THE
INCARNATION:
ACID TEST OF
TRUE FAITH
By Pastor Max Solbrekken,
D.D.
"In the beginning was the Word and
the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was
made. In Him was life and the life was the light of men.
“Which were born, not of blood, nor the
will of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh
and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten
of the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1: 1- 4, 13, 14)
There is a SERIOUS
MISUNDERSTANDING among many Bible scholars and preachers due to an incorrect
translation of John 3: 13, which says, “Which were born, not of blood, nor of the
will of the flesh, but of God.” Most Bibles have us believing that this
Scripture text is referring to those who receive Christ, because of the plural “which”
when in fact the original Greek uses the singular “He” which refers to
Christ!
This passage must be taken in context
with the rest of the Scripture text about Jesus the Word of God; not about believers. It is about JESUS
OF NAZARETH – Not about us! The Bible states: “He (Christ) was in the world and
the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own and
His own received Him not.
This is the PROPER TRANSLATION: “But as
many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even
unto them that believe on His name. He
(Jesus) was born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of
man, but of God. And the WORD was made flesh and dwelt among us. And we
beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of
grace and truth.” (John 3: 14)
TERTULLIAN SETS
THE RECORD STRAIGHT!
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus (160-220 A.D.) of Carthage Africa known as Tertullian, was an
early Christian author who was martyred for his faith. He stated: “The
blood of the martyrs has become the seed of the church.”
In his book, ‘The Incomparable Christ’ (1902) - which
I have enjoyed for decades - J. Oswald Sanders brings out a truth that has
eluded far too many theologians and preachers for hundreds of years!
He states: “Samuel Zwemer commenting on John 3:14, writes: ‘Here those who
believe the Word are those ‘who were begotten, not of bloods, nor of the will
of the flesh, nor the will of man, but of God’.
‘But according to the express testimony of
TERTULLIAN there was an early second-century reading of this
text which had the singular
instead of plural. It would then
read, ‘He (Christ) was begotten not
of bloods, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.’
“In his de Carne Christi Tertullian
wrote; ‘I shall make more use of this passage after I have confronted those
who have tampered with it. They maintain it was written in the plural, as if
designating those who before mentioned as believing on His name.
‘But how can this be when all who
believe… are by virtue of the will of the flesh and of the will of man? - as
indeed as Valentinus himself. The expression is in the singular, as referring
to the Lord. He was born of God … As flesh, however, He is not of bloods, nor
of the will of man, because it was by the will of God that the Word was made
flesh.’
“In his Confessions,
ST.AUGUSTINE quotes John 3:14 in the singular in reference to Christ’s Virgin
Birth, as follows: ‘Also I found there that God the Word was born not of blood, nor of the
will of a husband, nor of the will of the flesh, but of God.”
St. Paul wrote under the inspiration of the Blessed Holy Spirit thusly:
“But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law.” (Gal.4:4)
Commenting on this verse, J. Oswald Sanders writes: “In this
chapter he uses the word “born” three times, but in speaking
of Christ’s birth he uses a
different word (made) from the implied when speaking of Ishmael and Isaac.” (Gal.4: 23, 29)
CULTS PREACH A DIMINISHED JESUS!
It is not surprising that Satan tried to
diminish the stature of Jesus Christ early on by involving an Old-JW-New-Modernist
tampering with the Holy Scriptures. What does surprise me is that for hundreds
of years theologians have missed what is OBVIOUS, that Jesus of Nazareth was
not born of human blood or the will of either Joseph or Mary but of GOD and by
HIS will alone!
Every one of us were born by the will of
our fathers and mothers and carry our father’s blood in our veins. To force a Scripture text to mean something
different than it was meant is totally wrong! Let me repeat, by using this
Scripture text to prove that sinners are born again by the will of God and not
of man may sound good to naïve Christians, but that is not what this Scripture
says! This is a foundational doctrine which refers to Jesus of Nazareth alone!
THE ONLY BEGOTTEN SON OF
GOD!
The Bible states:
“For God so loved the world that He gave His ONLY BEGOTTEN SON that
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John
3:16)
Right from the very beginning, SATAN has
had his loyal humanistic minions on board, to pervert the sacred Scriptures.
They come in a variety of knowing and unknowing fellow travellers, but his main
goal is to weaken the faith of believers and giving false cults the ammunition
they desire in gaining converts, through tampering with the Scriptures!
Hundreds of false cults have arisen
through that method of deception, among them the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons and
Christian Scientists. Their main deception is that Jesus of Nazareth
was not truly God in the flesh, that He is a lesser god, an arch angel or
something else.
