MAOZ NEWS

March 7, 2002

An electronic periodical on the Jewish Christian scene in Israel, written from a Reformed point of view. News about events in Israel and the ministry in which the Maoz family is involved.

The deity of Christ has become a hot potato among Jewish Christians in Israel. The desire to be accepted by the Orthodox has led to a gradual but continued erosion of biblical distinctives that distinguish the evangelical Faith from Judaism. At first, the deity of Christ was played down, often neglected. Now a growing number of Messianic leaders in Israel have openly denied it. Instead, they attribute to Jesus some form of deification.

Between March 4-6 Baruch delivered a series of lectures on the Deity of Christ at the annual Lectionary of the Israel College of the Bible, in Jerusalem. This issue of MaozNews provides you with an abbreviated version of one of the lectures, based on Philippians 2:1-11.

Introduction

Paul discusses the deity of Jesus for extremely practical purposes. Theology is always practical, because biblical theology is the grounds out of which Christian faith, hope and conduct grow.

Paul wrote to the Philippians because he wanted to instruct them how to live. That is why the exhortatory passage (vv. 1-4) is connected by verse 5 to Paul's discussion of the person, nature and acts of Jesus. Verse 5 calls upon the Philippians to cultivate the same attitude that characterized Jesus when he acted on behalf of his people.

Here are two worthwhile lessons. First, theology is in order to faith and conduct. There is no room for speculation on matters which do not impact our faith, and I am not referring to just the content of it, but to its purity, strength and direction, or that cannot impact our conduct in terms of a godly, God-fearing morality that has God as its ultimate object.

Second, theology that leads to a more biblical faith and practice is very much needed. True godliness is based on the truth of the word of God, understood, embraced and obeyed. That is what distinguishes spiritually motivated obedience from legalistic morality, godliness from humanistic moralism.

The Humanity of Jesus

Like Matthew and John, Paul is fully persuaded that Jesus took to himself a humanity that was wholly and truly real. But like them, he was persuaded that such a humanity was not natural to Jesus. Rather, it was something that he took on.

First, the humanity that Jesus assumed was real. Whatever Jesus was prior to his humanity, Paul tells us that he took to himself the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men (vs. 7). Form here translates the Greek word morphe, referring to that sum of essential, inherent characteristics that distinguishes one thing or kind of thing from another. For example, Morphology in the realm of biology is the study of that sum of physical characteristics that distinguish, say, a mammal from a fish, or a whale from a shark, without regard to the function of its parts. That is
why the NIV translates this term 'the very nature of'. The root, morphe,
is used in Rom. 8, Gal. 4:19 and Phil. 3:10 to convey a moral and spiritual likeness.

God has no external, physical form. When the Bible says that he created man in his own image, it has reference to man's ability to think, to perform moral deeds and to self-consciously distinguish between himself and the world around him – faint but real reflections of God's infinitely glorious perfection.

Paul is saying that Jesus took to himself all those characteristics that are essential and inherent to mankind. He became human, and the humanity that he became was full, unqualified, total. He was like each of us in all things human but sin, because sin is an aberration of humanity from which Jesus came to heal all who find life in him.

Jesus took to himself everything human: growth in physical, mental and emotional stature, dependence on air, food and drink, physical tiredness, including the need for sleep and the sense of refreshment on a bright, sunny morning following a good night's rest. What is more, he was subject to temptation and had to resist temptations as must every human being.

Paul goes on to say that Jesus was made in the likeness of men (7). Likeness here refers to the external, to what Jesus looked like - he was seen to be human. The humanity Jesus assumed was internal, inherent and essential. He became man, and was seen to be, in every sense of the term.
Paul reiterates this idea in the next verse (8), where he says that Jesus took to himself a human fashion, in Greek, schemata, from which we get our English term scheme, that is to say, the plan of things. Here the term is that taken from the root schema, which refers to what distinguishes a thing in terms of its externals. But what is external is ever an expression of what is, or is meant to be thought to be, internally true. No one who met Jesus could doubt his humanity. It was there to be seen.

