17 If you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each one’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay on earth; 18 knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, 19 but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. 1 Peter 1:17-19 (NASB)
Several years ago when I took my first Evangelism Explosion class, our instructor emphasized over and over again that our Lord was both fully God and fully Man. Why is it important that we grasp this about our Lord?…
Gnosticism, for instance, teaches that Jesus is indeed God, but not really Man. Others teach that He was a Man, but not God. Both extremes are wrong and the heresies which flow from them abound. Sadly, many are ensnared by them. When we see our Lord separate from His humanity or Deity we make the same mistake. We looked at the excellency of His Deity in yesterday’s post. Now, let us look upon the humanity of our Lord which is exceedingly lovely and amiable.
Christ is fully Man, but unlike us, He is free from sin. He is the Lamb of God, without spot, and without blemish (1 Peter 1:19). Adam, at his creation, had this spotless purity (Ecclesiastes 7:29) as had the angels, but they came immediately from the hand of God, not through procreation. Adam sinned. This plunged all mankind, his descendants, into sin and separation from God. However, our Lord Jesus Christ is like a plant and root out of a dry ground (Isaiah 53:2). He is a blossom from the stem of Jesse, a bud from the loins of sinful man–born of a sinner, after there had been no innocent flesh in the world since Adam. All in the line before Him were infected completely by Adam’s sin. Christ as a Man is like a spotless bud brought forth in the wilderness of corrupted nature. All save Him are guilty of Adam’s transgression. Because Christ is Human, but free from guilt, free from stain, free from pollution, this is to be adored.