Dr. Michael D. Halsey
Chapter 1
"THE DEITY AND HUMANITY OF CHRIST"
The librarian of the Library of Congress said that there are more books written on Jesus Christ than any other subject or person in the world. He said that the Civil War ranks second, but that Jesus is first. Why?
Two thousand years after He was last on the earth, millions and millions of men, women and children meet every seven days to talk about Him. These millions speak different languages, dress in different ways, listen to different music and eat foods of their regions. They gather on every inhabitable continent to examine what Jesus had to say and to study what He did. Why?
Men and women meet in seminaries and Bible colleges in such places as America, England, Europe, India, Romania, South and Central America, as well as Australia and Canada. In the past, people established universities such as Harvard and Yale to pore over what Jesus said and did and commissioned their students to take His message wherever they went. Scholars devote their lives to pore over the tenses of the verbs He spoke and the cases of the nouns He used.
How many millions and millions of people gather consistently every seven days to pore over Socrates, Plato or Aristotle? Do any in India or Japan? Those titans of Roman history who lived contemporaneously with Jesus—any study groups which devote their time to Emperor Tiberius? No,
Obviously not. Are there Pontius Pliate Study Guilds?
The question is WHY is so much time devoted by so many to this Person who was publicly known for only three short years.
We find the answer in Philippians 2:5-11. This one chapter in Philippians is the most discussed and written about of all of its four. It is this chapter that has caused church councils in the fourth century as well as in the Reformation.
It is Philippians 2 that tells us why they’ve written and are writing so may books and held so many meetings; why they go over His words with so much meticulous study.
Philippians 2:5-11
As is the way of the Bible, the author crams a cargo load of doctrine in a few sentences. He begins by writing about Jesus, "who, being in the very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped" (2:6). With one word, "being," Paul states that Jesus pre-existed before He came into the world and that in His pre-existence He was in His "very nature God." The nature that Jesus possessed was deity; that is, He possessed the entire nature and essence of God.
Whatever characteristics God has, Jesus has. Since God is omniscience, so is Jesus; since God is absolute righteousness, so is Jesus. Some have summarized it: Jesus is just as much God as God is God. Other references: John 1:1-14; 20:28.
As Jesus existed eternally in eternity past, the nature He possessed was deity, so He didn’t need to grasp deity, He always had it.
In this doctrinal cargo, Paul writes that there occurred an "emptying." In verse 7, we learn that Jesus "made Himself nothing." The Greek word (kenoo) means, "emptied." Jesus emptied Himself by "taking on the form of a slave."
Jesus, voluntarily and unforced, took a lower position that He had. In taking the form of a slave, He still retained His deity, yet in taking the form of a slave, He became a human being. In becoming the "likeness of men," He became thirsty, hungry and slept. Being a human being, He knew such limitations by experience, yet He was different in that He was sinless.
Had you seen Him, He appeared as a human being—He dressed like a human being; His actions were those of a human being, all apart from sin.
He became a man without ceasing to be God, so that He could die. He had to empty Himself of His position because a man can die, whereas God cannot. He added humanity, yet with deity undiminished.
He neither gave up His deity or the characteristics of deity when He was born into the human race. All of this is so He could die.
We call this the Doctrine of Kenosis (ken-o-sis), from the Greek word, "to empty." We can define the doctrine as "Christ’s leaving His pre-existent position and taking on a servant humanity with deity undiminished." In view of this, we can say that Jesus Christ is true humanity and undiminished deity united in one Person forever."
So this is the reason for all the books, the study and all the meetings, because Jesus is the unique Person of the universe. There is no one who is as He is.
So? Paul won’t let us make an abstraction out of this doctrine and leave it lying dry and dusty in a notebook. In Philippians 2:5, as he introduces this doctrine, he says, "Your attitude should be the same as Jesus’." At County Line Church, we want to serve to build you up in the faith, to bring you to a growing confidence in God and to help you become a success in God’s sight.