The God/man a conversation about Jesus

Welcome back, my dear friends, and welcome to my new series entitled, “The God/man,” a conversation about Christ Jesus. This will be by far the most exciting series I have studied, written about, and posted to date.

He was born in an obscure village,
    the child of a peasant woman.
He grew up in still another village,
    where he worked until he was thirty.
Then, for three years
    he was an itinerant preacher.
He never wrote a book.
He never held an office.
He never had a family or owned a home.
He didn’t go to college.
He never traveled more than 200 miles
    from the place he was born.
He did none of the things.
    one usually associates with greatness.
He had no credentials but himself;
    he was only thirty-three,
    when public opinion turned against him.
His friends ran away.
He was turned over to his enemies,
    and went through the mockery of a trial.
He was nailed to the cross,
    between two thieves.
While he was dying.
    his executioners gambled for his clothing,
    the only property he had on earth.
When he was dead
    he was laid in a borrowed grave,
    through the pity of a friend.
Nineteen centuries have come and gone
    and today he is the central figure
    of the human race,
    the leader of mankind’s progress.
All the armies that ever marched,
    all the navies that ever sailed,
    all the parliaments that ever sat,
    all the kings that ever reigned,
    put together, have not affected
    the life of man on earth as much as that
One Solitary Life. *
*The poem is an adaption from James Allen Francis (1926)

John MacArthur writes:
“The biblical witness concerning the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is woven like a scarlet thread throughout the entirety of the written Word of God. As the second person of the Godhead, the Savior’s person and work constitute the central testimony of all Scripture: “Worship God. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Rev. 19: 10).”

My friends, this will not be your basic Bible study about Jesus’ earthly ministry, which resulted in his death, burial and resurrection. I need to know more about my Lord and Savior than that, and I hope you do too. I need to know everything that God’s Holy Word has to say about Him.

So, your journey with me to find out about the God/man, Jesus Christ, will take us where the Holy Spirit leads us. I will talk about theological topics you may have never heard of or thought about, but I promise you, everything I share with you has been researched and backed up with the appropriate Scripture documentation.

To start our study of the “God/man,” we need to start before His birth in Bethlehem, before Genesis 1:1; we must travel to eternity past. It is here my friends, the very foundation for the Bible was laid. As you will see, the covenant made between God the Father and God the Son before time began will lead to the very writings of the Old and New Testaments, and our salvation.

The story of Jesus saturates the Bible. It is His all-encompassing story that gives context, meaning, and purpose to all of life, and prophecies of His first advent are found throughout the Old Testament.

One scholar, J. Barton Payne, has found as many as 574 verses in the Old Testament that somehow point to, describe, or reference the coming Messiah. Alfred Edersheim found 456 Old Testament verses referring to the Messiah or His times. Conservatively, Jesus fulfilled at least 300 Old Testament prophecies in His earthly ministry.

I’ll warn you now there will be times we will need to dig deep into the theology of God’s Word in order to lay the groundwork for what is to come. However, I encourage you to hang in there. Just remember one thing.

¹¹ The Lord is fully aware of how limited and futile the thoughts of mankind are, Psalm 94:11 (TLB)

If the Lord God of the Universe is fully aware of how limited and futile our minds are to understand at times, that leaves us with just one approach to this study. As believers, we must trust what the Word of God tells us and by faith believe it.

Hold on to Psalm 94:11, because here we go.

One Triune God
Before the beginning, there was nothing except God — one God — and he consists of one simple essence.

⁴ “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! Deuteronomy 6:4 (NKJV)

¹⁹ You believe there is one God. That is good! But even the demons believe that, and because they do, they shake. James 2:19 (NLV)

Our one God also exists eternally as three distinct persons. Each person of the Trinity (also known as the Godhead) possesses the entire essence of God.

