Christ's humanity is essential for salvation and our present help, as demonstrated by his incarnation and suffering. The sermon traces historical challenges to Christ's true humanity, from docetism to later theological debates, emphasizing that scripture consistently affirms his full manhood. By becoming human, Christ could fulfill Old Testament prophecies, act as a perfect high priest, and form a spiritual family, the church. His humanity means he perfectly understands and sympathizes with our infirmities, offering reconciliation and ongoing care.
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We want to begin our series this morning, and it will continue for a number of meetings on the subject of the humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ, his humanity. And we're going to read, beginning in verse five of Hebrews chapter two, for unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come whereal we speak, but one in a certain place testified saying, what is man that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that thou visitest him. Thou madeest him a little lower than the angels. Thou crownest him with glory and honor, and did set him over the works of thy hands.
Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that he's not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him, but we see Jesus. who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor, that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering. For both he that sanctify us, and they who are sanctified, are all one, for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren.
saying, I will declare thy name unto my brethren, and in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee. And again I will put my trust in him, and again behold I and the children which God hath given me, for as much then, as the children of our takers of flesh and blood. He also himself likewise took part of the same, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil. and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetimes subject to bondage. For verily he took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.
For in that he himself has suffered being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted. May the Lord bless the reading of his word. Let's pray together. Our Father, as we would speak of the most glorious person in the universe, thy beloved son, we pray that our hearts will be calm, our minds will be active, and that the words of our mouth and the meditation of our heart will be acceptable before thee. For our desire is to glorify thy Son and to learn of him so that we find rest for our souls in Jesus' name.
Amen. This century in which we live is a difficult one. Wars and rumors of wars are rampant with earthquakes and other natural disorders taking their toll worldwide. And the news media brings these things to our attention in ways that once could only be imagined. But beloved, the theological world has been shaken by wars and earthquakes of its own. We have seen the blossoming of modernism in our century. Modernism is a movement that is noted for its abandonment of the doctrine of the deity of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And much of fundamentalism and evangelicalism has been shaped by our reaction to their denial. But when we study church history, we find that the humanity of Christ has come under attack far more than his deity. His humanity has been under attack. far more than his deity. And I'm going to just give you a brief in this introduction. Church history of how the humanity of Christ has been under attack.
I'm not going to give you an extensive history. I'll add a little bit of it tonight. I'll add a little bit to it tonight. But in the first century, there is what is known as docetism. And the docetic. and the reason it's called docetism. They who have fell prey to the doceti. And the epistle of First John is the answer of God to those who would wrongly teach the humanity of Christ. And that word, docetism, or the doceti, comes from the Greek word, which means to appear.
or to seem. Now, the docetists, they contended that Christ just seemed to be a man. He only appeared like an apparition. He wasn't a true man, is what they taught. And the reason they taught that, they thought that all flesh and all matter was evil. And Christ couldn't have any evil. They were protecting... If you please the deity of Christ. They were trying to protect the deity of Christ. And while they did, they were rejecting the true humanity of Christ.
They hoped to preserve the purity of Christ by denying that his flesh was real. They said it's just an appearance. Now, the first epistle of John addresses this as well as the second epistle of John. And I'd like you to turn to two passages, First John chapter four. We could begin with the opening words of First John, but we'll just go to chapter four. First John chapter four, verse two, where we read, Hereby know ye the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God.
And every spirit that confesseth not That Jesus Christ has come in the flesh Is not of God. And this is very clear. Second John. Verse seven. Second epistle of John. The first chapter. Seventh verse. Where we read. For many deceivers are entered into the world. Who confess not. That Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. This is a deceiver. and an Antichrist. And then he goes on and he tells how the church is to deal with them. Verse eight, look to yourself that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward.
Whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come unto you and bring not this doctrine. Receive him not into your house, neither bid him God's speed. For he that biddeth in God's speed is partaker of his evil deeds. So we find that the Josephists were to be dealt with in a very real way. They were not to be given a platform and the privilege of spreading their doctrine.
That was the first century. But in the fourth and the fifth century, we saw the development of monotheism. And that just simply means, one, naturism. It is also known as Utaikianism, because it was a man by the name of Utaikis who spread this teaching. What is the teaching of Utaikianism? Well, it was simply they denied... the distinction between the divine nature of Christ and the human nature of Christ, they held that the two refused to get up to form a third nature, which was neither divine nor human.
