Just after the Civil War, Mark Twain embarked on a voyage to the Holy Land, which he chronicled in his book, The Innocents Abroad.  The work was largely humorous and ascerbic – typical Twain – but he did occasionally wax philosophical, and in the Holy Land itself particularly:

“It seems curious enough to us to be standing on ground that was once actually pressed by the feet of the Savior … I cannot comprehend yet that I am sitting where a god has stood, and looking upon the brook and the mountains which that god looked upon, and am surrounded by dusky men and women whose ancestors saw Him, and even talked with Him, face to face, and carelessly, just as they would have done with any other stranger.  I cannot comprehend this; the gods of my understanding have been always hidden in clouds and very far away.”  (Mark Twain, Innocents Abroad)

     Twain’s feeling about God is how many picture Him yet: “hidden in clouds and very far away.”  And indeed, in some sense, He is.  Jeremiah 23:23 asks: “Am I a God who is near … and not a God far off?”  He is, as we have seen, everywhere.  And yet Isaiah says, “Your iniquities have caused a separation between you and your God.”  (Isaiah 59:1)  God who made us to know Him has, in a sense, been “far away” from us.  But as we saw last week, He is gracious to us, and loves us, and wants to have a close relationship with us.  That is why He came, as God the Son, to this world to save us.   

     This morning, as we conclude the series, “Our Great God”, we want to see one more fact about God.  We have seen that He is Triune (three in one), holy, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, just, and gracious.  The fact is, we could go on and on forever and never encompass all His attributes.  Do not be surprised if there are things you do not understand about God.  Someone has well said, If you could fully comprehend God, then you would be greater than He is!  You are NOT greater than He is, and you will NOT be able to fully understand the infinite God with your very finite mind.  Do not be surprised at this.  We will spend all eternity and not exhaust His glories.  But we will end this series for now by looking at one more quality of God: He is also “Our Incarnate God.”  Philippians 2:5-11 tells the story:

 I.  The Doctrine of Our Incarnate God

A.  Jesus is Our Incarnate GOD.

There are several references to the Deity of Jesus in Philippians 2:

— “He existed in the form of God.”  How much more explicit could it be?  He was God!

— “He did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped.”  Again, “equality with God.”  How much more clear could it be that Jesus is fully God?  He was “equal with God.”  The Jews in John 5 said that because Jesus called God His Father, that He was making Himself equal with God (John 5:18).  They got that right – that is exactly what He was doing.  He was and is NO LESS than fully God.  He is “equal to God.” 

— “The name that is above every name”.  What many do not realize is that this is another expression for Deity itself.  Many of us read this and think, “Well, God rewarded Jesus by giving Him a better name than anyone else.”  That does not fully convey the meaning of this phrase, “The name that is above every name.”  This has a history.  The Jews had such a reverence for the personal name of God, YHWH (which we have talked about in previous weeks, His own name, meaning “I AM” which He gave Moses in Exodus 3) that they would not write that name.  Instead they would substitute the vowels for the word “Adonai”, which is where we get the name “Jehovah.”  And they would not even SPEAK that name either.  Instead of saying it, they would just refer to it as “The name”, or “The name which is above every name.”  So when Paul writes here that Jesus is “the name which is above every name”, he is not just saying that Jesus has a highly exalted name; he is clearly indicating for anyone who understands the history of the phrase, that Jesus is YHWH – He is GOD Himself!

— You see His Deity also in the expression, “Every knee shall bow … and every tongue shall confess”.  Again, you may not realize that this phrase is actually a quotation from Isaiah 45:22. God says there: “Turn to Me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; For I am God, and there is no other.  I have sworn by Myself, the word has gone forth from my mouth in righteousness and will not turn back, that to Me every knee will bow, and every tongue will swear allegiance.  They will say of Me, ‘Only in (YHWH) are righteousness and strength.’”  Here God says: there is ONE God, and none other – and “every knee will bow and every tongue swear allegiance” to Him.  And that is exactly what is said of Jesus here in Philippians 2:11!  This passage clearly teaches that Jesus Christ IS that YHWH God of the Old Testament, who came to earth in the flesh.  Jesus is “Our Great God”!

