11 - The Humanity of Jesus Christ, Part 1

Well, welcome back to the Striving for Eternity Academy's School of Systematic Theology.

Now we know that we had some time off, a couple of weeks of break,

but school is in session.

So get your Bibles out and get ready for class.

I know some of you slackers who have been deciding to eat lots of food and

sit and hang out and have lots of fellowship time, you guys putting away your books.

Well, it's time to get your books out.

It's time to get back to class.

So if you have your books, if you have a syllabus, there it is,

grab your syllabus.

We are going to be in lesson number seven.

Lesson number seven today in our syllabus.

And we will be discussing today in lesson

seven, the humanity of Christ part one.

Now, if you're an intelligent fellow, you quickly realize that if this is part one, that

means that next week would be, very good class, part two.

That means that we're not going to finish discussing the humanity of Christ in one lesson.

Glad some of you are paying attention there.

That's very good.

So we have today that we are going to go over is the humanity of Christ.

Now, if you were with us in the last three lessons, we dealt with the topic

of the deity of Jesus Christ in quite a lot of detail.

And the reason we did that is because there is much confusion on the deity of

Jesus Christ.

Now, one of the things that people would think is, well, the humanity of Jesus Christ would be a much easier

topic because there's nothing there that would be

of disagreement.

Well, that's not exactly true.

And we're going to see that.

So let's begin.

If you have your syllabus, look in your syllabus there under lesson seven, and you're

going to see that we can start with the first of your fill in the blanks there.

And that is that many are confused when they consider that Jesus Christ is

both fully God and fully man.

And while the deity of Christ is widely debated, unfortunately, his

humanity seems to be accepted as a matter of fact.

And it seems because we're going to look into some that don't, that have issues with that.

But in this lesson, we are going to focus on Christ, the importance of

his humanity, his existence before his humanity, and then his entrance into

humanity.

So those are going to be three areas of discussion that we are going to look at tonight.

Now when we look at this, there's one thing I want to bring out.

And that is, we have to understand when we look at the New Testament and we

understand the issues that were being discussed and debated

and that were issues at the time of the writings of the New Testament,

it wasn't the deity of Christ that was debated.

It was actually his humanity.

Unlike today, in our day and age, we are

less likely to question the humanity of Christ.

And there are some who even question that.

Some who question whether Jesus actually ever was a real person.

So we're going to take that group and put it aside because the reality of

Jesus Christ and the historical evidence of Jesus Christ is

more than any other human being that ever lived as far as I could tell.

And so, that one's really only debated by those who choose to ignore

history, okay?

Excuse me.

But we have a group in the time of the New Testament called the Gnostics.

Now, let me explain the Gnostics and that's going to help you to understand why so much of the

Gospels and the writings of John and others were to prove that Jesus came in the

flesh.

And it's for this reason.

The Gnostics believed that anything physical,

material, was bad.

But anything spiritual was good.

And so, if you have anything material, it's evil and it's not a good thing.

But if Jesus Christ was purely good, therefore, he must not be

material.

He would have to have been deity, but not humanity.

Okay?

Now, I want to explain again, we went through this on the deity of Christ, but now we're going to take the other side of the coin

and say that one of the reasons that this is such an important issue is because if Jesus

Christ was not God, then he cannot pay an eternal

fine.

But the flip side, if Jesus Christ was not man, he cannot pay the

fine for human beings.

And so, Jesus Christ had to be fully God and fully

man.

And this is a thing that wasn't delineated right out of the gate in the New Testament

time.

It was something that people would see in the Scriptures and they had struggled with it to try to

wrap their heads around this, to say, how is it that Jesus could be God and Jesus could be

man?

And many will argue today that the Bible doesn't teach these things because it's not explaining it

in 21st century language.

But the reality is, is that the Bible wasn't written in the 21st century.

It was written in its time, it progressed through time.

Okay?

We had more Scripture that was revealed to us as time continued.

