Ocean of Grace (6): MONDAY – As God, As Man (p27ff)

 Lent Book: https://www.thegoodbook.co.uk/an-ocean-of-grace

 

My jottings:

 

(Comments welcome)

 

Ocean of Grace (6): MONDAY – As God, As Man (p27ff)

 

Enjoy the contrasts / parallels in this prayer and wonder at our incarnate Saviour: the Living One who dies, the Shepherd who is the slain lamb, the Fountain of Life who is poured out for us, the Bread of Life who hungers, the Word who was silenced, the Healer who was bruised etc.

 

Think of what Jesus the God-man did for others and for us. He did not use his divinity to serve himself but to save us. (His temptations, which perhaps we think about in this season of Lent, show us that. He did not feed himself but he would feed others. He did not grasp at power but humbled himself. He was the obedient Servant-Son who came to save.) Jesus’ miracles are never self-serving or mere demonstrations of power: they are signs of the breaking in of the Kingdom and they show Jesus love and care for others. Jesus was the God-man for us.

 

Jesus’ humanity and divinity are both essential to our salvation.

 

It was as a man that Jesus fulfilled the law and paid the penalty for sin. His obedience and death were human. God could not die! A human being was a suitable representative and substitute for us. Just as Adam’s sin brought us ruin, the Second Adam restored us. Jesus was born of a woman, born under the law, to die and to redeem us from the curse of the law. Sin is a human problem; Jesus is a human Saviour.

 

Jesus’ divinity and humanity are not somehow in competition as a zero-sum game. His divinity does not cancel out his true humanity. Jesus wasn’t 50% God and 50% man. He was fully and truly human and divine. As a man, God hungered and became tired and died, in his human nature and not in his divine nature (which can never suffer or change). Jesus’ temptations were real human temptations. It wasn’t pretend because Jesus was God! As a human Jesus lived a fully tested human life, tempted as we are in every way yet without sin. It was the person God the Son who did all these things (hungered, tired, resisted temptation, died), but according to his humanity.

 

And yet it was as God that he was our Saviour. God must save and God alone. He will not give his glory to another. Only God could redeem his creation. As God, Jesus’ life was invincible and of infinite value. The God-man was able to pay the price of sin. Of course the grave could not hold the God-man.

 

Even while Jesus was laid in a manger or hung upon a cross, as God he was omnipotent and omnipresent. Although Jesus’ divine glory was (normally) concealed, he did not cease to be God so that he could be man. The Son assumed a human nature to himself so that he exists as a man. The Word became flesh, but he did not change in that becoming, because as God he is unchangeable (immutable).

 

Take a moment to thank and praise the Lord Jesus. Marvel at the mystery of the incarnation.

 

Although we are not divinised, we too are invited, even, in a creaturely way, and as far as it is possible for a human being, to share the divine life: into union with the Triune life of God. (2 Peter 1:3-4)

 

Suggested hymn: Thou who wast rich beyond all measure

 

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXWgFCx6oWE

 

https://store.gettymusic.com/us/song/thou-who-wast-rich-beyond-all-splendor/