     And it is not just here in Philippians 2 where Jesus’ deity is taught.  It is all through the New Testament.  Let me share just a few examples with you:

— All through the book of John, Jesus uses the expression regarding Himself, “I AM.”  As we have seen, “I AM” is “YHWH” – the Personal Divine Name God gave Moses.  He says of Himself: “I AM the bread of life”; “I AM the door”; I AM the Good Shepherd; “I AM the way”, and in John 8:59, the most dramatic: “Before Abraham came into being, I AM”!  This was no accident.  The Bible says: “The Jews picked up stones to stone Him” – they KNEW what He was saying!  He was claiming to be “I AM” – Yahweh God!

— In John 10:30 He said: “I and the Father are one”.  “The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him” – “for You, being a man, make yourself out to be God!”  They knew exactly what He was claiming – that He was equal with God, just as Philippians 2 affirms.

— In John 20:28 after His resurrection, Thomas called Him: “My Lord and My God” – and was NOT rebuked like Peter and Paul and the angels did when people were tempted to worship them!  Jesus accepted the worship of Thomas – because He was & is God!

— Colossians 2:9 “In Him, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form.”  Herschel Hobbs, the long-time pastor of the First Baptist Church of Oklahoma City, and chairman of the 1963 Baptist Faith & Message Committee called this “The greatest single verse declaring the deity of Jesus Christ”.  The word “Fullness” here is the Greek “pleroma” – ancients didn’t believe we could know the “pleroma”, the fullness of God.  They said we’d need intermediary angels or spirits between us.  But Colossians says NO – Jesus IS “pleroma”!  HE IS the fullness of God, in bodily form! 

     And we could give many more examples from throughout the scriptures.  For anyone to say that the Bible does not teach that Jesus is God, or that Jesus Himself never claimed to be God, only reveals their ignorance of Scripture.  The deity of Jesus is one of the defining doctrines of orthodox Christianity.  Many like to try to “ride the fence” regarding Him, and applaud Him as a great teacher, but deny His claim to be God.  As C.S. Lewis points out, this is an impossible “fence” to ride:   

 “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’  That is the one thing we must not say.  A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.  He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else He would be the Devil of Hell.  You must make your choice.  Either this man was and is the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse.  You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.  But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher.  He has not left that open to us.  He did not intend to.”  (Mere Christianity, Chapter 3, page 56)

 B.  Jesus is Our INCARNATE God.

     Philippians 2 says that although He existed in the form of God, and was fully God, Jesus “emptied Himself” and took the form of a man.  Verse 7 says He “was made in the likeness of MEN.”  The word “likeness” here is the same Greek word, “morphe”, which said that He existed in the “form” of God.  Just as He was fully God, Jesus became in that same way, fully man.  God the Son took on human flesh; He became “incarnate”.  The word “incarnate” is a Latin word that means “in the flesh.”  God took on human flesh and blood in the person of Jesus Christ, and became “Our Incarnate God”. 

     Again, we see this throughout the New Testament:

— John 1:14 “The Word (whom 1:1 says was in the beginning with God and was God) became flesh and dwelt among us.”  God became flesh – that is the Incarnation.    

— Hebrews 2:17 “He had to be made like His brethren in all things, that He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.”  Jesus became like us in every way “ALL things”, the Bible says here.  He was fully man: God Incarnate; God in the flesh.  He had to grow physically, Luke 2 tells us, from a baby to man, with all the growing pains, just like we do.  When He had been walking for a long time, John 4 says He got tired and was “weary” from His journey.  When He fasted, He “became hungry”, Matthew 4 tells us.  On the cross, He said, “I thirst.” He was not just some “spirit” who came to earth; fully God became a real flesh-and-blood man just like we are – God Incarnate; God in the flesh.