So, as we go through this, let's look first at the importance

of Christ's humanity.

The importance of Christ's humanity.

If you look in your syllabus there, the first blank is concerning his

example.

And so your blank there is example.

All right?

Concerning his example, let's take a look at Jesus' life as a

man provided a pattern for men.

Let's take a look at 1 Peter 2, verse 21.

1 Peter 2, verse 21.

It says, for to this you have been called because

Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an

example that you might follow in his steps.

So he left for us an example.

Now some of you are going, oh yes, yes, WWJD, what would Jesus do?

Well, no.

That's sort of, but maybe not exactly.

One of the things we have to remember is that Jesus wasn't just a man.

He was fully man and fully God.

So as God, Jesus could do things that you and I can't do.

Jesus could read the minds of people and he knew what was in the hearts of men.

So he can proclaim things that you and I really can't proclaim.

I mean, we wouldn't go to somebody and say to them like he did to the rich young ruler and say, oh, if you give up all of your

money and, you know, follow after me, you'll be in heaven.

That's not how the rich young ruler would have gotten to heaven.

It's not by his works.

But Jesus knew his heart.

So we have to keep in mind that when we talk about Jesus as an example, it doesn't mean we do

everything that Jesus does exactly as he did it because there's things he could do that you and I

can't.

But there are things he did, as we see in 1 Peter, as an example

for you and I to follow.

And if you look specifically, let's put it up again.

If you look specifically, look at the context there.

It is talking about suffering.

It's talking about suffering.

Now, have any of you ever suffered?

Well, the reality is, is that when we look at suffering and we see the suffering

we may suffer, keep in mind that Jesus Christ suffered far

greater than you and I ever could.

You and I suffer.

Let's, let's, you know, not beat around the bush.

We suffer and we think it's bad.

But there's times where some of our suffering is brought on because of our own temptation and we give in to our

temptation.

I want you to think about this for a moment.

Jesus Christ, having never sinned, every single time that he was tempted,

just like when we're tempted, the temptation gets worse and worse and more and more until either we give in

or we conquer it.

But those times when we give in, that temptation's over.

Jesus never gave in.

He suffered every temptation to the fullest.

He suffered in ways far more than we could ever understand.

Jesus Christ took the weight of sin upon himself on that cross, something we

cannot even begin to conceive, and he did that.

That is far worse suffering.

And think about this.

Jesus, being God, knew exactly when he wanted to enter into humanity.

You ever think about that?

I mean, Jesus could have entered into humanity when lethal injection was the way of capital punishment.

Wouldn't that be easy?

He didn't.

He entered into humanity when the Romans perfected one of the most vile ways of

killing a person, of torturing a person, and then, at that point, he said, now's the time to

enter humanity and be the sacrifice for sin.

And so he suffered far greater than us, and that's something to encourage us as well so that when we

do suffer, we can know that we can look to his example to follow.

Not only concerning his example is it important, but also, if you look at letter B there in your syllabus,

concerning his everlasting priesthood, his

everlasting priesthood.

Now if we're going to look at his priesthood, where are we going to go?

Let us go to Hebrews chapter 2.

Hebrews chapter 2 and verses 17 and 18, and we see here the only a man could

faithfully represent men to God.

That's what a priest's job was, was to represent men to God.

And so it says here, therefore, he had to be

made like his brothers in every respect so that he might become

a merciful and faithful high priest in the service

of God to make propitiation for the sins of people.

For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is

able to help those who are being tempted.

Do you see that?

The suffering that he suffered makes him that sympathetic high priest,

that one that can mediate between us and God, that person who can go

and take men before God.

And so his priesthood, it's important to understand his humanity

concerning his everlasting priesthood.

Now a third area, let us see there, that we see it is important to understand the humanity of

Jesus Christ, and that is dealing with concerning his daily provision of grace.

His daily provision of grace.

He understands our lives

because he lived a life of his own.

Coming to him, we can obtain mercy and find

grace in that time of need.

