We have referred previously to the elements in the human situation as being: Man and God—the flesh and the divine nature—the low and the high—and Jesus the Son of God, the means chosen by God to raise man from the natural to the spiritual order.
The necessity for a bridge between the human and the divine was met in the person of Jesus, Son of Man and Son of God, for “that which is flesh is flesh, and that which is spirit is spirit”. This is not to say that the one between, the intermediary, was added as an improvisation. As we have seen already, the creative purpose was conceived with Jesus as the central figure.
Therefore we look at him—again with the aid of the epistle to the Hebrews. Here the writer looks directly at the things accomplished by Jesus and values them for what they are in themselves. This is no attempt to see Jesus as the necessary fulfillment of the Mosaic system. This way of thinking could never evaluate worthily what is called the “New Covenant”. This was a “New and Living Way”, and nothing less than a new and living way of seeing could assess it. Indeed, the New Covenant thus seen made possible a true assessment of the old, “now decayed and ready to vanish away”.
Jesus was unique; he was so from birth and by birth, and this quality was revealed from the earliest accounts of him as a young man. He knew of his special relationship to God and he spoke of his Father accordingly, never being uncertain of his true identity as Son of God. The behavior of his companions in his presence adds to this picture of him. They were sensitive to the “wholly ,,
Wholly other category, which sets Jesus apart from other men. He was holy, the only-begotten Son of God. It was just his steadfast refusal to deny this truth that caused men to put him to death.
The special constitution of Jesus—Son of God and Son of Man—was the means of raising men to Godliness and, as part of that purpose, the likeness of God in the person of his Son was brought before men. This was Emmanuel—”God with us”. In the person of Jesus God was manifested in that his Son was made of woman, so making a “new man”. The revelation was made in the course of and required the practical working out of the lifetime of Jesus.
When John spoke of him as one seen, touched and handled, it was after the successful completion of the most purposeful life of all time.
In all this, God was the initiator. He had first shown that the flesh was incapable of providing its own Saviour. The period from Adam to Christ had been a demonstration of the relative lowliness of the flesh. God was now, in Christ, demonstrating his righteousness. It was the supreme object lesson, teaching that the divinely begotten Son was needed to subdue the flesh and as a “new man”, to be set forth as the “Righteousness of God”.
Now the inevitable human complaint arises. If it required a “new man” to do what sons of Adam had failed to do, why hold them responsible for what they could not perform? The complaint has meaning only if it is assumed that man could attain the glory of the divine nature without Christ. The scriptures know nothing of any such possibility; instead, human responsibility is concerned with God’s call to man to become co-workers together with him in a creative purpose. It is by response in co-operation, or by neglect or refusal concerning a work of creation that is going on with man, and not by what man is by nature, that man is revealed as a responsible being. He cannot help his natural state, but he is concerned, in part, with the spiritual man’s growth.
We may notice, by our direct looking at the person of Jesus, that he was a “new man”, a unique person who contested with the flesh and gained the victory. This revelation of the new man was implicit in the design of the Creator.
In the natural order, the life of all creatures, including man was given, not because any creature willed it, but for the purposes of the all-provident God: “For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who bath subjected the same in hope.” In hope of what? “Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom. 8. 20, 21). None can alter the relationship which makes the human creature an image of God, and mortality must appear as an enemy in proportion to the development of the responsibility felt towards that future described by Paul as, “the manifestation of the sons of God” (Rom. 8. 19).
The human relationship to the “spiritual man”, which makes men aware of a higher call and a potentiality of eternal life, involves also the sense of sin. The human sense of sin is an awareness of falling short —a possible loss of glory. Yet the chief sin is pride, and there appears to be every reason to believe that this pride springs from man being made in a form of God, while being unwilling to admit his relative lowliness. There is a significant pointer to this in Phil. 2. 5-8, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who being in the form of God, thought it not a legitimate objective to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation . . . and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross . .
Jesus, being in a form of God, superior to men and, by inheritance, superior to angels, suffered the complete loss of all that the pride of man holds dear. We learn from Heb, 2. 10, that, in bringing many sons unto glory, the captain of their salvation was made perfect through suffering. This is a revealing statement because it indicates the creative process at work in the Son of man. Perfection lay at the end of the work, and the only way to bring it into being was by experiencing the sufferings of the flesh. How did the sufferings arise? With the call upon Jesus to serve a higher object than self, he was tempted in all points to serve self in all the ways known to man.
If we consider Jesus at the start of his life and again at the end, we know that the lifetime, short as it was, was necessary to perfect this new man. We may observe too, that the lifetime of the brethren of Jesus has its part in working out their salvation. But first the captain was perfected. Though the natural man was first, as we read the narrative of history, God, the Creator, built the kingdom of heaven around the person of his Son and his perfecting in mid-history. He was thus the lamb slain from the foundation of the world and his one offering has perfected for ever them that are sanctified. Time was not relevant in this; the important result was that Godliness had overcome the flesh and the Creator had decreed this to be his standard of righteousness.
“But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets: even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe . . .” (Rom. 3. 21, 22).
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One