According to Holy Scripture, those who REJECT the Deity of Jesus Christ cannot
and will not be saved, unless they repent of that grievous SIN of unbelief and
blasphemy:
“Hereby
ye know the Spirit of God: Every Spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is
come in the flesh is of God: and every spirit that confesses not that Jesus
Christ is come in the flesh is NOT
of God: and this is that SPIRIT of ANTICHRIST, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it
in the world.” (1 John 4: 2, 3)
Presently, there are more than seven
billion people alive and we have all come in the flesh, born naturally of a
mother and father. Although childbirth is a miraculous phenomenon that happens
every second around the world, Jesus of Nazareth was conceived by the Holy
Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He was incarnated, God in human flesh!
IN THE BOSOM OF THE FATHER!
All those who reject Jesus Christ as God the Son who came to this earth to save
lost humanity by the Sacrifice of Himself and to meet the demands of Divine
Justice, will not be saved.
And all those who receive Him as the
Christ the King, their Saviour and Lord will be saved!
When the Eternal Son of God was born of a human mother without the aid of
a human father that is the miracle of INCARNATION, meaning ‘God in human flesh’.
Jesus Christ was True God and True Man
while He walked this earthly sod! The
Word of God states: “No man hath seen
God at any time; the ONLY BEGOTTEN SON,
which is in the BOSOM of the Father,
He hath declared Him.” (John 1: 18) The Apostle John was a young man who
had absolute faith in Jesus of Nazareth. He was the closest to our Lord and is
called the “disciple whom Jesus loved.” (John
20: 2; 21:20)
"Now there was leaning on Jesus'
BOSOM one of His disciples, whom Jesus loved." (John 13: 23). John
understood the fact that Jesus had come from God and always is in the "Bosom
of the Father."
What that term
means is, that the relationship between Jesus of Nazareth and His Heavenly
Father had NOT been broken when He was incarnated to die as God's Pascal Lamb
for the sins of the world! He was still
in His Father and the Father was still in Him through the Blessed Holy Spirit!
The bosom is where the heart is and from
which Love is generated. The BOSOM is a place of rest and peace. The name of
God, El Shaddai has the meaning, "the Breasted One". He is
our sustenance and nourishment. He feeds, heals and keeps His mighty hand of
protection and love upon us!
The union between God the Father and His Only Begotten Son during His
earthly ministry is a Mystery. Some misguided theologians believe that Jesus
emptied Himself completely during His incarnation, but that would have
destroyed the UNITY of the Godhead.
That
teaching is unbiblical and utter nonsense! How could Jesus, Who was TRUE God
from eternity and TRUE man by His Virgin Birth, suddenly no longer be God?
The Bible says that He created the worlds
and keeps the solar system functioning perfectly by His WORD. If He abdicated
the throne for three years, there would no longer be a cosmos or a liveable
earth!
“God … hath in these last days spoken unto us by His son, Whom He had
appointed heir of all things, by also HE
MADE THE WORLDS; Who being the
brightness of His glory, and the express image of His Person, and UPHOLDING
ALL THINGS by the Word of His power,
when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the
Majesty on High.” (Heb.: 1-3)
JESUS WAS FULLY GOD &
FULLY MAN!
Jesus Christ never stopped being God the
Son! He was in the BOSOM of His Father from Eternity, during His INCARNATION
(God in human flesh) and is now and forevermore! During His time on earth, He was Fully God and Fully Man!
This same union exists between
Jesus and “the sons of God” through the New Birth. He is in us and we are in Him. (1 Jn.3:1, 2; Rom.8:15-17). And in
the Marriage Supper of the Lamb, between the Bride and the Bridegroom.
The Church is the Bride and Jesus is the
Bridegroom. John the Baptist stated: “He
that hath the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, which
stands and hearth Him, rejoices greatly because of the Bridegroom’s voice: This
my joy therefore is fulfilled.”
(John 3:29)
JESUS is also pictured as the Good Shepherd. He said: “I am the Good
Shepherd and know My sheep, and am known of Mine. As the Father knows Me, even
so know I the Father: and I lay down My life for the sheep.” (John 10: 14, 15)
He told the parable of the sheep lost in the
wilderness, which the shepherd searched for and found: “And when he had found it, he laid it upon his shoulders, rejoicing.” (Luke
15: 4-6)
The Bible states: “He shall feed His flock like a Shepherd: He shall gather the lambs
with His arm, and carry them in His BOSOM, and shall gently lead those that are with young.” (Is.40:11)
Here is another Scripture that
modernist theologians have used to diminish the truth of Jesus of Nazareth
being fully God and fully man. And, unfortunately, many unknowing preachers
have fallen for it!
"In this was manifested the love of
God toward us, because that God sent His ONLY BEGOTTEN SON into the world, that
we might live through Him." (I John 4:9). We
have life though Our Lord Jesus Christ, Whom God sent "to be the
propitiation for our sins." (1 John 4: 10)
The word propitiation
means satisfaction, covering and expiation. This means that the
sacrificial all-atoning death of Jesus Christ, satisfied the Demands of
Divine Justice to appease the wrath of God against the sins of a rebellious
human race from the time of Adam.