This is why if we look in Hebrews, we already saw Hebrews 2, let's look in Hebrews 4 now,

Hebrews 4, 15 and 16, we're going to see this is where he is called that sympathetic

high priest, a sympathetic high priest.

If you see here, it says, For we do

not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize in

our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has

been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Let us then with confidence draw near to the

throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help

in time of need.

I hope that that verse is as much an encouragement to your heart as it is

to mine.

It is greatly encouraging to me to know that Jesus Christ suffered, but

his suffering was also part so that he can understand and be sympathetic

to the struggles, to the temptations, to the trials, to the suffering of men.

There are times that we suffer and we think, nobody can understand

what I'm going through.

In a sense, that's true.

There is a sense where I can never fully understand the suffering you may suffer and

you'll never understand the suffering that I suffer, but Christ does.

He understands it and he could be sympathetic.

He's not like that critical parent that maybe some of us have that's always nagging at us.

That's why I love James 1 .5 where it says, If you lack in wisdom, ask of God and he will

give it liberally and without criticizing.

I love that.

I love to know that I can go to God and ask for wisdom, know that I'm suffering and I need his

grace and he's not going to be critical of me.

He's not going to be on top of me and looking to nag at me and tell me how wrong I was.

We see that the importance of

Christ's humanity.

Next, let's look at his pre -existence.

Christ and his existence before humanity or his pre -existence.

What we have here, if you look in your syllabus there, let's first deal with the falsehoods, a false

statement about Christ's pre -existence.

Christ was, one false view, this isn't a true view, this is a false view,

is that Jesus Christ was merely a good man.

He was merely a good man.

This would be explained by the Jews.

Jewish people would say that he was a man.

But if he was just a man as we saw in some of those verses, the scriptures claim him to be

sinless.

So he can't be just a mere man, he had to be, he was a sinless man,

but he was far more than just a mere man.

So, what's the second one?

Well, if he wasn't just a mere man or a good man, the

other thing that people claim, and you see this with Jehovah Witnesses and others, that

Christ was an angel.

Now, if you follow Jehovah Witness teaching at all, you know that they would teach

that Jesus Christ was the first created angel, Michael the Archangel,

and he became Jesus and then returned to being an angel.

There's some issues with that that we could get into.

So, we're going to look at some of them, but let's first look at the correct statement

about Christ's pre -existence.

Okay, the correct statement would be this, that Jesus Christ existed

prior to his entrance, and that's your first blank, entrance.

Jesus Christ existed prior to his entrance into humanity, and

from the previous lesson, we recognize that he existed not as an angel.

We saw three different, dealt with this in three different lessons to understand he wasn't

just an angel, but was God.

Okay, so we're not going to reiterate all of the things on the deity of Christ, but it's there.

But let's take a look at one passage here, and that would be in John 8,

John 8, 56 to 59.

John 8, 56 to 59.

Your father Abraham rejoiced that he

would see my day.

He saw it and was glad.

So the Jew said to him, you are not yet 50 years old,

and have you seen Abraham?

Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was,

I am.

And I hope you remember that name, I am.

That's the name of God, specifically of Jehovah.

So they picked up stones to throw at him, and Jesus moved himself out from the temple.

And if you remember, we've looked at this in the deity.

They clearly understood what he was claiming there.

He wasn't just an ordinary man, but he's claiming a pre

-existence.

You and I had no existence prior to conception.

Now, this is something different with some world religions.

Some of the world religions, Mormonism would say that we are all pre -existed before

creation.

Hinduism, Buddhism would say that we all exist and we just kind of recycle through life's

reincarnation.

And so there are some that would hold to the idea that people have a pre

-existence to the life they're living now on earth.

Some would hold it as a spirit.

And those like Mormons would say that you pre -existed as a spirit, though you have no recollection of that,

where reincarnation would teach that maybe you might have a recollection of that.

But have you ever noticed, nobody says when they reincarnate and they have a recollection of their previous

lives, no one said, yeah, I was the cat that everybody kicked.

