ritual washing and dressing in the ritual garments. Next he would offer a bull as a sacrifice of
sin for himself and his family and enter the holy of holies with a censor of
burning coals and incense. After
sprinkling the bull’s blood on the mercy seat, he would sacrifice the first
goat and bring its blood into the holy of holies, sprinkle it on the mercy seat
and thereby make intercession, confessing the people’s sins, acting in their
name and on their behalf.
Finally he would place his hands on the second goat, scapegoat – the goat
that carried away the sins of the people into the wilderness, and he would
bless the people and declared them to be forgiven. On that one day, the High Priest, by acting on
behalf of the people, made an atonement for the people through rituals directed
and accepted by God. And then acting on the
behalf of God through ritual blessings sanctioned by God, he brought God’s forgiveness
to the people.
Here we can examine the parallels with Jesus which form the type antitype
fulfillment of prophecy. We see Jesus, as our High Priest, clothed in
the garment of vicarious humanity; making it our humanity. And, as Dawson points out, “…just as the High
Priest carried the names of the people over His heart, Jesus, in wearing our
flesh, wrote the name of all humanity into Himself. He bore us in Himself… He
was the offerer of the sacrifice, but that sacrifice was Himself. And so Jesus, in making that perfect
atonement, then was able to go into the holy of holies bearing our humanity.” In presenting Himself as the sacrifice for
the people at the altar of the cross and spilling His blood there for us at the
mercy seat of the cross, Jesus became both the priest and the victim.
Dawson continues: “In His ascension Jesus has triumphed, in His
resurrection He broke the power of death. But if it just ended there, Jesus would have
had to either die again, like Lazarus did, or He’d still be somewhere in the
world that we could go to Him and talk to Him, but we’d have to journey to Him
and He would only be limited in the access that people would have. The ascension is necessary to complete that
story: that Jesus rose went up to heaven, and that signals His triumph as Lord
and King of all. He is now the one, as
Revelation tells us, who holds the keys of death and Hades in His hands, He is
the Lord of the kings of earth – as Revelation tells us. He is the ruler of all things. That means that we have a pretty high claim on
who Jesus is and an understanding that all knowledge of
God now centers in the person of Christ. All truth about who God is, is shown to us in
the face of Jesus Christ.”
In part 2 of 2 we shall consider Jesus’
continuing mission as Mediator, Savior and King.
Benediction: Beloved, may the song of your salvation
continue to grow and deepen throughout all eternity. May the grace and peace of God our Father,
and that of Jesus our Lord and Savior be with you all.
Rev. George Relic, Assistant Pastor (724-583-9217)
Fountain of Life Church
2021 Old National Pike,
Washington, Pa 15301
A congregation of Grace Communion International
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