“Why God Became Man” – FBC Morning Light (10/16/2023)

Well, a good Monday morning to you. I hope you had a good day yesterday gathering with God's people and worshiping at church with God's people yesterday. Learned something from his word. We're encouraged and challenged through his word yesterday as well.

Well, today in our Bible reading we're reading in Jeremiah chapters 33 and 34, Hebrews chapter 2, and then Ecclesiastes chapter 4. I want to zero in on Hebrews chapter 2 and begin with this question. Why did God become man?

Why did Jesus come into this world? And specifically in that way Jesus, God the Son, came into this world as a human being, as a baby boy who grew up into a man. Why did God become man? Now, that God-man, they call it the hypostatic union of God and man, is a mystery in the sense that we cannot comprehend how that all works.

How that Jesus is both fully God and fully man, and when God, Jesus, became man, when God became man, he did not lose any of his godness, and being fully God doesn't diminish the fact that he is fully man.

So this is a great mystery, but why? Why did this take place? Why is there that hypostatic union? Why did God become man? Well, you say, well, he came, he became man so he could save us from our sins.

Yes, he did, but how was he to do that? And why was he going to do that? Let's look at Hebrews chapter 2, and we are given two explanations for why God took on human flesh. We read it in verse 14, and it says, in as much as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, that is the children of men, human beings, are partakers of flesh and blood, okay?

In as much as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, he himself, that is Jesus, he himself likewise shared in the same. God became man. God took on human flesh and blood. Why did he do that? Here's the explanation.

That through death he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is the devil, all right? God became fully man so that he might die, and of course we know about the crucifixion, he might die a cruel death of crucifixion on the cross.

Why did he die? It goes on to say that he might destroy him that had the power of death. Okay, so one reason that God became man is so that he might destroy the devil. He might destroy him and had the power of death, that is the devil.

The way that the devil is destroyed and what the devil wants to do in bringing people to death, killing people and eternally destroying their souls, God became flesh in order to destroy the devil's control over death.

So he became flesh to die, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil. And by the way, how did he destroy death? How did he destroy the one who had the power of death?

By the resurrection, by his rising again from the dead. So one reason that God became man is so that he might destroy death. But it goes on, he says that he might destroy him who had the power of death and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

Jesus is the God-man, God who became flesh, so that he might die and in so doing destroy death and the one who has the power of death, the devil, and so that he might release us. He might release you and me who have come to faith in Christ, release us from the fear of death, the lifelong fear of death.

And that is a fear that has people in bondage, whether they acknowledge it or not. You know how you know that people fear death? You look at how they avoid thinking about it. They do everything they can not even to consider it.

And we're gonna see this again in a couple of days in one of our other devotionals. So that today when people have funerals, they don't call them funerals, the trend these days is to trend away from having the traditional funeral at a church or at a funeral home where there's the deceased one who's lying in state, and you come and show respect to the deceased and to his family, and it's a time of mourning.

That is going by the wayside. The trend is away from that, and it is instead to a celebration of life kind of thing, and oftentimes there's no real funeral service at all, it's just a gathering and people have almost like a little party, and it just puts off the whole confrontation of death.

And yet, why do we do that? Because we're afraid of death. We don't want to think about death. We want to put off the thought of death. We want to put it out of our minds and put off the reality of it as much as we possibly can.

We don't like to think about it. We're afraid of death. Jesus came, God became flesh to destroy death and the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and to release us from that ongoing lifelong fear, the fear that we're in bondage to, the fear of death.

And how does he do that? By saving us from death, from eternal death ourselves. And the passage goes on to say in verse 17, that he, Jesus, in all things had to be made like his brethren, he had to become man, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

That's how he delivers us from the fear of death, by making propitiation for our sins, by satisfying the demand that sin makes. And what is that demand? Death. The wages of sin is death. Jesus satisfies that completely.

In his death on the cross, he destroyed the devil and his power over death, and he releases those who will put their faith and trust in Christ from the lifelong bondage to the fear of death. And he does so by making satisfaction for our sins, paying the price, the penalty of our sins.

What a wonderful, faithful high priest we have. Let's give thanks for him today. And so our Father and our God, we are grateful today for our faithful high priest, and we're thankful for all that Jesus has done to save us from our sins, to release us from bondage to the fear of death, and to destroy death.

May he be praised today. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, well listen, have a good rest of your Monday. Hope your week gets off to a great start. Good day.