"There is one God, one mediator also between God and men, himself man, Christ Jesus."—1 Tim. 2:5.
Our subject in this chapter is "Jesus Christ a Real Man." I have three texts, and the substance of all that I shall say is these three texts. The first text is John 1:14: "And the word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth." The second text is Phil. 2:6-8: "Who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of man; and being found in fashion as a man, he emptied himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea the death of the cross." And
the third text is 1 Tim. 2:5: "There is one God, one mediator also between God and man, himself man, Christ Jesus."
We saw in the preceding chapter that Jesus Christ was God, that in Him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, that He possessed all the distinctively divine attributes, that He exercised all the distinctively divine functions, that He occupied the position in New Testament thought that Jehovah occupied in Old Testament thought, that He was a being worthy of our absolute faith, our supreme love, our unhesitating obedience, and our whole-hearted worship, that He was God and is God. But in the passages which we have taken for our texts to-day, we are told that this Divine One, who had existed from all eternity with God, the Father, and who was God, became a man. In becoming a man, He did not cease to be God; but the Word, the Eternal Word, which was with God and was God, took human nature upon Himself. While He was very God of very God, He was real man, as truly and completely a man as any man who ever walked on this earth. The doctrine of the real humanity of Christ is as essential a part of the Christian faith as the doctrine of His real Deity. There is one very large class of people who do not see the real Deity of Jesus Christ. They are in fundamental error. There is another large class of people who see only His Deity, and who do not see the reality of His manhood. They also are in error. A doctrine of a Saviour who is
only man is false doctrine; and a doctrine of a Saviour who is only God is equally false doctrine. The doctrine of the Bible is that, One Who from all eternity was God in the person of Jesus of Nazareth became man. There are many passages in the Bible which set forth the Deity of our Lord Jesus in a way that is unmistakable and inescapable. There are many other passages in the Bible which set forth the complete humanity of our Lord Jesus in a way which is equally unmistakable and inescapable. It is with the doctrine of His real humanity, i.e., that He was a real man, that we are concerned this morning.
I. THE HUMAN PARENTAGE OF JESUS CHRIST
First of all, the Bible teaches us that Jesus Christ had a human parentage. We read in Luke 2:7, "And she (i.e., Mary) brought forth her first born Son; and she wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn." Here we are told that our Lord Jesus Christ, though supernaturally conceived, was Mary's Son. Mary was as truly His mother as God was His Father. He had a human parentage as truly as He had a divine parentage. In the first chapter of this same Gospel of Luke, in the 35th verse, we read, "And the angel answered and said unto her (i.e., Mary), the Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee:
wherefore also the holy thing, which is begotten shall be called the Son of God." He was called the Son of God because He was begotten directly by the power of the Holy Spirit; but the Holy Spirit came upon Mary and she became the mother of this One who was to be called the "Son of God." Not only was He descended from Mary and in that way of human parentage, we are clearly told also in Rom. 1:3 that God's Son "Was born of the seed of David according to the flesh." And in Acts 2:30 we are told that He was "The fruit of his (i.e., David's) loins, according to the flesh." And in Hebrews 7:14, we are told that "Our Lord sprang out of Judah." While we are told in Gal. 4:4 that "When the fulness of the time came, God sent forth His Son," we are also told with equal plainness in the same verse that this Son of God was "Born of a woman." The human parentage of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was just as real and just as essential a part of His personality as His divine parentage.
II. THE HUMAN PHYSICAL NATURE OF JESUS CHRIST
But not only did Jesus Christ have a human parentage, He had a human physical nature, a human body. This comes out in the first of our texts, "The Word Became Flesh," and in Hebrews 2:14 we are taught "Since then the children are sharers in flesh and blood, he also (i.e., our Lord Jesus also) himself in like manner partook of the