¹⁶ After his baptism, as soon as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened to him and he saw the Spirit of God coming down in the form of a dove. ¹⁷ And a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, and I am wonderfully pleased with him.” Matthew 3:16-17 (TLB)

¹⁹ Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Matthew 28:19 NLT

This fact means that the three persons, though distinct from one another, are coequal in every perfection of the divine essence of God.
1. The Father is God.
a. The Father is not the Son.
b. The Father is not the Holy Spirit.
2. The Son is God.
a. The Son is not the Father.
b. The Son is not the Holy Spirit.
3. The Holy Spirit is God.
a. The Holy Spirit is not the Father.
b. The Holy Spirit is not the Son.

These distinct forms of relationship establish a definite order within the Trinity, so that it is proper to say with respect to their relationship only that the Father is first, the Son is second and the Spirit is third.

Before God created the universe, God was alone: self-contained, self-sufficient, self-satisfied, in need of nothing. God dwelt joyfully alone in eternity past with the Trinity. These three were together in fellowship with one another from all eternity. They loved each other.

It was during eternity past that the Triune God decreed many things. The most important being Covenant of Redemption. A covenant designed and agreed upon between God the Father and God the Son. This covenant ultimately lays the foundation for the Covenant of Grace, which was a covenant between God the Father and man — the plan of salvation for man.

John MacArthur in his book “Biblical Doctrine” states.
“The outworking of God’s saving grace on sinners begins long before any individual sinner experiences the benefits of that grace. Before the sinner’s conversion and justification, before the Savior’s substitutionary atonement, and even before the creation of the world itself, God’s redemptive grace has its origin in eternity past in the sovereign counsel of the will of the triune God.”

The Apostle Paul in Ephesians talks about God’s plan of Salvation before time began.
⁴ In Christ, he chose us before the world was made. He chose us in love to be his holy people—people who could stand before him without any fault. 5 And before the world was made, God decided to make us his own children through Jesus Christ. This was what God wanted, and it pleased him to do it. 6 And this brings praise to God because of his wonderful grace. God gave that grace to us freely. He gave us that grace in Christ, the one he loves. Ephesians 1:4-6 (ERV)

The Apostle Paul goes on to tell us.

⁹ And God gave me the work of telling all people about the plan for his secret truth. That secret truth has been hidden in him since the beginning of time. He is the one who created everything. 10 His purpose was that all the rulers and powers in the heavenly places will now know the many different ways he shows his wisdom. They will know this because of the church. 11 This agrees with the plan God had since the beginning of time. He did what he planned, and he did it through Christ Jesus our Lord. Ephesians 3:9-11 (ERV)

Such a plan or Covenant could only be the result of a voluntary agreement among the persons of the Trinity, so that their internal relations assume the form of a covenant life.

The Salvation of Man was developed by the Triune God to flow this way.
God the Father proposed the redemption of sinners.
God the Son secured the redemption of sinners.
God the Holy Spirit applied that redemption to all the sinners who received it.

The provision of redemption which God made for His people before the foundation of the world was called the Covenant of Redemption. This became a mutually agreed upon covenant between God the Father and God the Son for the Salvation of His elect.

R.C. Sproul tells us.
“Long before the beginning of man, the Bible has much to say about God’s activity “before” the world was made. The Bible speaks often of God’s eternal counsel, of His plan of salvation and the like. It is a matter of theological urgency that Christians do not think of God as a ruler who ad libs His dominion of the universe. God does not “make it up as He goes along.” Nor must He be viewed as a bumbling administrator who is so inept in His planning that His blueprint for redemption must be endlessly subject to revision according to the actions of men. The God of Scripture has no “plan b” or “plan c.” His “plan a” is from everlasting to everlasting. It is both perfect and unchangeable as it rests on God’s eternal character, which is among other things, holy, omniscient, and immutable. God’s eternal plan is not revised because of moral imperfections within it that must be purified. His plan was not corrected or amended because He gained new knowledge that He lacked at the beginning. God’s plan never changes because He never changes and because perfection admits to no degrees and cannot be improved upon.