If our Lord had only the nature of God or a composite nature, there was a mixture of humanity and deity, how could he be truly human? As the Word of God shall aptly state in the portion we read together, Hebrews chapter two. Well, both of these, docetism and utopianism, were very straightforward attacks upon the humanity of Christ. So then you come down to the thirteenth century, and the Roman Catholic Church adopted the view that in the Lord's Supper, in the Eucharist, that the bread and the wine become the literal body and blood of Christ.
And that is still taught today. Not to them it was bread and wine. To the sense of sight, to the sense of taste. They simply teach they were deceived by their own senses. That's what they're saying. And the humanity of Christ is that which must be preserved, the teaching concerning his humanity. But then you come down to the time of the Reformation, and you come to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and you have the Anabaptist, and some of the Anabaptists taught that Christ's flesh was heavenly flesh, and that meant nothing, and that he received nothing of Mary's humanity.
and none of it was passed on to her son. They not only taught it, but they wrote it. Some and a Baptist, not all, just some. In their view, Mary acted only as a container in which the Lord Jesus spent nine months before his birth. Well, we're coming to Hebrews chapter two now, and I want to begin to expound the doctrines that is here in Hebrews two concerning the humanity of Christ. First of all, Jesus Christ is truly man. The scriptures here declare this in many ways.
In the earliest prophecy in the Bible, Genesis chapter three, verse fifteen. And the whole scripture flows out of Genesis three, fifteen, where the Lord said to Satan, and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed. He shall crush your head, but you're going to bruise his heel. I want you to think about that first inception of the gospel in the Bible. It was spoken to Satan, and it was spoken concerning the seed of the woman. We learned three things.
First of all, There is nothing in that prophecy that suggests Christ deity. There is nothing of the deity of Christ in that passage. I will put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed. The second thing is this. The very offspring of the woman was going to be a man. It was a man who was coming, who was going to crush. the head of the serpent. That's the second thing that we learn from that text. And the third thing we learn is that Satan would bruise his heel.
That means he would be vulnerable to the attack of Satan, which declares unto us the humanity of Christ. Now when you go through the Old Testament and you have the development of the doctrine of the person of Christ in the Old Testament. You have the Theophany where our Lord appeared in human form as He did to Abraham, as He did to Manoa, as He did to Joshua, and as He did to Moses at the burning bush. And of course you have the great prophecy in Isaiah chapter nine. For unto us a child is born, unto us the Son is given.
and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God. That child born is the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace. So here we learn that this one who is truly human, who is coming, is also the Mighty God. And of course, when you come to Micah chapter five, in that great prophecy concerning the place where he's going to be born, and now Bethlehem Ephrata, Though thou be the least among the inhabitants of Judah, yet out of thee shall come forth him who is to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth were of old from everlasting.
That man who's going to come of the tribe of Judah, a son of David, will be born in Bethlehem, but he's from everlasting. But you don't find that truth in Genesis three-fifteenth. It is developed later. In the first announcement of the gospel, we learn the humanity of our Lord. But then you come to the birth announcements in the New Testament. In Matthew and in Luke, we find the angel said, you'll find a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger. That's what the angel said to the shepherds.
And then in Luke chapter two, we find that the baby grows up. We see him as twelve years of age, living in a family. And then when we come to the activity of our Lord, we see his humanity. We find that he was a man who got hungry. Luke chapter four, verse two. He got thirsty. John chapter four, verse seven. He got tired. John chapter four and verse six. He felt agony. Matthew chapter twenty-six verses thirty-eight and thirty-nine. The agony that he felt in the Garden of Gethsemane.
And of course, in John nineteen verse thirty-one he died. The humanity of our war is seen in the Old Testament. and it is definitely seen in the news. But now, the reality of Christ's humanity, it pervades the whole of Scripture. It pervades the whole of Scripture. Behold the man. What does that really mean? Where does the importance of the humanity of Christ lie? And that's where we are in Hebrews chapter two.
Well, It lies in this fact. It proves that God is true. The prophecies of the Old Testament find their fulfillment in him. It came to pass. This promised God man has come. As we read in Galatians four, verse four, when the fullness of the time has come, God sent forth his son, made of a woman. and that expression made of a woman goes back to Genesis three thirteen and it proves his humanity he was prophesied to come and it is prophesied he would be a man why is this so important because none other than the God man could make sinful man right in the sight of a holy God.
We must be right when it comes to what we believe concerning the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. To this end, in order that man might be saved and that man might be right in the presence of a holy God, the Word became flesh. As you read in John And we're going to look at it tonight. And the word became flesh. And tabernacle among us. And we beheld his glory. But let me read that expression in John one fourteen.