THE ONLY BEGOTTEN SON OF
GOD!
We find the unique
phrase, "the only begotten
Son", also in John 1: 14, 18; John 3:16 in the Authorized King James
Version, New King James Version, Amplified and the New American Standard Bible.
Unfortunately, most of the other versions have exchanged the original words to unique Son of God, only Son of God, One and
only Son of God.
The Bible states: “"In the beginning was the Word, and
the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with
God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that
was made.” (John 1:1-3)
These verses inform us
that Jesus Christ is the Creator of the worlds and all things therein! St. John
states: “And the Word of God was made
flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the ONLY
BEGOTTEN OF THE FATHER, full of grace
and truth.” (John 1:14)
Again St. John writes:
“No man hath seen God at any time; the ONLY
BEGOTTEN SON, which is in the bosom of
the Father, He hath declared Him" (John 1:18)
DR. HENRY MORRIS
states: “The Greek word for "only begotten" is monogenes, the very form of which clearly denotes "only
generated." As monotheism connotes only one God and monosyllable
means a word of only one syllable, so monogenes means only one genesis or
only one generated--or, more simply, only begotten. It does
not mean "one," or even "one and only." It is worth noting
that, although Christ is called the Son, or Son of God, frequently in the New
Testament, He is never (in the Greek
original) called the "only" son of God.
The fact is, that to call Him the only
Son of God would make the Bible contradict itself, for He is not the only Son
of God, and certainly not the "one and only" Son of God. Angels are several times called the
sons of God (e.g., Job 38:7) since they had no fathers, being directly created
by God.
Likewise, Adam was called the son of God (Luke 3:38), because he was directly
created. The same applies even to fallen
angels (Genesis 6:2), and even to Satan
(Job 1:6), because they also were created beings. The term is also used in a
spiritual sense, of course, for those who have become "new creations" in Christ Jesus by faith (II Corinthians
5:17; Ephesians 2:10; etc.).
In this sense, we also are "sons
of God" (e.g., I John 3:2) by special creation? not physically but
spiritually. But it is never applied in this sense to Christ, for He is not a created son
of God (as the Jehovah's Witnesses and other cultists teach), but a begotten Son
of God--in fact, the only begotten Son of God.
He never had a beginning, for He was
there in the beginning (John 1:1). In His prayer to the Father in the upper room,
He spoke of "the glory which I had
with thee before the world was" (John 17:5).
BEHOLD, A VIRGIN SHALL
CONCEIVE!
Nothing could be clearer than Dr. Henry
Morris’ Commentary on the unique phrase “only begotten” which can used for
Christ Jesus alone!
Seven hundred years before the
incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, Isaiah prophesied his VIRGIN BIRTH: “Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you
a sign; Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and shall call His name
Immanuel.”(Is. 7: 14)
St. Luke chronicles the glorious
Christmas Story of Archangel Gabriel’s visit to a Jewish Virgin called Miriam
(Mary) to inform her of God’s great plan of Redemption that would involve her.
He said: “Fear not, Mary: For thou hast found favour with God. And, behold thou
shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a Son, and salt call His name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called
the Son of the Highest: And the Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His
Father David:
“And He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of His kingdom
there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be seeing
I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost
shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee:
therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the
Son of God.” (Luke 1:28-35)
To confirm His Words to Mary, God sent
His Angel to Joseph, her fiancé. He naturally was upset and confused at the
news Mary’s pregnancy.
JESUS SAVIOUR SON OF GOD!
The Angel of God reassured him: “Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to
take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy
Ghost. And she shall bring forth a Son, and thou shall call Him JESUS, for He shall save His people from their
sins.
“Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by
the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring
forth a Son, and they shall call His name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is,
God with us.” (Matt.1:20-23)
Micah the Prophet who lived in the 8th
Century B.C. pinpointed the very place where the Messiah would be born. Here is
his anointed prophetic utterance:
“But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of
Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth unto Me that is to be ruler in
Israel; Whose goings forth have been
from of old, from EVERLASTING.” (Micah 5:2)
And Isaiah the Prophet declared: “For unto us a CHILD is born, unto us a SON
is given: and the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall be
called Wonderful Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince
of Peace.” (Isaiah 9:6)
The absolute accuracy of God’s Word
should cause sinners run into the arms of Jesus. Seven hundred years before His
birth, the Prophet specifically stated that the CHILD would be born and the SON
would be given. The Child Jesus was born but the SON was given, because
the SON was God the SON from Eternity! Praise the Lord!
St. Paul
wraps it all up with these power-filled words of Holy Scriptures: “Concerning His SON Jesus Christ our LORD,
which was MADE (not born but made) of the seed of David according to the flesh; and
declared to be the Son of God with POWER, according to the Spirit of Holiness, by the resurrection from the
dead.” (Romans 1: 3, 4) Amen.