No, they were always like, you know, Cleopatra or Caesar or somebody that they want to

say was great.

Well, yeah, then what lessons did you learn as that great person that you came back as you?

I mean, in reincarnation, no one seems to come back and, you know, remember previous lives as an animal or something.

You know, I was a fruit fly.

I got eaten by a spider, you know.

But that's what makes Jesus Christ different.

Jesus Christ in His existence, He

existed prior to His entrance into humanity.

All right, so let's take a look at now the third one, and that is

His entrance, Christ and His entrance into humanity, His entrance

into humanity.

Now, His entrance into humanity is called the incarnation,

incarnation.

That's your blank there.

His entrance into humanity is called the incarnation.

That's a theological term.

And we note, we note, or we will note that the preparation, the process and the purpose

of His entrance into humanity as we look into this now.

But when we look at the incarnation, this is God becoming

man.

This is the process or the explanation of how

God became a man.

Now, if you're going to really press me on this, I'm going to have to tell you, sorry, I

cannot fully comprehend it.

I'm sorry, but I'm not God.

And if you get anybody that claims they can fully comprehend it, well, they're either lying to you or

they're deceived.

It's one or the other.

But we do take this because God has said this to be true.

And when we look at this, let's begin by looking at the preparation for His entrance into

humanity.

Now, we see this preparation in the Old Testament.

We see the prophecies of the Old Testament early.

I mean, as early back as right after Adam and Eve sinned.

In Genesis chapter 3, we see in Genesis 3 .15 that

God said, I will put enmity between you and the woman and

between your offspring and her offspring.

He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.

So, right here, we're seeing that, we're seeing

here that this is a prophecy of Jesus

Christ all the way back.

So, when people say that this was like some, something that just happened through time, like

God really didn't know, this is what would be open theism.

People that, really what open theism is people that have had an adverse

feeling of a theological doctrine called Calvinism that we'll deal with much later.

And they've gone so far the other way that to try to prove that God is so just, they

actually claim that God doesn't know everything.

They say that God is learning as He goes.

So, He's not really omniscient.

Big problem there.

But what they're doing when they do that is they're doing that because they're trying to

save God from somehow allowing sin in the world.

Well, He allowed it because He didn't want us to be puppets.

But He also allowed it because He had a plan of salvation for us.

And we see that right as He's giving the curse to Adam and Eve, to man and woman, and to

the serpent, the curse because of their sin, He's at that same time saying

that there is a plan for a Savior, for a man that would come, God Almighty.

And so, we see that even in the Old Testament prophecies, you want more?

Well, we just got done with Christmas time, so let's go to Isaiah 7 and 14.

Isaiah 7, 14.

Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign.

Look, the young woman is with child and will bear a son.

And you shall call His name Emmanuel.

And also with this season, let's turn to Isaiah 9 and verse 6.

It is, for a child has been born for us, a son given

to us.

Authority rests upon His shoulders, and He is named Wonderful,

Counselor, Mighty God, Prince of Peace.

So, what we see here is that Jesus Christ was prophesied

to be coming, that He existed already.

We also see in preparation for His entrance, we see that there was a forerunner.

We could look at Malachi chapter 3.

This is not Malachi, okay?

I've actually heard some people try to pronounce it and they pronounced it Malachi.

It's not Malachi 3 .1.

It's Malachi 3 .1, okay?

Behold, I send to you, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way

before me.

And the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple, and the messenger

of the covenant, in whom you delight.

Behold, He is coming, says the Lord of hosts.

Also in Malachi is chapter 4 verse 5, where we

see, Behold, I will send to you Elijah

the prophet before the great and awesome

day of the Lord.

So, we see that in the Old Testament, it was also prophesied of this forerunner.

We're going to come and look at that passage about Elijah, because

that's going to become something we're going to need to discuss in a couple of minutes.

But this is something that every Jewish home would say

on a Passover.

