JESUS CHRIST: GOD-MAN - Vital Christianity

142
"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen
with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we
proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and
testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father
and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so
that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father
and with His Son, Jesus Christ" (1:1-3).
Fellowship with each other and God the Father and His Son Jesus is impossible apart
from the belief in the humanity of Jesus. For if we do not believe in the real humanity of Jesus
the Jesus we try to have fellowship with is not the Jesus presented to us in Holy Writ.
A later development of Docetism called Gnosticism taught that the Spirit of God merely
came upon the man Jesus at the time of His baptism, remained with Him during the years of His
ministry, and then deserted Him just before the crucifixion. Other forms of Gnosticism taught
that Jesus only seemed to be a man, but actually was not one. Jesus was a phantom or a ghost—a
spirit being—but not a real human being. He did not really possess a material body, did not
therefore really die, etc.
Another heretic, Marcion, who is known for his rejection of the Hebrew Scriptures as
well as parts of the New Testament, also threatened the early church with his teachings which
rejected the teaching that Jesus' body was made up of dust—earthly material.
Manichaeanism, another heresy which influenced Augustine in his early years, made
inroads into Christianity by teaching that Christ's body was composed of "heavenly" but not true
material flesh.
The early church developed creeds and held councils to combat such heresies. The
Apostle's Creed states:
". . . suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried . . . born of the
Virgin Mary . . ."
This ties Jesus to history. It points out that Jesus suffered under the reign of a specific
Roman governor—Pilate—and to emphasize the sufferings of this Jesus which only a human
being could go through. The phrase, "born of the Virgin Mary" did not originally emphasize the
supernatural aspects so much as the fact that Jesus was born, that He was human, that He was a
man.
THE DESCENT OF GOD THE SON
Greater is the descent of God the Son, the second Person of the Godhead, to earth than if
we were to become a cockroach.