And with our hands have handled!

I believe that Jesus came in the flesh. Let’s take a look at what that means.

1 John 1:1-2 is a good place to start. In these verses John is explaining what it means to come in the flesh. Later in 1 John 4, he tells us to use this teaching to try the spirits. So if we understand I John 1:1-2, then we can try the spirits like John says to do. So let’s look at what John says.

1Jn 1:1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;
1Jn 1:2 (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;)

The flesh that John heard, saw, looked upon and with his hands handled…was from the beginning, of the word of Life, and with the Father prior to being manifested to us. This isn’t Mary’s flesh. She wasn’t from the beginning, she wasn’t of the word of life, etc. She was just a clay descendent of Adam like your wife or mine. Highly favored, but in the end she went back to the earth like all of us clay folk. The miracle of the virgin birth is that God gave us a good and perfect gift from heaven. Jesus – the Firstborn – descended from heaven just like He said (John 6:48-51). Unbelieving Jews (John 6:41) as well as many of disciples murmured and would walk no more with Him (John 6:66) when He made this claim. He simply responded, “will you believe that I came down from heaven if you saw me ascend back there?”

My experience has been that most seem to believe that Jesus took His flesh from Mary and His spirit came from God. John’s words in I John 1:1-2 would not make sense if Jesus’ flesh came from Mary. John said he touched and handled something that was from the beginning and of the word of Life. Again, this is not Mary’s flesh. So my simple belief is that Jesus, God’s Firstbegotten, descended from heaven – body, soul, spirit. The good and perfect gift, the Lamb without Blemish, came from above. He had flesh, but it was not corruptible clay like me, you and Mary had (see 1 Corinthians 15:39-49). He came in the likeness of sinful flesh, not in human flesh (Romans 8:3).

Mankind often has things turned around. We think if someone has a body and a shape that looks like a man and can feel pain, discouragement, fatigue, die, etc., then that man is a clay man (a human) like us. This just reveals our earth centered view. We were created in His image, not He in ours. We look like we look and have emotions and pain and suffer because Jesus looked that way first and because God can feel this range of emotions. And yes, God did die. Jesus was separated from the Father on Calvary (Matthew 27:46), that is death (at least the one that really matters).

So this is a very important truth. Jesus said it was upon this foundation that He would build His church and John instructed us to try the spirits using it. God helps us to understand and do.

And With Our Hands Have Handled

It’s important to believe that Jesus came in the flesh.  Let’s take a look at what that means. 1 John 1:1-2 is a good place to start. In these verses John is explaining what it means to come in the flesh. Later in 1 John 4, he tells us to use this teaching to try the spirits. So if we understand I John 1:1-2, then we can try the spirits like John says to do. So let’s look at what John says.

1Jn 1:1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;
1Jn 1:2 (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;)

The flesh that John heard, saw, looked upon and with his hands handled…was from the beginning, of the word of Life, and with the Father prior to being manifested to us. This isn’t Mary’s flesh. She wasn’t from the beginning, she wasn’t of the word of life, etc. She was just a clay descendent of Adam like your wife or mine. Highly favored, but in the end she went back to the earth like all of us clay folk. The miracle of the virgin birth is that God gave us a good and perfect gift from heaven. Jesus – the Firstborn – descended from heaven just like He said (John 6:48-51). Unbelieving Jews (John 6:41) as well as many of disciples murmured and would walk no more with Him (John 6:66) when He made this claim. He simply responded, “will you believe that I came down from heaven if you saw me ascend back there?”

My experience has been that most seem to believe that Jesus took His flesh from Mary and His spirit came from God. John’s words in I John 1:1-2 would not make sense if Jesus’ flesh came from Mary. John said he touched and handled something that was from the beginning and of the word of Life. Again, this is not Mary’s flesh. So my simple belief is that Jesus, God’s Firstbegotten, descended from heaven – body, soul, spirit. The good and perfect gift, the Lamb without Blemish, came from above. He had flesh, but it was not corruptible clay like me, you and Mary had (see 1 Corinthians 15:39-49). He came in the likeness of sinful flesh, not in sinful flesh (Romans 8:3).

Mankind has things turned around. We think if someone has a body and a shape that looks like a man and can feel pain, discouragement, fatigue, die, etc., then that man is a clay man (a human) like us. This just reveals our earth centered view. We were created in His image, not He in ours. We look like we look and have emotions and pain and suffer because Jesus looked that way first and because God can feel this range of emotions. And yes, God did die. Jesus was separated from the Father on Calvary (Matthew 27:46), that is death (at least the one that really matters).

So this is a very important truth. Jesus said it was upon this foundation that He would build His church (Matthew 16:13-19) and John instructed us to try the spirits using it. God helps us to understand and do.

Peace, love and understanding!

What the Schoolmaster Said…

Gal 3:24  Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

Gal 3:25  But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.

 

Col 2:16  Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:

Col 2:17  Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.

 

Heb 8:4  For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law:

Heb 8:5  Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount.