One of the things they do during the Passover in every Jewish home is that they will have a separate seat

for Elijah.

And part of the Passover meal is a time where we open the

door to look for Elijah or allow him in, but there's a seat for him with a

cup of wine and a plate waiting for Elijah, because the Jewish people know

that Elijah will precede the Messiah.

That he would be the one, as it says there, let's put that back up for a moment, that he would be the prophet

before the great and awesome day of the Lord.

I look forward to that day.

I hope you do too, that day of the Lord.

But we experience that, and we're going to look at that in a couple of minutes, because there's an issue here.

But we see the New Testament fulfillment.

We could look at Matthew 3, the first 12 verses, but that's a little bit

long for class.

And so, let's turn to Luke 1 and verse 17, Luke 1 and 17.

And it says here, and if you look, let me just hold up one second with that, let me just mention,

if you look at Matthew 3 and the first 12 verses, and you're going to see a

description of John the Baptist as wearing a leather coat,

having a leather belt around his waist and a camel hair coat.

In 2 Kings 1 .8, it says this, let me quote, let me read to you, it says, so they answered him a

hairy man wearing a leather belt around his waist, and they said it was Elijah the Tishbite.

This is one of the things that a description of Elijah, and that description fits with John the

Baptist.

Oops, I may be giving away something, but we're going to get to that in a moment.

Luke 1 .17, and he will go before him in the spirit and

power of Elijah to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the

disobedient to the wisdom of the just, make ready the

way of the Lord, a people prepared.

This is speaking of John the Baptist.

Now, you notice, hold that up there for another second there.

Do you notice in there, it says in the beginning, and he will go before the people in the spirit

and the power of Elijah, okay?

All right, because now we have the problem.

Here's our problem, and you can see it there in your syllabus.

I laid it out for you.

Some see a contradiction here because John the Baptist

answered in John 1 verse 21 that he is not Elijah.

The Jewish people came, the leaders came and said, are you Elijah?

Are you the prophet that Elijah who is going to precede the Messiah?

And so, what you have here is that he answered no.

Now, while Christ said that John was the forbearer, you can see that

in Matthew 11, 14, chapter 17 verses 11 to 13.

You see here a supposed problem.

Was John the Baptist actually Elijah?

If he wasn't Elijah, then what was going on?

Now, let's keep in mind something.

Before I look at the solution, those of you who have a syllabus already looked at the solution probably because I know some of

you students and you like to look ahead.

I know that because you're not as chatty in the chat room tonight, and so you must be following along in your notes.

But what we have here is we have to keep in mind, and I said I'd do this throughout the class, is show you the

foundation we first set when we started the class on the attributes of God.

Keep going back to that because all of our theology is based and rooted in a

understanding of the theology, the nature of God, the attributes of God.

So, when we have our theology proper, that's the studies of the Godhead,

when we have that right, then we get the rest of this right.

So, as we look at this now, we are seeing this here, and what we see here is we have to remember

that God is omniscient.

He is all known.

So, when man sinned, it didn't catch him off guard.

When the Jewish people rejected Jesus as the Messiah, it did

not catch God off guard, okay?

He knew that because He knows everything.

Not that He had to see it in time to learn it.

He knows it, okay?

So, having that as an understanding, what we have is to recognize

that with Jesus Christ, in His entrance,

God knew that John the Baptist, that He wasn't going to send

Elijah in the first coming of Jesus, but He was going to, as He saw in

Luke, let's put that back up, that John would come in the spirit and the

power of Elijah.

He would come in the spirit and the power of Elijah because He would be the forerunner of the Messiah,

but He wouldn't be the only time He would come, for there is another day that He is coming

in that great day that Luke speaks of.

But if we look here in your syllabus at the solution, it's John was one

like Elijah, but he was not Elijah.

He was like him, and in order for Christ to present the kingdom to the Jews sincerely,

there needed to be a forerunner like Elijah, and John fulfilled

that role.