And the word became flesh. It means more than just meat on the bone. It means he became truly human. So much for the introduction. Now let's look at Hebrews two. And we want to look at Hebrews chapter two from verses five through eighteen. In verses five through eight we have two things. Notice verse five. For unto the angels has he not put in subjection the world to come whereof we speak. but one in a certain place testified saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that thou visitest him?
Thou madeest him a little lower than the angels, thou crownest him with glory and honour, and did set him over the works of our hands. Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet, for in that he hath put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that he's not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him. First of all, the first thing we see in these verses is that man was promised dominion over the earth and over all creation. That was promised to man. These verses are a quotation from the eighth Psalm. Psalm eight is a Psalm of the Son of Man in particular.
And here we find that God promised man To be king of the earth. That's what God promised. The second thing that we notice in these verses is this. And you really need to grasp this. We can't see everything under the control of man. Why? Simply because it doesn't exist. It's not under man's control. And we learned that last Sunday as we examined the closing chapters of the book of Job. When God spoke as he did to Job.
When God revealed himself to him. It was promised to man. But we don't see it. You see. As a promise of God failed. Oh no. But what's happening here? In Hebrews chapter two. We have a development. That is so important. Well, the promise of God hasn't failed, friends. Now, mankind does have control. And he has control over all things in the person of Jesus Christ. Notice verses nine and ten. The end of verse eight says, But now we see not yet all things put under him.
But we see Jesus. Do you see him today? How do you see him? We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor. That he, by the grace of God, should take steps for every... And man is not in the original. It ends with the word ever in the Greek text. And I like to think, he takes the death for every son, for son is in the context. It's in the context of Hebrews chapter two.
For it became him, verse ten, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering. Mankind has control over all things in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. How do I know? Remember the commission our Lord gave his disciples. Matthew twenty eight eighteen he said, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. These are not only words, but there's a man in the glory this morning who has all authority and he has all power.
when the promise given in Hebrews nine and ten. Salvation will come when that's fulfilled. When that promise is fulfilled, salvation will be ours in the fullest extent possible. Our bodies will be redeemed. But our text says, we see Jesus. And we see him crowned with glory and honor. Why? Because he died. He tasted death for us. You see, for the very purpose of death, he came.
He became a man. For nothing else would satisfy a holy God. The substitute must die. The death of an animal substitute would not do. Hebrews ten verse four says it's impossible for the blood of bulls and of goats to take away sin and since God was determined to bring many sons to glory he substituted the death of his dear son for each one of those sons God cannot die but the son of God did and he died because he became a man And because he became a man, he could be the perfect substitute for sinners, a substitute that God would accept.
And God has accepted him. We see not yet all things put under him, but we see Jesus, who has made a little more than the angels. Why? For the suffering of death. How do we see him? We see him crowned with glory and honor, for he, by the grace of God, takes the death for his people, for all who will ever believe on him. But then he goes on. And in verses eleven through verse sixteen, we find that he not only sent him to be the propitiation for our sins, and to make satisfaction for sinners before the Holy Throne of God will be fine that he sent him to form a family.
Oh, don't miss this. To me, this is thrilling. He sent him to form a family. Hebrews two. And the writer takes great pains to teach us this. Notice verse eleven. For both he that sanctify us and they who are sanctified are all alone. For which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren? In other words, they are called brothers in verse eleven and also in verse twelve. In other words, our blessed Lord shares their humanity, the humanity of his brethren by dying to free the descendants of Abraham.
Now look at verse five. And what do we read in verse five? For unto the angels hath he not put in subjection the world to come whereof we speak. Now look at verse sixteen. For verily he took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham. I don't know if that's thrilling to you or not, but the angels, as you know, are of much higher order than man. And then our Lord came.
He didn't become an angel. He became a man. Second Peter, chapter two, verse four says, God spared not the angels of sin. When the angels sinned in their rebellion against the throne of God, not a one of them is saved. No salvation is provided for angels. But, beloved, we rebelled against God. And God, in the person of his Son, provided salvation for man.
Now we look at verse six again. And in verse six we read, but one in a certain place testified saying, what is man that thou art mindful of him? What is man? Isn't it amazing? No wonder the angels desire to look into our salvation as we read in first Peter. What is man? But thou art mindful of him. We're more than the angels. We rebelled against God's holy throne. And God provided redemption for angels.
