What Is The True Christian Religion?/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV
THE INCARNATION EXPLAINED
Let us keep in mind that "God was in Christ." and that in Christ "dwelleth all the fulness of the Deity in bodily form." and that Christ was "God over all, blessed forever." That being so there was only one God, but in two aspects. God in Himself and God in His coming forth to view. "No man hath seen God at any time: the Only-Begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath brought him forth to view." They were not two distinct persons, even though spoken of as Father and Son, but Jesus was the projection of the Father into time and space for the purpose of rescuing humanity from the grasp of hell. God projects Himself. The son horn of Mary, "the Son of Man," was a self-imposed limitation in order to enable God to face men and devils—the only possible way—in order to meet men and devils on their own plane of manifestation without destroying them, to reveal God to man and overcome the underworld through temptation combats. Jehovah was the unseen God: Jesus was Jehovah come forth to view as Saviour; not two, but one. Hear. O Israel, the Lord. thy God is One." Jehovah said. "My glory will I not give to another," and also. "I, Jehovah, am thy Redeemer and thy Saviour." The name Jesus means Jehovah as Saviour.
Let us remember two things: there never was a Son of God in the beginning more merciful than the Father, and it is incredible that God could not forgive men without the shedding of blood. A king can forgive his rebellious subjects. Why cannot God do so? Our heavenly Father would not want His children to be destroyed in hell even if they deserved it. Certainly no earthly parent would desire it, nor permit it. The eternal Decrees of God making it necessary to vindicate Divine Justice by the murder of humanity, or else the murder of the Son of God, are an absurdity.
The early Christian Church understood that the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was not to appease Divine wrath or Divine justice, as the church later came to believe, but the work of the hells in fighting God. The ransom paid was to the hells. How was this possible? Because hell had taken possession of the human race through the overthrow of man's free will. It was necessary for God no fight the hells. How could He do so? By assuming man's nature and form, as we have seen, in order that He might approach them without destroying them. It meant that God would have to identify Himself with humanity by taking upon Himself man's nature, subject to temptation, and that hell would have the power it had acquired through the ruin of man to make men suffer. Was there no other way? Jesus in His struggle in Bethsemane evidently asked the question, but He then saw that the only way was by submitting to the hells. "Not my will,"—not the human will,—not the will of the son of Mary.——"but thy will be done," the will of the Divine Love which would not destroy the hells by violence.
God identified Himself with the human race in His coming forth to view as Jesus. He had to be born of a virgin so as not to have a human father with resulting limitations when He should return to His full Deity. No man with a human father could ever be God. The Son had to be "the Only Begotten," unique in being merely the channel for God to enter the human race. He had to have the human nature and the body of flesh in order to be visible, tangible, directly in touch with humanity. He was absolutely different from all other men in having no limiting inheritance from a human father. But He took full possession of the planes of human life on earth and in heaven by becoming incarnate and made them forever His own by His victories over the hells who had invaded them. He thus provided an eternal basis on the planes of human life on earth and in heaven so that He could be fully present in them forever. He is truly now "Immanuel, God-with-us." He is "the tabernacle of God With men." He dwells with us now in His Divine Human, or human made Divine. We are His people, and God Himself is with us now, our God. He is "the mighty God, the everlasting Father. "King of kings, and Lord of lords." And we can never see any other God than the God we see in Jesus. As finite beings we have to see God in finiteness or not at all. As we cannot see the soul of another man except in his body, so we cannot see the Divine Soul except as made visible in Jesus. This is the plain teaching of the Bible.