And when asked whether he was Elijah, he rejected that he

was the resurrected Elijah, but he never denied that he wasn't in

the power and the spirit of Elijah, alright?

So, now let's look, letter B in your syllabus, at the process of His entrance into

humanity.

We already looked at Isaiah 7 .14, you can look at Matthew 1 and

23, 21 to 23, and you can look there, but if you want to

see your blank there, these texts emphasize the process, and that's

your blank there, process, these texts emphasize the process by which Christ

was to enter into humanity, namely the virgin birth and conception

by the Holy Spirit, okay?

And so, let us take a look at some passages here.

We could look at the whole, really, if you look in your syllabus, I say John 1,

1 to 14, because you really can look at all of that, but let's just look at verse 14, alright?

And verse 14 says,.

And the Word, speaking of God, became flesh and dwelt among us,

and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son, from the

Father, full of grace and truth.

And what we see here, this passage explains the reality, that's your blank there, the

reality that the Word, which was eternal

and coexisting with God the Father, while possessing the very same

essence, became God -man, okay?

John 1, 1, you'll see that.

And so, we can look at another passage, a great passage, Philippians 2,

5 to 8.

Philippians 2, verses 5 to 8.

So, we saw that John 1 talks about the reality.

This verse talks, this verse focuses on the obedience, and that would be your blank there, the

obedience, alright?

And so, let's look there in Philippians 2, Have

this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ

Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count

equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the

form of a slave, that's what should be there, being born in the likeness of men,

and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming

obedient to the point of death, even death on a

cross.

Excuse me.

That talks about, this verse talks about the focus on his, on the

obedience, excuse me, on his obedience of Christ.

He voluntarily surrendered the use of his divine

attributes and placed himself under the authority and will of

the Father.

Now, that doesn't mean that he stopped being God.

He was always God, but he surrendered himself.

And so, that is something that we have

to understand.

Now, at this point, as we talk about his entrance, before we get to his purpose, I

want to deal with some, an issue that again comes up when talking about his humanity, because I

want you to be prepared.

I want you to be ready to give an answer for the faith that you have.

I want you to be ready to give an answer when someone asks you or challenges you.

Now, this is one of the things you don't often get.

You get this more from the liberal Christians, those that don't really believe in the supernatural.

They profess to be Christians.

They usually teach in liberal seminaries, and they teach these things.

You don't get this from the atheists, okay?

Atheists don't actually read the Bible enough to study things like that.

They actually just cut and paste from other atheists that do a little bit of

understanding of the Bible.

But there is an issue with the doctrine of the virgin birth that has

brought on some controversy between the evangelicals and the more liberal

theologians.

Roman Catholics kind of add to this controversy because they put Mary up on a pedestal,

and they don't claim her to be God, but they will claim that she was sinless

because she had to give birth to a sinless being.

Anytime you get that, just ask, well, then didn't Mary's mother have to be sinless?

This is a thing where sometimes you get into a question when people talk about the assumption, I think it's the assumption of

Christ, no, sorry, the Immaculate Conception, I'm sorry.

When they talk about the Immaculate Conception, it's actually not talking about Jesus.

It is talking about Mary and her birth, that she somehow

supernaturally was born without sin so she could give birth to God who

is without sin.

And so when we see that there, right off the bat, it's like, well, Mary's mother had to be sinless to give birth to a sinless being and

so on and so on and so on.

Therefore, how do you get any woman that's sinless?

I mean, you got to keep going back, right?

I mean, somehow, you know, that's a problem that they have.

But we have an issue in Isaiah 4 .7.

Let's look at Isaiah 4 .7 again.

And it says, therefore, the Lord took himself, will give a

sign, look to the young woman who is with child, some translations say the virgin,

who is with child, and she will bear a son, you should call him named Emmanuel.

Okay, so let's look at this word, young woman, or the word for virgin.

All right.

This is an issue that within the context of Isaiah's writing, remember, we interpret within context,

Isaiah is writing and he is a prophet about 740 BC to

somewhere around 680 BC.

