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“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.”
- Isaiah 9:6
The Bible tells us that it pleased the Father that in him (in Christ) dwells all the fullness of God. In other words, his person was the embodiment of God. As Hebrews puts it, “the effulgence of his glory and the express image of his person” (Heb. 1:3). And yet, we know from Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi that Christ laid aside his mighty power and glory took on the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men (Phil. 2:7).
John says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God” (John 1:1, 2). Later, he adds, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwell among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). To somehow try to coincide these two facts is all part of the Mystery of the Gospel.
In the words of Isaiah, it reads, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given…” (Isa. 9:6). God gave his eternal Son to be made flesh, to live as a man on this earth. This is what we call the hypostatic union. It is God and man in one person, Jesus Christ. While this has been recognized and accepted by most of the church, one thing remains a mystery.
Redemption was the enactment of God taking our place on the cross to pay for our sins. Romans says, “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 6:23). The penalty of Adam’s sin in the Garden was death, “For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:17). Paul explains it this way, “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so, death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned” (Rom. 5:12).
Second Corinthian tells us, “For the love of Christ constraineth us because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead” (2 Cor. 5:14). Weymouth translates it, “For the love of Christ overmasters us, the conclusion at which we have arrived being this –that One having died for all, His death was their death.”
Part of the mystery of the gospel lies within the person of Christ. Although Christ laid aside his deity, he never divested himself of his divinity. Deity concerns the absoluteness of God in all his perfection. He is all-wise, all-powerful, and all-present. Jesus proved he did not walk in his deity as God because there were moments he had to inquire of his Father in prayer, there were places “he could there do no mighty works,” and he was limited to living in a human body, subject to temptation, and the apparent needs of food, water, and sleep. Yet, he exhibited the essence of God’s person by demonstrating a life of power and glory. Paul called him “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24). However, he chose to take upon himself the form of a man living within certain restrictions of a physical body. This was necessary to reveal two fundamental truths. One, he would have to die in our place, and only a man could suffer the penalty of death for us, but this man would have to be sinless to reverse the claims of justice against sin. The second truth is how he reveals the purpose of God in creation. He made man in his own image after his own likeness (Gen. 1:26). When Jesus took upon himself flesh, he became the exact expression of that image. Paul even describes him as “the image of God” (2 Cor. 4:4). He became the self-revelation of God’s person to represent how man was to live. Psalm eight describes man as having dominion over creation, being clothed with glory and honor (Psa. 8:5-8). Christ typified this life by exhibiting the glory as the only begotten of the Father. But more importantly for us, he revealed how we were to live our lives and that only through him could we regain such a sovereign image of God that we could walk in God’s wisdom and power.
Someone had to come and restore the image lost and make way for eternal life to once again live in man so that he could live free from the law of sin and death. The purpose of Jesus’ coming was to make it all possible.
The moment we come into union with Christ, we become a partaker of God’s divine nature. The miracle of the new birth is God creating in us a new nature with the characteristics of divinity. We are not joined to Christ’s deity, but we share his life, which means we share his person, nature, and essence. It is hard to grasp such an amazing truth without understanding God’s divine purpose in making man after his own image and likeness.
It was never in the mind of God for man to live only out of his human nature. Christ proved that. He put in man his life so that he could shine with God’s divine essence. Christ became our mediator to bridge the way back to living the high life, the eternal life we now have in God.
The story of redemption is how God seized back man’s sovereignty to rule and reign through one, Jesus Christ (Rom. 5:17). If we look deep into our union with Christ, we will discover the key to living in his fullness. Even though we often fall victim to our own weak human nature, something in us far surpasses those weaknesses. It is eternal life. This is why we must see and understand the value of being in Christ. “For IN HIM dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. And we are complete IN HIM…!” (Col. 2:9, 10). God wants us to walk in this life until the fullness of our union in him is wholly revived. Paul writes, “And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God” (Eph. 3:19). Each day we live, we should seek to live out of this life, we have, in God (Gal. 2:20). It is our destiny. Therefore, it must become our passion and aim to live fully immersed IN HIM!
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