Having become so human, Jesus accepted all the duties of humanity: he became obedient. Jesus was obliged by the Law of God, made subject to it, assumed that obligation and fulfilled it completely. Jesus kept the Laws of the Mosaic Covenant to such a perfect extent that none could accuse him of being unfaithful. He was obedient. His was a perfect humanity, such as was intended for all mankind and that Adam lost for all mankind when he sinned. It is a righteousness attributed by grace to those who find life in Christ, and increasingly imparted by the sanctifying work of the Spirit of God. To provide it, Jesus had to be human, one of us, and to be obedient as one among us sinners.

Paul goes further. He says that the obedience of Jesus was unto death. Jesus had become man for a purpose. That purpose had to do with an obedience that far exceeded the bounds of normal human obligation. As a perfectly sinless human being, Jesus did not need to die. It is that soul that sins that shall die. But, in obedience to God the Father, Jesus not only fulfilled all righteousness as demanded by the Law of Moses, but then accepted the punishment that Law imposed for sin on those whose lives were imperfect. In this way Jesus would secure the salvation of sinners at the same time that he provided the complete satisfaction of God's law. Jesus was obedient unto death for us, providing yet another form of righteousness by his death. To do so, Jesus had to become human, so as to serve as our true representative. God cannot die. Angels do not die. But man does, and Jesus became man in order to share in that terrible human lot, and thus redeem his people.

Paul tells us that Jesus' obedience all the way to death was climaxed by even the death of the cross, one of the most excruciating, most shameful forms of death ever devised. Any form of hanging is so repugnant to God that he declared his curse on all who will thus be executed (Deut. 21:23).
The Romans considered it so shameful a death that they forbade to execute Roman citizens by this. In addition, Jesus' death occurred before the gaze of scorning priests, a heart-broken mother and his disciples, paralysed with fear, sympathy and the seeming collapse of all their dreams, while the indifferent soldiers argued and determined how the miserable man's clothing would be divvied up between them. No one who saw him there, hanging on the cross, would doubt his humanity. Nor do we.

Human, but…

Paul tells us that this total humanity was not natural to Jesus. He became, took, was made man (7). Before that he was something else. A change had taken place in Jesus, and that change was, at least in some sense, not imposed on him but willingly embraced: he took the form of (that is, the very nature of) a servant. Jesus was not man who then became godlike, or received a divine infusion of some kind, such views are clearly pagan. They suckle at the beast of ancient Greek and Roman paganism.
Jesus was first something other than man, and then became man.

What was he before and how did he become what he became?

Not Merely Divine But God Himself

The answer is to be found in the first part of Paul's description of Jesus: He was in the form of God yet thought it not robbery to be equal with God.
We have seen that the term morphe refers to "that sum of essential, inherent characteristics that distinguishes one thing or kind of thing from another". In other words, Paul is telling us that before Jesus was man, he was God. He had the very nature of God, that sum of essential, inherent characteristics that distinguishes God from all other beings. Before Jesus was man, he was God. He is the Word who was both God and with God and who was made flesh (John 1). He was eternal, self-existent, perfectly holy, glorious beyond description. He knew all things, was ever present, could do all that was in his holy will.

Paul does not think or speak in terms of graduations of divinity, a greater, a lesser and a still lesser God. To do so is to believe in many gods of different divine stature. We know that there is but one God, but we have repeatedly discovered that in that one God there is a mystery of the divine nature. God is at the same time both one and more than one.
Here is the difference: not that there are two or three gods, but that God is more than one. Not that there are two or three divine essences, but that the one divine essence is more than one.

Obviously, this is beyond our comprehension. All we can do is to believe and worship. God is greater than us. We understand the words of scripture, but our puny minds falter at any attempt to go beyond what is written in an effort to understand how these things can be.

Paul is telling us that Jesus forsook all the privileges, wonders and expressed glories of his divine being in order to become a man. He forsook the praises of angels, the heavenly joy of sweet fellowship with his Father and humbled himself, became man, was obedient to death, even death of a cross, in order to rescue sinful men and women from their sin. Although divine in the fullest sense, equal with God, having in his nature all that is essential to God without restrictions or degrees, he became man in order to save sinners.