     God the Son came to earth in the Person of Jesus, to be “God in the flesh” who experienced everything we do, and whom we could experience personally.  The Apostle John tells us in his first letter, writing about the apostles’ experience of Jesus: “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, and with OUR HANDS HANDLED”.  John says, we saw Him; we heard Him; we TOUCHED Him!  Jesus told Thomas in John 20, put your finger in the nail prints in My hands, and put your hand in My side, where I was pierced with the spear!  John says, we handled Him; He is not a myth, a story – and not some “far away” God – He was right here with us — “God in the flesh” – “Our Incarnate God”!  

     Last week we saw that Moses asked God to show him His glory, and the Lord told him: “no man can see My face and live.”  But in Jesus, God came to earth in a form, like Mark Twain wrote, whom we could see and talk with, face to face.  Jesus is God Incarnate; God in the flesh.

 II.  Applications

A. Knowledge of God

     The Incarnation has enormous implications for our desire to know God.  The single greatest need that any one of us has, as we saw last week, is to know God.  We have spent these last weeks looking at different qualities of God which He has revealed about Himself in his word.  But if you really want to know God better, the Bible says the best way to do it is in the Person of Jesus Christ.  He is “Our Incarnate God” – “God in the flesh” whom we can see and know.  If you want to know God – look at Jesus!

— John 14:6-9 “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.  If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you have known Him, and have seen Him.’  Philip said to Him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.’   Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip?  He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how do you say, ‘Show us the Father?’”  Jesus could not have been more clear and explicit in this passage: if you want to know God, look at HIM.  He is the face of God to us in this world.

— If you want to see God’s eternal nature in the flesh, look at Jesus, who said, “Before Abraham came into being, I AM!” 

— If you want to see God’s omniscience in the flesh, look at Jesus, who when He told the paralyzed man that His sins were forgiven, and the scribes said to themselves, “this man blasphemes”, it then says: “And Jesus KNOWING THEIR THOUGHTS, said …”.

— If you want to see God’ omnipotence in the flesh, look at Jesus, who stilled the storm on the sea by saying “Hush”; before whom demons repeatedly had to “ask permission” in Mark 6, and who in John 11 said: “Lazarus come forth” and raised a man from the dead! 

— If you want to see God’s holiness in the flesh, look at Jesus, who was “tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.” 

— If you want to see God’s wisdom in the flesh, look at Jesus, who, facing an impossible dilemma, said “Render to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and to God the things which are God’s”.

— If you want to see God’s wrath in the flesh, look at Jesus, who threw the greedy moneychangers out of the temple, and said, “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the peoples”!

— If you want to see God’s compassion for sinners in the flesh, look at Jesus, who said to the woman caught in adultery, “Neither do I condemn you; now go, and sin no more.”

— if you want to know who God loves, look at who Jesus loved.

— if you want to know what God hates, look at what Jesus hated.

— if you want to know what God thinks about something, look at what Jesus said about it

— if you want to know how God wants you to live, look at how Jesus lived.

— If you want to see what God would do in any given situation, look at what Jesus did.  He is God Incarnate – God in the flesh.  If you want to see God – just look at Jesus!

     I love the lyrics of Mark Lowry’s song about the Incarnation, “Mary Did You Know?” In that song, he speaks, as it were, to Mary, and he says:

“Mary did you know that your baby boy is Lord of all creation?
Mary did you know that your baby boy will one day rule the nations?
Did you know that your baby boy is heaven’s perfect Lamb?
This sleeping child you’re holding is the great I Am …
And when you kiss your little baby, you have kissed the face of God.” 

     Jesus is the face of God to this world.  When you have seen Him, you have seen the Father.  If you want to know God – look at Jesus!

 B.  Salvation:

The Incarnation of Jesus is not merely an academic exercise; it was absolutely necessary for our salvation.  Isaiah 59:15-16 says, “Now the Lord saw, and it was displeasing in His sight that there was no justice.  And He saw that there was no man, and was astonished that there was none to intercede; then His own arm brought salvation to Him.”  There was no salvation available from any other source; the only way it could come was if GOD HIMSELF did it.  It would involve the sacrifice of a perfect God-Man: a 100% man, who would be our representative, and 100% perfect God who could offer His spotless blood as the sacrifice.  There was no other way.  That is why when Jesus prayed atGethsemane, when He was about to face the wrath of God for the sin of the world on the cross, and asked if it was possible, to let this cup pass – God sent Him to the cross.  There was no other way.  The Incarnate Son of God; Full God Himself, had to die on the cross, bearing our sins, if we were going to be saved.