 

Heb 10:1  For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.

 

The law was a schoolmaster. It helps prepare us for faith in Christ. Just as a schoolteacher prepares a child for life using illustrations and examples, so the law prepares us for faith.  The sacrifices in the law could not take away sin, but they could illustrate the true sacrifice of Christ so that we would recognize its significance and the teachings surrounding it when they are explained to us.

 

One thing the law should do is to sharpen our sensitivity between clean and unclean, holy and unholy, acceptable and unacceptable. In the law there were men who could serve as priests and there were men who could not serve as priests. There were sacrifices that were acceptable, and there were sacrifices that were unacceptable.  These things were foreshadowing truths about Christ the True High Priest and Christ the True Sacrifice. 

High Priests which have infirmity…Hebrews 7:28

 

Lev 21:17  Speak unto Aaron, saying, Whosoever he be of thy seed in their generations that hath any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God.

Lev 21:18  For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any thing superfluous,

Lev 21:19  Or a man that is brokenfooted, or brokenhanded,

Lev 21:20  Or crookbacked, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken;

Lev 21:21  No man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the LORD made by fire: he hath a blemish; he shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his God.

 

In the law, in order to serve as a priest a man had to be physically whole.  He couldn’t be blind, or lame, or have crooked back. Why?  Is a man who is physically whole somehow more righteous than a man with limp?  No, of course not.  The answer to this lies in what the law was foreshadowing about the Son of God.

 

Heb 7:28  For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity; but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is consecrated for evermore.

 

Christ is the true High Priest. The High Priests in the law foreshadowed Him.  Hebrews 7:28 teaches us that the key difference in the shadow and real thing is that the earthly priests who foreshadowed Christ had infirmity. 

 

Infirmity means weakness, sickness of the body.  The infirmity spoken of in this verse isn’t referring to sickness like the flu or palsy; it is speaking of the corruption of sin and death that is in Adam’s race[1]. We inherit the corruption of sin and death from our father Adam[2].  The True High Priest was not born into this infirmity; rather He came in the likeness of sinful flesh in an incorruptible body of power[3].  

 

The law foreshadowed the marvelous body of the True High Priest by prohibiting those with physical deformities from performing the office of priest. This was not to exalt being physically whole or to say physical deformity lowered you in the eyes of God.  This was portraying the truth of the God’s Son, our True High Priest.  The lesson was the True High Priest would not bear the infirmity of sin in His body.

 

There is also a lesson about the resurrection in this picture.  A goal of the overall work of Christ is to create a nation of priests that serves God forever[4].  Through the resurrection, we put off our sinful flesh and are raised in a body like Christ’s[5].   Relieved of the infirmity that causes us to sin, we will rule and reign in righteousness forever.

A lamb without blemish and without spot…1 Peter 1:19

 

1 Pet 1:18  Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers;

1 Pet 1:19  But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:

 

Lev 22:18  Speak unto Aaron, and to his sons, and unto all the children of Israel, and say unto them, Whatsoever he be of the house of Israel, or of the strangers in Israel, that will offer his oblation for all his vows, and for all his freewill offerings, which they will offer unto the LORD for a burnt offering;

Lev 22:19  Ye shall offer at your own will a male without blemish, of the beeves, of the sheep, or of the goats.

Lev 22:20  But whatsoever hath a blemish, that shall ye not offer: for it shall not be acceptable for you.

Lev 22:21  And whosoever offereth a sacrifice of peace offerings unto the LORD to accomplish his vow, or a freewill offering in beeves or sheep, it shall be perfect to be accepted; there shall be no blemish therein.

Lev 22:22  Blind, or broken, or maimed, or having a wen, or scurvy, or scabbed, ye shall not offer these unto the LORD, nor make an offering by fire of them upon the altar unto the LORD.

Lev 22:23  Either a bullock or a lamb that hath any thing superfluous or lacking in his parts, that mayest thou offer for a freewill offering; but for a vow it shall not be accepted.

Lev 22:24  Ye shall not offer unto the LORD that which is bruised, or crushed, or broken, or cut; neither shall ye make any offering thereof in your land.

Lev 22:25  Neither from a stranger’s hand shall ye offer the bread of your God of any of these; because their corruption is in them, and blemishes be in them: they shall not be accepted for you.

 

Just as men who served in the office of priest had to be physically whole, so the animals used in sacrifice had to be without blemish.  These unblemished animals portrayed the Lamb of God who would offer His body as an unblemished sacrifice.  It is in this unblemished sacrifice that we have hope. 

 

Some do violence to this truth by attempting to separate the blood of Christ from the body of Christ.  Saying in effect it is only the blood that matters.  The scriptures make no such distinction.  It is the offering of the whole Christ – His flesh and His blood – that sanctifies us.

 

Heb 10:5  Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me:

Heb 10:6  In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.

Heb 10:7  Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.

Heb 10:8  Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law;

Heb 10:9  Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.

Heb 10:10  By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.

