WORDS OF JESUS

The Son of God, whom we know as the Second Person of the Trinity, left the glory world and became flesh that man might experience what it means to be a son of God. He who was worthy to be worshiped by the host of heaven willingly became as one who must worship. He was willing to become a man (born as a man, live as a man, and die as a man) in order that men might be redeemed. Jesus Christ came into the material world to do the will of the Father and to do that will in the power of the Holy Spirit. He humbled Himself to the Father and to the Spirit to be the one mediator between God and man. The life of Jesus Christ serves as the example of perfect humbleness.

The virgin birth of Jesus begins the story of the greatest act of humility ever witnessed by man. With Jesus of Nazareth being totally God and totally man, the human person of Jesus did not exist until the union of the Divine and the human in his birth. According to John, the divine Word who possessed a divine nature from everlasting to everlasting assumed a human nature when He became flesh. Jesus became a fact of history when the pre-existent Son of God assumed human nature and took upon Himself a flesh and blood body. The person of Jesus began with His conception in the womb of the virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit.

When Joseph became concerned that his wife to be was "found with child," he did not know what to do with her. Should he "put her away privily?" An angel of the Lord answered his question: ". . . fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife . . . ." Then, the angel informed Joseph that this child to be born of Mary was in fulfillment of prophecy. For Isaiah had prophesied that ". . . the Lord himself shall give [Israel] a sign; Behold, a virgin [a young woman] shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel."

After quoting Isaiah, the angel interpreted what the name Immanuel meant, "God with us." It is what John meant when he wrote, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." The Word of God, the Son of God, assumed human flesh and now has both natures.

The miracle of the virgin birth is both divine and human. The conception of Jesus was supernatural. After the supernatural conception, the development of the impregnated egg of Mary was entirely natural. Jesus of Nazareth was conceived supernaturally but developed naturally.

When the egg of Mary was supernaturally impregnated by the power of the Holy Spirit, the person of Jesus became a reality. The union of the divine Word with a human nature became a fact of history. The ultimate expression of God now dwelling with man had occurred.

The personality of Jesus would become the seat of the union, the point of contact, between the two natures. Since Paul stated, "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus," the Son of God would take on this humanity for eternity. The man Jesus had a beginning in His virgin birth, but He will have no ending. Perhaps, the greatest truth in the entire Bible is that the Son of God left the glory world to dwell in the tabernacle of flesh not just for a few short years but for the rest of eternity: "And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God."

The virgin birth of Jesus was a great act of humility. Jesus also endured humiliation throughout His life. The Son of God did not hold on to that state of exaltation He experienced in heaven. He willingly emptied Himself out of that glory and took on the role of a slave. He did not live his earthly life in the state of exaltation but in the state of humiliation.

The Son of God came as a servant. Jesus functioned in his earthly life in a creaturely dependency. He did not live His life in the power of the Second Person of the Trinity, a power that was His because of His diety. He lived only in the power of the Third Person of the Trinity. All that Jesus of Nazareth did in his entire earthly existence was in submission to the will of the Father and in submission to the power of the Holy Spirit.

The final act of humility in the life of Jesus was His submission to death. Jesus Christ was already humbled by his birth and by his life. His humiliation carried Him further. In submitting to the will of the Father and to the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus became obedient to the most cruel death ever devised by man—death by the cross. When approaching that death, His prayer became ". . . not my will, but thine, be done." The Son of God, clothed in human flesh, experienced the death reserved for common criminals.

The humiliation of Christ is the greatest story ever told. It is the cosmic saga of history because He had the power to change the script. Suffering as none has ever suffered—born of humble origins, lived His life in abasement, and died by the degrading death of crucifixion, He nevertheless willingly gave his life. He was humbled that you and I might be exalted.

With every morning, there is a new day. With every spring, there are the fresh buds of the flower. With every planting of a seed, there is the beginning of new fruit. With every forgiveness, there is anticipated love. God has begotten his world again unto a living hope.

The distinguishing mark that separates Christianity from all other belief systems is the resurrection of the physical body. Many believe in some form of the reincarnation of the soul. Many Christians even believe that the soul is trapped within the body and ultimate salvation occurs only when the soul is finally set free from the body. The basic tenets of Christianity, however, declare that the body was created by God to house the soul of man eternally. The resurrection of the body is crucial to what it means to be Christian in the light of the words of Jesus.

For example, plant a tomato seed in the ground. The outer casing or husk of the seed must rot or decay before the essence of life within the seed can come forth with tender sprouts of life. One pushes up through the ground seeking the light of the sun and another one pushing into the soil seeking water and nutrients. Without this struggle for light and water, it does not survive; this struggle is what it means to be a created entity. It is the fact of any created existence.

Eventually, the essence of the seed comes forth from the earth into the heaven producing a full grown tomato plant. Hanging on the branches of the plant are fully developed tomatoes. They are the physical glory of the tomato plant. The mature tomatoes are the fullest possible manifestation of life the tomato plant can experience.

Within each tomato are many seeds; within each seed is the same life that was in the seed that was planted in the ground to start the cycle of life. The new seed is the new body of the life that resides within the seed. Although individual tomato plants with their tomatoes live and die, the essence of life within the seed is eternal. This is the eternal glory to which we have been called. This is the resurrection of the body that is crucial to experiencing life as a Christian.

God will not suffer His Holy One to see corruption. Every time the seed (the outward manifestation of anything that has the essence of life within) falls to the ground and dies, it will bring forth abundant life. As Jesus stated, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit" (John 12:24). It brings forth fruit because the life within is eternal; it never dies.

Each of us has been called unto this eternal glory. The mystery of this glory is seen in God’s statement to Noah after the great flood: "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease" (Gen. 8:22). His eternal glory is that which flows through the seedtime and harvest, through the cold and heat, through the summer and winter, and through the day and night.

It is not the actual seedtime or the actual harvest because both the planting of the seed and the harvest of the fruit will perish. As Peter stated, "For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass.  The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away" (1 Peter 1:24).

The manifestation of the bloom of the rose, the fruit of the tomato, the love of a human relationship is definitely glorious. Each is produced by God, but the glorious moment for each of them will eventually fall away to be resurrected again and again. For His eternal glory is not the rose or the rose bush, nor the tomato or the tomato plant, nor the love relationship or the human beings. It is that which produces them, the Spirit of life—the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead.

There will be many plantings of the external manifestation or fruit of life in our journey through this world and each planting (the process by which the outward man perishes) always brings forth the harvest (the renewing of the inner essence of life). Knowing that Jesus Christ was raised from his seedtime, we can be begotten again unto a living hope. In the midst of the distress of things dying, we can greatly rejoice for we know the harvest is coming. We will be kept by the power of God through faith unto the salvation of our souls. We will be kept because Jesus lives—resurrected from the dead.