In his letter to the believers at Philippi, Paul is quoting a hymn to remind them of how they believe in the deity of Christ. This comes in the midst of a discourse on how believers should behave toward one another as humble servants. It can be translated into Aramaic, and it reads as a poem of 5 stanzas with 3 lines each, with meter. It is probably one of the first teachings of the Apostles in Jerusalem.
"Christ Jesus, who, though He was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped. Rather, He emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. Because of this, God greatly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the Name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." (Philippians 2:6-11)
And in that "emptying" of Himself, (kenosis), Jesus relinquished those aspects of the Nature of God, by which the divine Christ now far surpasses our Humanity, (And yet even so He retains his earthly experiences and his ability to intimately and compassionately relate with us.) as follows:
Divine: Human:
1. infinite - limited
2. creative - artistic
3. immutable - changeable
4. immortal - mortal
5. insusceptible - temptable
6. omnipresent - localized
7. omniscient - teachable
8. sovereign - humble
The Son of God, in order to become as one incarnate, emptied Himself and set aside the immeasurable extremity of some of the aspects of his Divine Nature. He did not set aside his Divinity itself, but only intentionally limited its potentials. He retained only the nominal vestiges of the powers which would otherwise have kept him from an intimate understanding and sharing compassion with ordinary human beings.
Jesus limited Himself in such a way that He could, with the accord of the Father and the Holy Spirit, pick up his full divinity again and recover its usefulness, when He began his mission for the Kingdom of God. Later, He once again accepted his limitations, when he was arrested and put to trial, so that as both God and Man He could experience the agony and tragedy of crucifixion and death.
This emptying was necessary for the union of incarnation which was then accomplished with the help of the Holy Spirit. As a result, the hypostatic union was effected between the Person of the Son of God and the rational Soul of the son of Mary, and by intention they aligned the two natures, human and divine. In this way, both God and Man, joined in one person, fully God and fully Man, lived a human life, brought a divine message and its grace, and died a tragic human death. God the Father then raised Him from the dead, having thus shared our experience through his Son, who paid the penalty we deserved as a consequence of sin, yet having never once sinned Himself.
Consequently, Jesus has forgiven our sins, and offers us the grace to heal our original sinful nature. If we believe in Him, as the Way and the Truth and the Life, then we are saved. And by whatever measure of his grace that we may receive and accept, and by the obedience with which we follow his lead, we are brought ever closer to becoming holy as a saint and a Child of God.
And what is the first foundation of our faith, that which we must confess in order to be Christians? Again, the apostle Paul gives us the answer in his letters, to the Romans (10:9) and to the Corinthians (I Cor.15:3-8). This is known to be strictly in accord with the teachings of the Apostles, because they summoned him to come and explain what he was teaching to the churches.
1. Jesus is Lord, the divine Son of God.
- He has the wisdom to teach, the power to heal, and the authority to cast out demons and to forgive sins.
2. Jesus died on a Roman cross.
- He gave his own life to pay our penalty for sin. It was a sacrifice of love so that judgement would pass us by, and a ransom to free us from slavery to evil.
3. Jesus arose again from the grave.
- This affirmed that his divinity and identity as the Son was acknowledged by God the Father, and it defeated Satan's gambit to claim sinners and destroy us with death.
And where are these shown in the Bible?
They are to be found in: I Corinthians 15:3-8, Philippians 2:6-11, Mark's Gospel in the Passion narrative (15:22-39) and in John's Gospel story of how Jesus appeared to his disciples (20:19-29). These are extremely early, and based on first person testimony.
Muslims will claim to believe in Jesus, as a great prophet to the Christians. Indeed, the Qur'an barely tries to argue with the Gospels' portrait of Jesus, although it gets many details wrong. Muslims are mostly willing to concede his teachings and his miracles, right up until his execution. But they deny his death to atone for our sins, his resurrection from the grave, and his identity as the Son of God, which the resurrection proves. These three essential elements are the ones they will vehemently deny. This is what they refuse to believe. Yet without these, you cannot claim to know Jesus, nor can you have any kind of relationship with Him. Your sins will not be forgiven, and you will not be saved.
To defend their denial, many Muslims will insist that you must try to answer a single question. They phrase the query somwhat disingenuously, however, because they have been taught to insist on the "proper words," but no one can put words into God's mouth.
"Where does Jesus say, I am God?" they ask. There are at least a half dozen places where Jesus claims to be God, but among the most obvious is, Mark 14:62.
Here Jesus is being interrogated by the High Priest, and He agrees that he is the Christ, the Son of God. "I am, and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power, and coming on the clouds of Heaven." These are three clear references to God and divinity. The High Priest clearly understood, as he tore his garment and declared "blasphemy!" Jesus was referring to Exodus 3:14, Psalm 110:1, and Daniel 7:13,14.
Judaism had a long history of struggling with a conceptual dilemma, trying to understand how a singular, unique God could abide in Heaven while He sends his "messenger" or his "presence" to communicate with us, and yet this person will be saying "I am" just like God does. Of course, they never saw two at the same time, and occasionally He might pray, or reference God as another, like Jesus did. But it looked a lot like there were two powers in Heaven, even though they know that God is One. Pure monotheism cannot comprehend that, and the concept of a Trinity, a Three-in-One Godhead, is just too strange to conceive, unless you are told about it, or see something that demands it. But the conundrum of God sending Himself was recognized as a thought problem to be wrestled with.
Jesus was clearly giving a definitive answer to this question, one that the High Priest was not willing to concede, as it conflicted with his idea of One God. He thought, a man cannot claim to be the Omnipotent God; it's not possible. But he had failed to give God enough credit. It was possible, for God really is omnipotent.
For a thousand years, God had been trying to get his people Israel to accept Him as their leader, the way He had led them through the wilderness. Instead, they wanted a king, like the other nations. God allowed that, and found a special relationship with King David, and promised him an eternal dynasty. That promise was fulfilled when God sent his Son to be born as a human child, with all of the normal human limitations, so that He would experience what it's like to be one of us ... until it was time to become the Teacher, Priest and King that He was sent to be.
When Jesus's mission was done, to die on a cross and rise from the dead, He revealed how now we will need the third person of God's Trinity dwelling with us, in our hearts, so that He can abide with us. So, when He ascended back to Heaven, He sent the Holy Spirit to stay with us, and continue to teach us all that we need to know. With that done, now God is clearly the Leader of his people, as He intended, and we must have the Holy Spirit in our hearts in order to follow Him and be saved.
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