The Union of Christ’s Two Natures (2)
In speaking of the mystery of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, one thing that needs to be emphasized is that He continues to be true God and man. The union between the human and divine is an inseparable union.
Some sincere Christians have the vague and unbiblical notion that after the resurrection Christ ceased to be human. He took on our human nature when He was born in Bethlehem and left it behind again when He arose from the dead, so they think.
Actually, the very fact that He arose from the dead proves that He is still a man like us. Insofar as He is God He cannot die and does not need to rise again from the dead.
Nevertheless, we must remember that if He is not still human like us then we have no interest in Him. Then what Scripture says of Him is no longer true—that “made like unto his brethren,” He is “a merciful and faithful high priest” to us (Heb. 2:17). Indeed, if He is not still “made like unto” us, we are not any longer His brethren.
Nor does His human nature “become divine” through the resurrection. If that were the case then He would no longer be our elder brother, the one who ever lives to make intercession for us.
His human nature is glorified and changed through the resurrection from glory to glory, as ours will be when we rise from the dead in the last day and go to meet Him, but it was not left behind or changed into the divine. He is still the Son of Man.
Because He still has His human nature He must come again at the end of the world even as He went away from us when He ascended to His Father. As God, of course, He is everywhere present and is with us until the end of the world. Nor shall we see Him and meet with Him face to face until He returns.
Hard to understand? Indeed it is, but that is only because His incarnation and the union of His two natures is a work of God, whose ways are always too high for us.
Hard to understand, but gloriously comforting, for it means “that we have our flesh in heaven as a sure pledge that He, as the head, will also take up to Himself, us, His members” (Heidelberg Catechism, Q. & A. 49). Rev. Ron Hanko
Joy Among the Angels Over Repentance
“Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth” (Luke 15:10).
One of our readers asks the interesting question on the basis of this text: Are the angelic hosts unhappy if sinners do not repent?
A few general remarks are not out of place before we consider the question specifically.
In Luke 15, where this passage is found, the Holy Spirit records three parables of our Lord Jesus Christ which we can call, “the lost sheep,” “the lost coin” and “the lost son.” While the general theme of all three parables is that “the Son of Man is come to seek and to save those that are lost” each parable has its own viewpoint in setting forth the general truth.
But through the three parables runs the common thread of the words in verse 10 which we have quoted above.
In connection with the parable of “the lost sheep,” the Lord says, “I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance” (7).
And in connection with the parable of “the lost son,” the Lord devotes the entire last part of the parable to demonstrate the same truth when He shows the stubborn and crabby character of the elder son who complained about the repentance of his younger brother (25-32).
Considering this leitmotif which runs through the three parables, two of which make specific reference to the angels, one cannot escape the fact that the Lord is not primarily interested in the reaction of the angels, but uses the reaction of the angels to the repentance of one sinner as an illustration of what our attitude ought to be.
But I will come back to that in a moment.
The question is: Does the text imply that the angelic hosts are unhappy if sinners do not repent?
The answer to that question is emphatically, No.
One must look at this whole matter from the proper perspective.
The angels are now higher creatures than man, for man is “created a little lower than the angels” (cf. Ps. 8:5). But according to God’s purpose this is not always to be. When the saints are finally redeemed in glory, they will be higher than the angels, for they have been redeemed from sin and death and made like Christ. In glory the angels will be the servants of the elect (Heb. 1:14; I Cor. 6:3).
The relation is like an heir to his nanny. While the heir is a child, the nanny is boss, but when the child inherits his father’s estates, the nanny is servant (Gal. 4:1-7).
Thus the sole concern of the angels, who know their proper place in the purpose of God, is the salvation of the elect for whom Christ died.
So it stands to reason that they rejoice when a sinner is brought to repentance, for they see and know that repentance is the way to salvation.
Jesus means to apply this to us. This is evident from the climax of this leitmotif which is found in the end of the chapter.
The three parables were spoken to and in the presence of the Pharisees who murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them” (Luke 15:2).
The Pharisees are portrayed in the ninety and nine who “need no repentance” (7), and again in the elder son who resents the feast for his repentant brother (28-32).
The Pharisees “need no repentance” because, in their own eyes, they had no sin. They kept the law and went even beyond the law’s demands. But because they needed no repentance, they had no need of Christ, because only repentant sinners need Christ.
And so they could not understand that sinners came to Christ and that Christ received them—and even (horror of horrors!), ate with them (1-2).
If, therefore, we are unwilling to receive the worst and lowliest of sinners except on our terms, we are as bad as the Pharisees. And such miserable hard-heartedness is due to the fact that we ourselves do not understand our sins and that we think that we need no repentance—or at least not as much as a prostitute or thief.
If we know our sins, we know we are lost. When we repent, we flee with speed to Christ. When we flee to Him, we find wondrous forgiveness and pardon. When other sinners, who cannot possibly be as bad as we are, repent, we rejoice. And we rejoice because the great and eternal purpose of God is being accomplished in the salvation of the church, all of whom are sinners, but redeemed in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Prof. Herman Hanko
An Earthly Kingdom For Israel?
In connection with a recent article in the News, one of our readers has sent the following question: “You state in volume III, issue 16, that ‘in the days of Israel’s life in Canaan the saints viewed Canaan as a heavenly country.’ Could you expand on this? I am still struggling with the belief that an earthly kingdom is still in store for Israel.”
That Abraham understood this is clearly stated in Hebrews 11:10, “For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” Hebrews 11:16 says the same concerning the other patriarchs. There it is even said that this is the reason “God is not ashamed to be called their God.” His kingdom is heavenly and He is the God only of those who look for such a heavenly kingdom.
What Hebrews 11 says about Abraham, however, is more fully explained in Acts 7:5. This verse tells us that Abraham never owned so much of the land of Canaan as to set his “foot” on. Yet he had the promise that God would give him the land for a possession (cf. Gen. 13:15: “For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it …”; Gen. 17:8: “And I will give unto thee … the land wherein thou art a stranger”; also Gen. 12:7, 15:7 and 18).
If this promise to Abraham had been merely the promise of the earthly land, it would never have been fulfilled to him personally. Yet it was fulfilled as every promise of God is fulfilled, but in the gift of a heavenly inheritance; and Hebrews 11 tells us that Abraham himself understood this.
One might argue, of course, that the land was given to his descendants, but that does not explain how the promise was fulfilled to Abraham himself to whom it was originally given.
Even in the case of his descendants there is a real problem if the promise is the promise of an earthly land, for the promise was that God would give it to Abraham (and his descendants) for ever.
No thousand-year kingdom of the Jews here on earth can fulfil that promise. A thousand years is a long time, but it is not “for ever” (Gen. 13:15: “to thee will I give it, and to thy seed … for ever”). In fact, no land that is part of this present earth can fulfil that promise—because no earthly land is “for ever.” This world and the fashion of it perishes.
The only possible conclusion, therefore, is that the promise was really and essentially the promise of heaven itself—the promise of an inheritance eternal and incorruptible and which shall not pass away (I Pet. 1:4). The earthly land was only a shadow and figure of it.
Insofar, however, as the promise did concern an earthly land as a shadow of that which was to come, that promise the word of God clearly states was fulfilled in the days of David and Solomon (I Kings 8:56).
It was for this reason that God eventually took the land away from Israel when He brought them into captivity and caused the temple and city of Jerusalem to be destroyed—that the Jews, who had become so enamoured of the earthly shadows, might begin to look for that heavenly city and heavenly country as Abraham did so long before. Rev. Ron Hanko