No. He provided redemption for man. And I'd like to go a step further. He provided redemption for sinners of the Gentiles who are brought in and counted as Abraham's seed when they trust in Christ. For verily he took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham. I tell you, this is thrilling. He shares our humanity by dying for the descendants of Abraham, all who will believe on Christ.
as we read in Galatians chapter three the last verse but now we go a step further you see this chapter closes by showing that in his death and beyond his death what is beyond the death of Christ his resurrection his high priestly ministry at the right hand of the Father in his death and beyond his acts are the acts a one who feel our infirmity and who knows our needs. Notice verse seventeen. Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.
What have I learned from this? I learned that family membership involves family healing. Family membership involves family healing. Our Lord, through his death on the cross, not only saves his people, but he brings those people into a family known as the church. And in that family, the head of the church, feel the infirmity of the members. I'm a member of a family, a family that is protected and cared for by the one who made me a member.
The sins and the sufferings of God's people call forth the mercy and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. The humanity of Christ is so important. He became a man that he might die. He became a man that he might form a family known as a church. He became a man in order that he might know our feelings in every detail. In the Old Testament we read concerning the care of God for Israel in all their afflictions.
He was afflicted. That brings us to application number one this morning. For the forgiveness of our sins and for our comfort, we are indebted to the humanity of Jesus Christ. And I have a question. Do you think rightly About our Lord Jesus Christ. Do you think rightly about him? What is your concept of Jesus Christ? Is Jesus Christ simply God dressed up as a man? I'm so afraid that's what a lot of people have an idea of him.
That he's just simply God dressed up as a man. Oh beloved. Our Lord Jesus Christ is God, very God, and we must hold that truth beyond any degree of letting it slip. But Christ's control would be no more than a name if he were not God. Christ is God. But beloved, the humanity of Christ teaches us that there's a man in heaven. And this man in heaven knows our needs. And he knows both God and me.
And because of that, he can lay his hand on both the throne of God and my need at the same time. The humanity of Christ. Now my need, according to the word of God, is for just such a man. That's what Job longed for in Job chapter nine. Or that there was a days man between us who could lay his hand on the throne of God and lay his hand on me and bring us both together. Or that there was a mediator and thank God we have him.
We have him in the person of Christ. Now application number two. How do you think about Christ. Is he still a babe in the manger? You know there are a lot of people that only think of Christ at Christmas time when they see a manger scene and to them he's still a baby in the manger. If you join them then you cut him off from his humanity and you do what King Herod tried to do when he slew the infants of Bethlehem. you cut him off if the Lord is still a baby in the manger and poor souls that can only worship twice a year or once a year at Christmas time and you have to go back and see another manger scene but second do you think of him as hanging on the cross as a crucifix presents him Now he's, this is a little better than perpetual babyhood.
But your vision is still very defective. If that is your vision of Christ, as it is to many people, that he's hanging on the cross. And people who display a crucifix and make signs to it, Christ is on the cross. And if that's his condition, then he's the one who needs help. Then he needs help. And you know, there are many today who turn to all kinds of help, but to the one who can truly help you.
The one who knows their infirmities, who feels their needs, and who cares for them. The word, friend, was made flesh and tabernacled among us. You see, the humanity of Jesus Christ is a central doctrine of the Christian faith. God became a man. No, it doesn't stand alone. We don't uphold the humanity of Christ and set it in opposition to his deity. without his humanity there is no atonement and there is no present help for anyone in need but you see the truth is this our blessed Lord had to be who he was to do what he did he had to be both God and man he is true God and he is true man and we don't make I trust any of the foolish mistakes concerning
his humanity that have been made down to church history but that we recognize this morning that there's a man in the glory and that one knows us perfectly and he met every need for my salvation and he meets every need for my care is he yours can you say yes he's mine he truly identified himself with us I read it this morning in Hebrews chapter two let's pray together our father we thank you for the person of thy beloved son We thank you that he is all that he claimed to be.
We thank you that he is true man. He took not on him the nature of angels, but he took on him the seed of Abraham. We thank you that he's not only true man, but he's true God. Great is the mystery of godliness. God is manifest in the flesh. We thank you for it. And we praise you for your wondrous grace. We ask you now that you will take this word and bless it to every heart. And now we commend ourselves to thee and to thy grace. And may thy grace, thy mercy, and thy peace, be the portion of all who heard thy word this morning, realize it, who our Lord Jesus Christ is, and will thank you in his worthy name.