INCARNATE GODHEAD
In
view of the Antichrists now rapidly approaching, and the Antichrist seated in
the Temple of God saying that he is God, a question
put to our Lord by Philip, and our Lords answer, are of enormous
importance. Philip
saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us (John 14: 8). The question showed immense faith; for the
Scripture describes God as Dwelling in light
unapproachable, whom no man hath seen, or can see (1 Tim. 6 : 16). Philip actually believed that Christ could show them God. But our Lords answer is
overwhelming. Have I been so long time with you, and
dost thou not know me, Philip? He that
hath seen Me HATH SEEN the Father; how sayest thou, Show us the Father?,
That is, Jesus - as Paul says and as Jesus Himself reveals - is the image of the invisible God.
The
Apostles never warned their hearers against over-exaltation of Christ, lest
they fell into idolatry; Jesus never asked anyone to pray for Him, not even in Gethsemane; Jesus accepted the worship of men and demons
without a word of remonstrance. Our Lords
Second Coming is described as the appearing of our great
God and Saviour Jesus Christ
(Tit. 2: 13). All Deity is centred in Christ. In Him were all things created: things visible
- all oceans, all continents, all the thousands of millions of visible stars,
all nations, all the angels man has ever seen - all have been woven from
texture in the hands of Christ; and things invisible
- stars whose light is too faint to imprint itself on a human camera; far-flung
comets that have never even come within the horizon of earth at all; Hades, or the underworld of disembodied
souls; and Heaven, with all the vast Powers and Principalities seated
throned in the presence of Deity - all were summoned into being by the word of
Christ. All
things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that hath been
made. (John 1: 3). Now on the creating act the Bible bases the
exclusive honours of Deity he that built all things
is God; and it is made the all-compelling ground of worship worthy art Thou to receive the glory, for Thou didst create all things. Jesus, therefore, as Creator, must be
omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent.
Paul
next reveals a still more wonderful truth - a truth amazing and astounding. All things,
he says, have been created through Him, and for
him, or unto him: that is, all things have come into being, have
sprung into existence, for Christ. The whole universe is
concentrated upon Him: it was made for His glory: He is the Coping-stone which
coheres the whole together: He made it for Himself. So Heaven was created for
Jesus : it is prepared for Him; it reflects His
glory; it is filled with His praise; it is His home; and He is going to make it
the many mansions of His bride. Earth was created for Jesus:- a place for
Him to live on, and to die on; a home for the sons of men, that He might become
a Son of man; soil in which to plant a cross, and rock from which to hew a tomb;
a province in His vast universe one day to become His for ever. Creation is no chance chaos, but an ordered
progress and a coordinate harmony, culminating in Christ: it is a composite,
coherent, organic whole, so cohering in Him, that, if He loosed His grip for a
moment, it would burst asunder into its original nothingness. All nature is a masterly unity centred in
Christ, and made for Him, and revealing our blessed Lord as seated on the full throne of
Deity.
Paul now advances to a new, and very peculiar and
little known, revelation - a fresh glory of Jesus which exalts our Lord still
higher, in a rather extraordinary way. For, he says, the whole fulness
of God was pleased to dwell in Him.
The whole fulness of God - not a single
cluster of Divine attributes; not a lovely handful of Divine glories; not a
fragment of Diety - but the whole. But we observe a subtle
and most important distinction. After
the Resurrection, the whole fulness of God was
pleased to dwell:
what does this mean? In Christ as
Creator, and Coheir of the universe, dwells, and has always dwelt, the Fulness of Deity: but, as He is one Person of
the Deity only, obviously not all the Fulness dwelt
in Him. It pleased
- Persons therefore are referred to, for only persons can be pleased the whole fulness of God - that is, Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit to dwell - to take up abode as
the Shekinah in the Temple
in Him. The whole Godhead unitedly chose to dwell in Christ. Here a new glory of Jesus bursts upon us. The Jesus-side of the Godhead, all that is so touching,
and winsome, and endearing in Jesus of Nazareth, is no new phase of His
character; it was always there Jesus Christ, the
same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. But the lowliness of the Incarnation, the
exquisiteness of the Redemption, the perfection of the Man, were such that the
Father and the Spirit, the invisible God, have
taken up their abode for ever in Christ.
The whole fulness of God was pleased to dwell
in Him. Here, if possible, is an
accentuation of the Deity of Jesus higher than which it is impossible to go.
Now
we arrive at the answer to Philips request, and perhaps the most wonderful
revelation of all. For in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. The
in Him is emphatic that is, in Him alone : and the word is not divineness, as in
Rom. 1: 20, but the
Deity, Godhead, the Divine Essence:
not divineness dwelt in Christ, but the Godhead. But the marvel concentrates in the word bodily. Before
His Incarnation the Fulness of Deity was in Him as a Spirit: after His
Incarnation the Fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Him bodily, that is, in Him as a Man. The
fulness of the Godhead dwelt in the man Jesus, not in an invisible shape, or as
an unseen spirit, or as a second person behind the first: it took a bodily form, and the Godhead abode in the
entire humanity the image, the precipitated individuality of the invisible God. The Word was God, and the Word was made flesh. The
Godhead abode in the humanity, without consuming it, or deifying it, or
changing it from its wholesome manhood. That
Manhood hungered and thirsted, it wept and prayed, it watched and slept, it
bled and died. But again and again the
veiled Shekinah flashed out, and flashed out bodily. He
trod on the waves of the sea; He touched the dead, and they lived; the wind bloweth where it listeth - but it
listed to Him: even His clothes burst forth into a whiteness human eye
had never seen: who is the image of the invisible God. And Jesus is exactly the same to-day:- it is dwelleth, not dwelt.
The Body was no phantom, or a clothing
assumed for the earthly life only; pierced upon the cross, it is scarred in the
glory; and is now indwelt for ever by the entire Godhead: He can no more cease
to be man than He can cease to be God; and no more cease to be God than He can
cease to be man. How infinitely solemn
is the word,- Except ye believe that I am he, ye
shall die in your sins (John 8: 24).
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