In the course of his call to the Philippians, Paul told them that their attitude should be the humble unselfishness exemplified in Jesus, the Messiah (vs. 5) Being in the form of God, (he) thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took on him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as of a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, all this in order to save sinners from the consequences of their sin.

What does Paul mean by saying that Jesus thought it not robbery to be equal with God? The Greek term, harpagos, can have one of two meanings. It can mean "to snatch", or "to snatch at" (for example, Matt. 23:25, Heb. 10:34), and it can mean "to cling", "to hold on" to something. Which of the possible meanings did Paul intend? Paul has already informed us that Jesus was in the very nature of God. There was nothing further to which he could aspire, that he might want to snatch. There is nothing higher, more glorious than God. Jesus did not cling to his manifest glories as God. He forsook them in order to become man for our sake. That is how Jesus exemplifies Paul's theme of extreme unselfishness.

Unbelievable kindness! Amazing grace! Stupendous mercy! Words fail to express the sense of wonder over all that God did for us in Jesus.

Does this mean, then, that Jesus ceased to be God when he became a man? Perish the thought! Can God stop being what he is? Paul is speaking of Jesus taking to himself something additional. Being God, he did not cling to the privileges that are tantamount to eternal deity. He took to himself the very nature of man. He added to his glories the humble, outward and inward essentials of humanity.

The term Paul uses in order to describe this process, in vs. 7, comes from the Greek term, kenosis, which has been rendered in various languages as "made himself of no reputation", or "made himself nothing". Kenosis refers to the act of "emptying", to pouring something. Did Jesus empty himself of deity? Of course not. Isaiah (Isa. 53:12) said of Messiah, that he poured out his life unto death. Jesus did not cease to be God when he became man, but he emptied his deity into humanity. He did not and could not divest himself of his essential nature. We are faced with the miracle of God becoming man, not with the challenge of man becoming God. What we have here is an act of supreme humility, of sacrifice for the sake of others.

Nor is this the end of what Paul has to say about Jesus' deity and humanity. He goes on to say, in vv. 9-11, that God has rewarded Jesus for what he did. Wherefore, God also has highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things on earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus the Messiah is (the) Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Paul stretches human language to the limit here. He does not say that God exalted Jesus, but that he "super exalted" him, by according him the name that is above every name. What name could that be? In Isaiah 45:18-25, God describes himself as he who created the heavens, and shaped the earth.
None but I, the Lord, and there is no God apart from me, a righteous God and a Saviour. There is none but me. So, if any seeks salvation, they are
invited: Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other (vs. 22).

In the next paragraph, he declares his determination to be glorified by all as both Lord and Saviour: By myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked (vs. 23). What is the content of this unalterable determination by God? Isaiah answers, before me every knee will bow, by me every tongue will swear, they will say of me, 'In the LORD alone are righteousness and strength'. All who have raged against him will come to him and be put to shame, but in the LORD, all of the descendants of Israel will be found righteous and will exult (vv. 23-24).

Is the name above every name that is accorded by God to Jesus, as described in Paul's letter to the Philippians, not clear? In the Hebrew original of Isaiah 45, the title LORD is the ineffable name, represented by the Hebrew letters YHVH. God has accorded Jesus the most exalted name of all, the name by which he is known as Israel's God and Saviour. Jesus is yet to reassume the manifestation of his divine glories and to be recognized as God the Saviour, the covenant God of Israel. Before him every knee will bow.

Such is the wonder of the Son's unselfishness. Such are the depths of sacrifice to which he went. Let this mind, the mind of our glorious Saviour, be in you, loving one another at any cost, and standing firm in one spirit, contending as one man for the faith of the Gospel as it is in Jesus, not being frightened in any way by those who oppose (Phil. 2:27-28).

MaozNews A periodic report from Israel. Tel. +972 8 869 2542, Fax. +972 8 869 2532, To subscribe or to terminate your subscription simply write to maozsec@attglobal.net . This report is also available in simple format. Please recommend us to friends.

Visit our new website at www.graceandtruthbulletin.org