Object of the Incarnation of the Son of God

Notes

Divisions of the lesson: (1) The Word Made Flesh. (2) Christ's Manhood and Divinity. (3) Christ Brought Life. (4) Death Abolished.

Questions.

The Word Made Flesh.

1. What is said of Christ's birth? Gal. 4:4, 5.

2. What is the meaning of the expression "made under the law"? Note 1.

3. What power had Christ before He was born into this world? John 1:3; Col. 1:15, 16.

Notes

Christ's Manhood and Divinity.

Notes

Christ Brought Life.

Notes

Death Abolished.

Notes

1. Christ was not only born a man, but He was born under the law, both to be judged by the law, and to be dealt with according to the law in His own person; and as man's representative, to satisfy the law for all of man's transgressions of it.

2. Rotherham's translation reads, "Who, in God's form subsisting, not a thing to be seized on, esteemed the being equal with God; but emptied Himself, taking a servant's form, coming to be in men's likeness; and, in fashion being found as a man, humbled Himself, becoming obedient as far as death, yea, death on a cross." In order to meet man where he was after the fall, Christ emptied Himself of all His glory and power, becoming just as dependent on the Father for life and daily strength as sinful man is dependent upon Him.

3. The gospel and epistles of John are full of statements that Christ came to give life. "In Him was life." John 1:4. "Whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." John 3:16. "He that heareth My word, and believeth on Him that sent Me, hath everlasting life." John 5:24. Over and over again He reiterates the statement in every possible form that His work on earth is to give everlasting life, to prevent men from dying, from perishing, from coming to nothing. See John 6:50, 54, 57, 58; 1 Cor. 15:17, 18.

4. The teachings of Christ throughout show that the very object of the incarnation is to immortalize mankind; that man can not live forever only by a complete union with the Incarnate Word; that, apart from such union, man will die, perish, and be destroyed.

5. The work of Christ in redemption is, in the Scriptures, interwoven with the history of the sin of man in Paradise. The doctrine of the first and second Adam constitutes the mystery of the Gospel. 1 Corinthians 15. Christ, in His teachings, makes clear references to the history of the fall of man as the basis of God's dealings with the human race. He speaks of Satan as a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44), and of Himself, as sent to destroy the devil and his works. But a murderer is a destroyer of life. By giving a history of the first Adam at creation, Christ forever fixes the meaning of death, and the gift of eternal life. Christ appeared "to abolish death," and the death which He abolished was the death that came into the world by the original sin (Rom. 5:12), and through the temptation of the original murderer. Death is the absence of life. There could be no such thing as a second death unless the death pronounced upon the human family on account of Adam's transgression be abolished. This Christ did by giving His own life for the release of all. This makes death but a sleep, with the assurance of awakening in the morning.