 

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The law is a schoolmaster to bring us to faith in Christ. If the distinction between infirm and whole, blemished and unblemished, corruptible and incorruptible had not been important or had not had any significant fulfillment in Christ, God would not have gone to so much trouble to portray this in the law.  The law warns us that sacrifices in which there is corruption and blemishes will not be accepted.  If in our hearts we place Christ in a corruptible body of Mary’s flesh do we offer an unacceptable sacrifice? O Lord deliver us, keep our hearts pure in thy sight!

 

Christ was the neighborly close brother who redeemed us from sin.  He walked the path we walk and suffered as we suffer, but He was separate from sinners[6].  He wasn’t born into the sin sick corruptible bodies of death that we are born into[7]; rather He came in an incorruptible, unblemished body that could be offered as an acceptable sacrifice.  This truth about Christ is what the law portrayed with its unblemished sacrifices and its demand for physically whole priests.

 

Heb 7:26  For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens;

 

Let the scriptures speak.

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[1] Sickness and other physical infirmities are consistently used in the scriptures to portray sin.  See for example, Isaiah 1:5-6 and Matthew 9:10-13. 

[2] 1 Corinthians 15:22, 1 Corinthians 15:42-45, Psalm 51:5, Romans 7:23-25

[3] See Romans 8:3, 1 Corinthians 15.  This is actually the significance of the virgin birth.  Christ was not born into the corruption of Adam’s flesh like we all are.

[4] Revelation 1:4-6

[5] Philippians 3:21

[6] Heb 7:26  For such an high priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens;

[7] Rom 7:23-24  But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.  O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?

How Should We View Christ?

 

1 Tim 3:16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.

 

We should view Christ as the physical manifestation of God – God manifest in the flesh.  God is not triune in the sense that He is three separate beings – one of which is partially human.  He is triune in the sense that He manifests Himself in three primary ways.  When men like Abraham, or Isaiah, or Daniel, or John the Baptist saw Christ they saw the eternal God manifested as the True Man.

 

Understanding Christ in this way helps us understand statements like, I and my Father are one (John 10:30), he that hath seen me hath seen the Father (John 14:9), and His [the Messiah] name shall be called the Everlasting Father (Isaiah 9:6).  Further, thinking of Christ in this way does not mean He didn’t experience the path of trial and suffering that God asks His children to walk.  Nor does it mean he didn’t feel pain, hunger, sorrow, and death as men of this earth experience it.  It simply means that God can experience pain, hunger, sorrow, and yes, even death.  It allows our understanding of Christ to be shaped by what the scriptures say rather than by the sayings that have grown up around Christ over the centuries.  It simply lets the scriptures speak.

 

Perhaps the greatest struggle people have with the teaching of Christ as the bread from heaven is in reconciling this with the teaching of Christ walking the path we as humans walk.  Again I go back and just say, let the scriptures speak.

 

The scriptures never say that Christ’s flesh was of the earth.  They say He came in the likeness of sinful flesh, not in sinful flesh[1].  They repeatedly say that His flesh came from heaven.  This doesn’t mean the flesh from heaven can’t feel the same weaknesses that our clay flesh feels.  Remember we were created in His image.  We are like God in more ways than we commonly think.

 

From the scriptures we know that the One whose flesh that came down from heaven could experience hunger, discouragement, and even the separation of the soul and spirit (death).  But that doesn’t mean His flesh was of the earth.  The scriptures never say that, but the spirit of antichrist does, because that changes Christ into an image made like to corruptible man.

Let the scriptures speak and stop

The scriptures do not say[2]

• Jesus was fully man and fully God. 
• Jesus was fully human and fully God. 
• Jesus was of one substance with us. 
• Jesus was God clothed in human flesh.

The scriptures do say

• God was manifest in the flesh (1 Timothy 3:16)
• Jesus came in the likeness of sinful flesh (Romans 8:3)
• The flesh of the Son was of the Word of Life (1 John 1:1-2)
• The flesh of the Son came down from heaven (John 6:51, 1 Corinthians 15:46-49)
• Jesus was tempted in all points like as we are (Hebrews 4:15)[3]
• Jesus experienced hunger, thirst, sadness, sorrow, and death (Luke 4:2, John 19:28, John 11:35, Matthew 26:37-38, John 19:30)

 

Let the scriptures speak and stop.  Don’t try to roll these plain statements up into generalizations that make Christ out to be something He is not.

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[1] Romans 8:3

[2] Men invented all of these phrases.

[3] This must be understood in light of other scriptures.  The scriptures say that a man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lusts and enticed (James 1:14).  The scriptures also say this lust comes from our flesh (Romans 7:18-25).  Jesus would not have been drawn toward sin at any point, for God cannot be tempted with evil (James 1:13).  For example, when Satan, approached Christ with a temptation Christ was not drawn to Satan’s offers.  He was tempted – that is approached with the temptation – but He was not drawn to it, as our flesh would have been.