The Covenant of Redemption

R.C. Sproul comments:
“The covenant of redemption is intimately concerned with God’s eternal plan. It is called a “covenant” since the plan involves two or more parties. This is not a covenant between God and humans. It is a covenant among the persons of the Godhead, specifically between the Father and the Son. God did not become triune at creation or at the Incarnation. His triunity is as eternal as His being. He is one in essence and three in person from all eternity.”

What is a Covenant?
A covenant is a formally defined relationship between two parties, a solemn promise or oath. Every covenant is built on binding principles or rules, (i.e., you do this, and I will do that, or if you don’t do this, then I will do that) which are determined by the two parties entering into the covenant.

Charles Hodges states.
“The Father gave the Son a work to do; He sent Him into the world to perform it and promised Him a great reward when the work was accomplished. Such is the constant representation of the Scriptures. We have, therefore, the contracting parties, the promise, and the condition. These are the essential elements of a covenant.”

Let’s take a look at the requirements and promises that laid the foundation of this covenant between God the Father and God the Son.

REQUIREMENTS. The Father required the Son, who appeared in this covenant as the Surety (guarantor) and Head of His people, and as the last Adam, to make amends for the sin of Adam and of those whom the Father had given Him. He should do what Adam failed to do by keeping the law and thus securing eternal life for all His spiritual offspring.

This requirement included the following particulars:

a. That He should assume human nature by being born of a woman.
b. That He should assume this human nature with its infirmities, though without sin. It was absolutely essential that He should become one of the human race.
“⁴ But when the right time came, the time God decided on, he sent his Son, born of a woman, born as a Jew, 5 to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law so that he could adopt us as his very own sons.” Galatians 4:4-5 (TLB)
c. That He, who as the Son of God was superior to the law, should place Himself under the penal and federal ties to the law, which required His death on the cross. Thus, paying the penalty for sin and to merit everlasting life for the elect,
¹⁷ “Don’t misunderstand why I have come—it isn’t to cancel the laws of Moses and the warnings of the prophets. No, I came to fulfill them and to make them all come true. Matthew 5:17 (TLB)
d. That after having earned forgiveness of sins and eternal life through His death, burial and resurrection, He should apply the fruits of His accomplishments to God’s elect: 

    Complete pardon and forgiveness of sins, past, present, and future

    Renewal of their lives through the powerful operation of the Holy Spirit

     Eternal life with the Lord God of the Universe
e. By doing this, He would render it certain that believers would devote their lives to God,
¹² And so, dear brothers, I plead with you to give your bodies to God. Let them be a living sacrifice, holy—the kind he can accept. When you think of what he has done for you, is this too much to ask? 2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world but be a new and different person with a fresh newness in all you do and think. Then you will learn from your own experience how his ways will really satisfy you. Romans 12:1-2 (TLB)

PROMISES. *
The promises of the Father were in keeping with His requirements. He promised the Son all that was required for the performance of His great and comprehensive task, thereby excluding all uncertainty in the operation of this covenant.

These promises included the following:

a. That He would prepare the Son a body, which would be a fit tabernacle for him; a body in part prepared by the direct work of God and uncontaminated by sin.
“⁵ That is why Christ said as he came into the world, “O God, the blood of bulls and goats cannot satisfy you, so you have made ready this body of mine for me to lay as a sacrifice upon your altar. 6 You were not satisfied with the animal sacrifices, slain and burnt before you as offerings for sin. 7 Then I said, ‘See, I have come to do your will, to lay down my life, just as the Scriptures said that I would.” Hebrews 10:5-7 (TLB)
b. That He would endow Him with the necessary gifts and graces for the performance of His task and particularly would anoint Him by giving Him the Spirit without measure, a promise that was fulfilled especially at the time of His baptism.
^{1 “}See! My servant, My chosen one! My much Loved, in Whom My soul is well pleased! I will put My Spirit on Him. He will say to the nations what is right from wrong. Isaiah 42:1 (NLV)
c. That He would support Him in the performance of His work and that He would deliver Him from the power of death and would thus enable Him to destroy the dominion of Satan and to establish the Kingdom of God.
¹⁵ From now on you and the woman will be enemies, as will your offspring and hers. You will strike his heel, but he will crush your head.” Genesis 3:15 (TLB)
d. That He would enable Him, as a reward for His accomplished work, to send out the Holy Spirit for the formation of His spiritual body (the Church). The Holy Spirit would take the lead for the instruction, guidance, and protection of the Church.
²⁶ “The Helper will come—the Spirit, who reveals the truth about God and who comes from the Father. I will send him to you from the Father, and he will speak about me. John 15:26 (GNT)
e. That He would give unto Him a numerous seed in reward for His accomplished work. A seed so numerous that it would be a multitude which no man could number, so that ultimately the Kingdom of the Messiah would embrace the people of all nations and tongues,
“²⁷ All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.” Psalm 22:27 (AKJV)
f. That He would commit to Him all power in heaven and on earth for the government of the world and of His Church.
²⁰ he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21 far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. 22 And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, 23 which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way. Ephesians 1:20-23 (NIV)
g. Finally, He would reward Him with a name that is above all names.
⁹ Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:9-11 (NIV) *Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology

Let me reemphasize at this point of our study that I am not talking about the Covenant of Grace. The two Covenants need to be distinguished from each other. The Covenant of Redemption was between the Father and the Son.

Louis Berkhof states:
“The counsel of redemption is the firm and eternal foundation of the covenant of grace. If there had been no eternal counsel of peace between the Father and the Son, there could have been no agreement between the triune God and sinful men. The counsel of redemption makes the covenant of grace possible.”

God’s Covenant of Grace, is between God and man and starts in the Garden of Eden when Adam failed to obey God and sinned.

¹⁵ From now on you and the woman will be enemies, as will your offspring and hers. You will strike his heel, but he will crush your head.” Genesis 3:15 (TLB)

God is already giving us hope of a Redeemer, (Genesis 3:15) is sometimes referred to as the protoevangelium, the first announcement of the gospel in Scripture. God’s promise to Eve that the seed of the serpent would bruise the heel of the seed of Eve and the seed of Eve would crush the head of the seed of the serpent, this is the foretelling that Satan would wound Christ on the cross, but that Christ would triumph over Satan on that same cross.
The two are clearly revealed in Scripture, and moreover they differ as to the parties, as to the promises and as to the conditions.

Why did God do this?

God works “all things according to the counsel of his will.”

¹¹ In him we were also chosen having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, Ephesians 1:11 (NIV)

The psalmist repeats that the Lord does whatever he pleases.

³ Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him. Psalm 115:3 (NIV)

⁶ The Lord does whatever pleases him, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths. Psalm 135:6 (NIV)

God himself declares that he will accomplish all his “good pleasure.”

¹⁰ I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’ Isaiah 46:10 (NIV)

“God causes all things to work together” according to his purpose.

²⁸ And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28 (NIV)

My dear friends, do you truly realize the tremendous honor that was bestowed on you? The Triune God selected you before the beginning of time. It was God’s plan from eternity past that the Lord Jesus Christ would come to earth and die on a cross for you. Through His death you were justified and made righteous in the eyes of God. You are now one of His children and will spend eternity with Him.

¹⁵ For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” Romans 9:15 (NIV)

Right now, thank the Lord God of the Universe for the mercy and compassion He has shown you.

I am just beginning to scratch the surface of the God/Man of scriptures. We have a long way to go to unpack all that God’s Word has in store for us concerning the Lord Jesus Christ.

I hope you now understand that the reason for Jesus’s coming to earth was established and mapped out before time began. We will follow that scarlet thread that John MacArthur spoke about earlier. Next time, I will introduce you to the Covenant that God made with Adam, which will frame the direction of the entire Word of God.

Hold on to Psalm 94:11 throughout this entire study.

Until next time, my friend, may His mercy, peace and love be multiplied to you.