Christ’s Central Human Nature
We have learned that Christ had a real, a complete, a weakened and a sinless human nature. In addition a few theologians speak of a fifth characteristic: that He also had a central human nature.
By this nothing more is meant than that Christ was born of the flesh and blood of Mary, that He was a Jew, of the line of David, of the seed of Abraham according to the flesh. And since He was then a true son of Adam, He is also of our own flesh and blood.
This seems self-evident, but it has been denied in church history. Some taught that Christ brought His human nature with Him from heaven, and that by His birth and conception He merely passed through Mary’s womb like water through a pipe. Or they taught that His human nature was specially created in her womb so that He was not genetically and organically her son.
This was taught by some Anabaptists at the time of the Reformation and more recently by the neo-orthodox theologian, Karl Barth. They held such views in the interest of preserving Christ’s sinlessness, that is, if He has not truly been born of human ancestry, then there is no possibility that He is tainted with human depravity.
It is not necessary, however, to hold these views in order to believe that Christ was wholly without sin. His conception by the Holy Spirit guarantees His sinlessness (Luke 1:35).
Indeed, to hold this view is to deny that Christ is like us in all things except sin (Heb. 4:15), even in His conception and birth. As Berkhof says, “If the human nature of Christ was not derived from the same stock as ours but merely resembled it, there exists no such relation between us and Him as is necessary to render His mediatorial work available for our good.”
But to say that He was not genetically and organically—by real conception and birth—a son of Abraham, is also to cut Him off from the covenant made with Abraham and his seed and from the promises of that covenant. The promises concerning Abraham and his seed cannot then be fulfilled in Him. Nor, then, is there any possibility that New Testament Christians who are in Him by faith have any interest in those promises. To cut Christ off from Abraham and David is to cut us off.
Let us hold, therefore, to the precious truth that Christ by the incarnation is truly a member of the human race and by natural descent a true son of Mary and, through her, of Abraham and his descendants. Our salvation depends on it. Rev. Ron Hanko
Unfruitful Branches
“Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit” (John 15:2).
The comment and question which accompanied a request to have this verse discussed are most interesting and important. The comment is: “Arminians will quote this text as proof that people can lose their salvation.” The question is: “How can a branch in Him not bear fruit?”
The question is predicated on the truth that the vine here in John 15 is Christ, and that is correct: “I am the vine,” Jesus says, “and my Father is the husbandman” (1). The question is, therefore: How can anyone who is in Christ not bear fruit, and eventually be cut out of Christ? It would seem, indeed, as if this text taught an Arminian doctrine of the falling away of saints.
In discussing other passages in Scripture in previous issues of the News, we have had opportunity to discuss with our readers the organic idea which pervades all of Scripture. It is, admittedly, somewhat difficult to begin to think in these terms, but it is so essential to a proper understanding of God’s word that we turn to it again.
Let us begin by examining an organism in creation. A tree is an organism. It is one tree although it is composed of many different parts. All the parts, however, function and work together, united by one principle of life.
Yet in that tree are branches that bear leaves and perhaps some kind of fruit; there are also branches that do not. There are branches that live; there are branches that die. The dead branches, sooner or later, are blown off by the wind. Yet, the dead branches were once part of the tree.
Scripture uses the same figure to describe the church of Christ both in the old and in the new dispensation. In Psalm 80, for example, the nation of Israel, the church in the old dispensation (cf. Acts 7:38), is described as a vine which God took out of Egypt and planted in Canaan, but which was torn down. Just as in the nation there were righteous and wicked, so in the vine there are fruit-bearing branches and dead branches. But the whole nation suffered under heathen oppression and was finally taken into captivity.
The same figure appears in Isaiah 5:1-7, a passage our readers are urged to look up.
In the New Testament, in Romans 11, Paul uses the figure of two olive trees, the one a natural tree and the other a wild tree. The natural tree is the nation of Israel, the wild olive tree is the Gentile world. Out of the natural tree God cuts branches, out of the wild tree He takes branches to graft into the natural olive tree.
In John 15 Jesus is talking about the nation of Israel as the branches of the vine. That nation lived for hundreds of years as a nation. But the branches that did not bear fruit were cut off.
How is it that in some sense the whole nation could be said to be “in the vine”—whether they were wicked or righteous?
That is possible because Christ Himself was in the nation of Israel from the very beginning. As far as His human nature was concerned, Christ was present in that nation. He was, in fact, the root of that nation, the purpose of that nation’s existence, the reason why God cared for that nation. Really, because Christ was in that nation according to His human nature from its very beginning, Christ was always the life of that nation. But always those who are not really a part of Christ were cut off.
I can only comment very briefly on the application of this great truth, but it ought to be pondered again and again by all who love God’s Word.
In a way, the church is always such an organism. When Paul speaks of the Gentiles as wild branches grafted into the olive tree, he makes it very clear that these branches are generations. God does not graft in individuals. He grafts into the church generations. These generations are branches—with their little branches shooting off, which in turn produce little branches.
Believers are always deeply concerned about the salvation of their children and children’s children in the line of generations. God saves in the line of generations. God establishes His covenant in the line of generations. That is our blessed hope. Prof. Herman Hanko
What Is the Function of the Law Today?
Another question that arises from our previous discussion of the permanence of the moral law concerns its place and function in the lives of New Testament believers. If the moral law is permanent, it must have some function for us, but what is that function? That is the question we wish to answer here.
This is the intent, too, of a question submitted by one of our readers: “Is the law a rule of life or method of condemnation?”
Our answer is, “Both.” We know that many would disagree with us especially concerning the law as a rule of life, but we only ask that they hear us out.
That the law is a method of condemnation is abundantly clear from Scripture and few would disagree with us on this point. Paul says in Romans 7:7, “I had not known sin, but by the law.” The law is able to show us our sin because the law is full of the glory and holiness of God Himself (cf. II Cor. 3:7-11). It shows us, therefore, what we are before God and in relation to Him.
That the law is also a rule of life means that we not only go to the law to learn how wicked and corrupt we are in ourselves, but that the law has a function in our new life of sanctification. In other words, the law not only constantly shows us our need for salvation, but also shows us how as saved persons we are to live to the obedience of God.
Understand, the law does not make us holy. That is the work of the Holy Spirit. Nor does our holiness ever become a matter of merit. Even the new obedience that we render to God in thankfulness for what He has done for us is not a matter of meritorious works but of grace in Christ Jesus.
Nevertheless, the law still shows us what the will of God is concerning obedience and holiness. It shows us who God is and what pleases Him. It shows us how we are pleasing to Him. It shows us, then, how to be thankful to Him for salvation in deed as well as in word.
This does not mean that we are “under the law.” That cannot be true of those who are in Christ. If anything it means that the law, which once was as our master, is now under us as our servant and adviser in the whole area of thankful, obedient Christian living.
The passage which teaches this most clearly is James 1:25, 2:8 and 12, where the Ten Commandments are called the “law of liberty” and the perfect law of liberty. That liberty cannot be anything but our liberty in Christ, that is, our freedom from the bondage and curse of sin. The law is the law of liberty in that it sets the boundaries for our liberty—shows us where that freedom to serve God ends and the slavery of sin begins.
To walk in obedience to God’s commands is liberty, just as the law for a fish is that it swims in the sea and for the fish to be outside that law is to die, so for man the law of life and liberty is that he be in obedience to God. For him to be outside that law is to be in death. The moral law as a law of liberty shows us the boundary between life and death, liberty and bondage. Rev. Ron Hanko
