The great secret of our religion
We have since last Sunday been endeavouring to take a fresh look and gain a new perspective on Jesus. In a time when Jesus has been reduced by a secular world to being an ordinary even if significant man and when in the church Jesus has become very often little more than the chum next door we need to focus as we having been doing on the actual reality of Jesus. I hope that God has allowed us all to glimpse and understand something of the power and majesty and eternal nature of this person we know as Jesus.
Paul talks about the great secret of our religion. And when he does so he means our understanding that the divine became human in Jesus. It is knowing firstly that in Jesus we are dealing with God. it is trying hard though it is to grasp the reality of the incarnation that the almighty, all powerful, all knowing, transcendent God took on human form. In his first letter to Timothy in Chapter 3 we read in the RSV, "He (that is God) was manifested in he flesh(that is took on human form), vindicated in the Spirit (that is justified), preached among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory."
This is the secret, the mystery of our religion. Jesus was utterly and totally divine. Jesus was utterly and totally human. Such is the mystery. More than that. We must understand the truth, there is a man in heaven. A man who is part of the Godhead. His name is Jesus. He calls us brother. He has opened for us the way to heaven. He has laid open before us the way to the very gates of the new Jerusalem.
And yet he was like us. he experienced what we experience. Do we not recall how on this very night he went into Garden? In Matthew 26v37, "He took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee. Grief and anguish came over him and he said to them, "The sorrow in my heart is so great that it almost crushes me." How human he was, how he feels as we feel. How he understands how we feel.
And didn't he grow as we grew, " the child grew and became strong...." - did he not experience as we did all the joys and pangs of childhood and adolescence. Did he not experience hunger after his temptation in the desert (Luke 4). Didn't he grow weary? Didn't he fall asleep in the boat in the middle of the day?(Luke 8). And of course that most famous and often ill used statement that the Lord made to his would be followers:"Foxes have holes, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lie down and rest." He had nothing in this world. They gambled for his garments in death - there was no estate - no wealth. He had a human body that ached and grumbled just as ours do, when he walked he grew tired, he need water, he needed rest. Didn't he weep outside the tomb of Lazarus, wasn't he moved to tears when he gazed on stubborn Jerusalem, wasn't he overcome by desolation on the cross as he cried out, "my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me." Didn't his mother weep as he died.
And you see, here is the great mystery - the great secret Christ came into the world from the heavenly realm. The great God took on human form. This is truly a mystery that is beyond our understanding - we can grasp at it but it always eludes our definition or understanding.
Now I am aware of my own weakness in trying to communicate to you the great truths about Christ. Let me try in some way to offset this and share with you this quotation from Volume 1 of the Collected writings of William Still, I have taken this quote from the Chapter entitled the Person and Work of Christ.
"The Father is of none, neither begotten as the Son is, nor proceeding,as is the
pirit. The Son is eternally begotten of the Father - there never was a time when the Father existed without the Son; the Son is as eternal as the Father, and is therefore equal with him in power, glory and eternity. The Scriptures are very clear that the eternal Son is very God; nor does the fact that Christ is the second person of the Trinity detract from his deity, nor the fact hat he became man. His place as the Lamb on the throne of God is proof of that. What is said of the Godhead in the Westminster Confession is true of him, "To him is due from angels and men, and every other creature, whatsoever worship, service or obedience, he is pleased to require of them." He is not only the exact replica of the almighty, reflecting completely the effulgence of his glory, but he bears the very stamp, impress, matrix or sovereign superscription of his image. He is co-Creator with the Father."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 were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life (not only life bearing life but life giving life) and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. This is what we celebrate in Edward Caswall's hymn, "LO, within a manger lows, He who built the starry skies." He was made flesh of our flesh, and truly took our manhood upon him, and was like us in every regard, sin apart."
And let me continue to quote from those so much wiser than myself - in this case from the Westminster Confession Faith, "The Son of God, the second person in the trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance and equal with the Father, did, when the fullness of time was come, take upon him man's nature, with all th essential properties and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin' being conceived by the power of the Holy ghost, in the womb of the Virgin Mary of her substance. So that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition or confusion. Which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, the only mediator between God and man. The Lord Jesus, in his human nature thus united to the divine was sanctified and anointed with the Holy Spirit above measure; having in him all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge; in whom it pleased the Father that all fullness should dwell."
Do we then in the dealing with all this begin to grasp just a little of who Jesus was and is? Do we see beyond the man who lived 2,00 years ago syndrome? Do we see now beyond the modern chummy next door neighbour model of Jesus? Let out souls grasp the truth. And let it be that we understand that it was this divine creator God who became man who tomorrow will die. Let us all understand that it was the divine Lord himself who commanded us to take bread and wine ................