But this would have been written somewhere around 735 or so, 12 years before the fall of the

Northern Kingdom.

And this was a prophecy to them at that time.

Okay.

And so, this prophecy, we see that it was a prophecy

that was fulfilled locally in that time, but not in the way that we're speaking

of it when it speaks of Christ.

So, yes, there was a young maid in the word that we see there that some will tell you the word

that is used there concerning the virgin, Alma,

could mean a young maiden or a virgin, someone who is

not married.

And so, what you have here is some would say that because in that sense, there was a woman at the

time of Isaiah who was a virgin, a young maiden who did have a child,

not that he was God with us, but they would have called him that as a sign.

But we understand, okay, from the New Testament that the real fulfillment, the

future fulfillment, and Scripture often will give those prophecies of a near -term fulfillment and a

further fulfillment so that when you see the near -term in your lifetime being fulfilled, that further one you

know is true.

Because how would you know if you're in Isaiah's time that this prophecy is going to be true

in the long term?

Because a prophet had to be 100 % accurate.

So, they wouldn't know if he's accurate until after the fulfillment.

So, a lot of times prophecies would have a near -term and a long -term fulfillment so they can see that he's accurate in the near,

he's also accurate in the far.

And so, we know from the New Testament that the far -term fulfillment was that a virgin,

someone who never had sexual relations with a man, would give birth to a man.

Why is that important?

That's vitally important because, we don't have time to look into it, but in Romans 5 you see that sin is

passed on from the father to the child, from Adam to his children, and so on.

And the reason that's important is because Jesus Christ did not have a human

father.

Therefore, Jesus Christ did not have a sin

nature because that's how it's passed on.

That is why He had to have been born without a human father, born of

the Spirit.

And so, that was how He was able to do that because He didn't have a

sin nature like you and I.

I know some of you think you don't have a sin nature.

We'll ask your spouse.

We'll ask your parents.

We'll even ask your children.

They'll disagree.

All right, so let's lastly look at the last part here, and that is

the purpose of His entrance into humanity.

Why did Christ come?

Why did Jesus Christ come?

These will be further discussed in the study of the ministry of Jesus Christ, and we're

going to spend some time looking at the ministry of Christ and then specifically the doctrine of salvation, which

is a great study.

I can't wait till we get there, but the first one that you see in your syllabus is to provide a

sacrifice for sin.

To provide a sacrifice for sin.

Second Corinthians 5 .21 says, For our sake He made Him

to be sin who knew no sin, so that we might become the righteousness

of God.

Isn't that a great verse?

He who knew no sin became sin, became that sacrifice for sin so that we might

become the righteousness of God.

That's beautiful.

Let's look at the next one.

We already looked at the verse here, but to be an example for believers.

To be an example.

So not only to be a sacrifice for sin, but also to be an example for believers in

Philippians 2 .5.

Third is to reveal God to man.

John 1 .18.

John 1 .18 says, No one has ever seen God,

the only God who is at the Father's side, He who's made Him

known.

So Jesus Christ being God and being man revealed

God to men.

When we look at Christ, we see God.

Men who lived at the time could physically see God.

And we are going to see Christ one day.

We are going to see Him as God.

All right.

And another one there, fourthly.

So not only to provide a sacrifice for sin, to be an example for believers, to reveal God to man.

But fourthly, to establish a mediator between God and man.

To establish a mediator between God and man.

1 Timothy 2 .5.

For there is one God and there is one mediator between God and man, the

man Christ Jesus.

He is that mediator between God and man.

So not only did Christ enter into humanity to provide a sacrifice for sin, to be an

example to believers, to reveal God to man, to establish

a mediator between God and man.

That priesthood that we will talk about more later in later studies.

But also to be, and we looked at this, a sympathetic high priest.

And we already looked at this verse.

But He came to be a sympathetic high priest.

And He understands completely what we go through.