     And die He did.  Philippians 2 says this Incarnate God “humbled Himself to the point of death – even the death of the cross.”  The glorious Son of God; the One who spoke and the worlds came into being; the One before whom the morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted with joy; the One who commanded the armies of heaven; the One who shared the glory of heaven with the Father before the worlds were; would allow Himself to be struck down and die as a man, nailed to the cross. 

     In Matthew Arnold’s epic poem, “Sohrab and Rustum”, he tells the tale of how a great Persian warlord, Rustum, unwittingly slays his own long-lost son Sohrab, a mighty and glorious son, who was fighting for the opposing army.  When Rustum discovers that he has killed his own son, it is too late. Arnold tells the story thus:

Like some rich hyacinth, which by the scythe
Of an unskillful gardener has been cut,
Mowing the garden grass-plots near its bed,
And lies, a fragrant tower of purple bloom,
On the mown, dying grass; — so Sohrab lay,
Lovely in death, upon the common sand.

Even so the very glory of God; God Incarnate Himself, lay dead on the common, dirty floor of the hill of Golgotha – cut down by the rough hands of a common Roman soldier.  But unlike Sohrab and Rustum, it was no accident.  This was by “the foreknowledge and predetermined plan of God”, who “so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  God Incarnate, dying on the cross for us, was the only way you could be saved.  Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except by Me.”  Repent of the sins that have separated you and God; put your trust for your justification in Jesus’ death for you on the cross, and ask Him to by your Lord & Savior, and you will be saved today.  But know this: if you do not, there is no other way than through “Our Incarnate God.” 

 C.  Mission

     Because God became incarnate to reach us, WE should become incarnate to reach others.  I Peter 2:21 says that we should “follow in His steps”.  Jesus left the comfort and glory of heaven to become incarnate that He might save us – and now He calls us to follow in His steps in what we might call “incarnational” missions and ministry.  In other words, WE should do what Jesus did: leave our places of comfort to go to where people are so that we may reach them with the gospel.

     Taylor Ivester is one of the Journeymen missionaries to Suriname that our church has had a relationship with. Taylor came to our Mission Conference this year, and he shared his ministry story in Suriname during one of the “breakout” sessions.  He said when he first went to one of the villages, he went around to all the homes, inviting people to come to a Bible study.  He said at first he was really encouraged, because every single one of them said they would come.  What he did not realize was that in their culture, it is impolite to turn down an invitation, and so they all told him “yes” but not a single one of them showed up – and this happened for several weeks.  Finally, he realized he was going to have to do a different kind of evangelism.  So instead of inviting the people to come to a Bible study, he just went out into the village and began hanging out with the people, and doing whatever they were doing.  And he was able to build relationships with them, and share the gospel with them as he did.  What Taylor realized was that if he was going to reach those Aukaners, he was going to have to do “incarnational mission” – he was going to have to go where they were to reach them. 

     And you know what?  Some of us need to realize the same thing.  Many of us have done right here in our culture just what Taylor did in Suriname– the very same thing.  You have invited and invited and invited somebody – with no response.  Today the Lord is saying to you: you need to try something different.  You need to do for the people you are trying to reach, what I did for you.  You need to become incarnate.  God could not have stayed in heaven and saved us.  He had to become Incarnate to deliver us.  “He had to be made like His brethren …”.   And in the same way, there are people for whom you are going to have to become “incarnated”, in a sense, to save.  You are going to have to follow “in His steps” and go where they are, and meet needs, build relationship, and share your witness “incarnationally” – just like Jesus did for you.  And the truth is, if you do not do for them what Jesus did you for – then they never will be saved.  Jesus is calling you today to love someone else the way He loved you – enough to leave heaven and come to earth, as “Our Incarnate God.”