So we see here as we looked at His, the importance of His entrance into humanity.

We looked at His, the process of His entrance into humanity.

We saw His pre -existence and then we saw His entrance.

And in there we see how there is some confusion.

We're going to see in lesson two as we get into it.

We're going to see the evidence for His humanity.

And we're going to see His exaltation of His humanity.

And so those are going to be two things we're going to look at next week.

And I hope you're with us.

Now if you have any questions, you can feel free to either, if you're in our

Facebook page, we have a Striving for Eternity group and you can feel free to

join that.

Lots of discussion that goes on.

There's some thought questions that go on throughout the week based on the lesson that you can answer

from there.

You can also email us at academyatstrivingforeternity .org.

Do want to just give you a quick heads up that there is only a few weeks left before the Super Bowl outreach.

There is still a little bit of room.

I have three more openings still on my team.

If you want to join, they are looking to be filled up very soon, like I believe this week,

that so if you want to go to the Super Bowl, not to the actual Super Bowl, but outside, we

go Thursday to Sunday, a great time of fellowship, a great time of evangelism.

Thousands and thousands of people.

If you go, well, I get too scared evangelizing, then you come to this because there's like 120

other believers with you.

And there's going to be some very experienced people on the team that will help you.

And if you're just handing out tracks, that's what you can do.

There's plenty of tracks to be handed out.

We go through thousands of tracks.

So, I want to encourage you to think about going to the Super Bowl with us.

Do that today, though, would be my encouragement.

Now, one of the things that we do, that we always do, is we want to encourage you to encourage others.

And so, here is who we're going to have you encourage this week.

And it's not going to be anybody that I may know.

But I want you to encourage your pastor.

Encourage your pastor this week.

You know, there's times when we go through life and we do this, we encourage you to encourage others

because, quite frankly, what ends up happening is that we tend to not say really nice

things about people until after they're dead.

You ever notice that?

We say the nicest thing at funerals and memorials.

You know, we eulogize these people and say these wonderful things.

You know, have you ever wondered what people are going to say on your tomb, your gravesite?

I mean, people are going to say the nicest things.

Wouldn't you like to hear that now?

Well, so would your pastor.

You know, pastors are a thankless job.

People don't often understand the role of a pastor and what he does and what he

has to really put up with sometimes.

It's not easy.

Sometimes they're counseling some really difficult things that it just breaks their heart that they have

to deal with.

And for many pastors that have a heart for the sheep, a heart for the flock,

a care for the people that God has put them as shepherd over, it breaks their heart to

have to counsel some people and they could use your encouragement this week.

I don't even know your pastor possibly, but I know he can use your

encouragement this week.

So I want to encourage you to go out this week and encourage your pastor, whoever he may be.

And if you have your pastor, if your pastor is on Facebook, invite him to the Striving for

Eternity Facebook group so that we can all encourage him with

you.

All right?

I want to encourage you to, if you are a, if you're not a student of the

academy, I would like to encourage you to think about becoming an academy,

enrolling in the academy.

These classes are absolutely free, online for everyone around the world, at least that knows English.

But one of the things you get is you get a syllabus if you are a member of the academy, if you

enrolled in the academy.

You'll get some of the notes that we have there.

All right?

And in that, you get some extra things.

We are, we've changed some things this year.

We have removed, we're not going to be doing the conference call after the class anymore.

But one thing we will be doing, hopefully early in this year, is opening up a student's

portal on the website, strivingforeternity .org, so that you would be able to,

in there, have some ways of communicating with fellow students, of being able to share prayer

requests, and do it in a private way.

All right?

So that's going to be something that we're hopefully going to be rolling out very early in this year, if not hopefully before the

summer, but it's going to be something that we're going to have available for students that enroll.

So I want to encourage you to do that this week.

And we thank you for being in class.

Look forward to next week when we finish up this lesson on the humanity of Jesus Christ.

And I want to encourage you, as always, to remember to strive to make today an

eternal day for the glory of God.