We’ve been talking about the nature of Christ’ person, as well as the nature and workings of the Godhead.  We’ve spent so much time in Christianity talking about nonsense we’ve lost sight of the nature and workings of the God we believe on.  It’s been several weeks now, but the last time I preached here we talked about the agency of divine revelation.  It can sound technical but it’s all relational.  The Godhead is eternally relational.  When 1st John says God is love, it’s an eternal truth about God.  Well the only way God can be love, is if there are multiple persons within the one being of God.  If God is made up of only one person, then who is He loving before He creates anything. 

The Father is the object of divine revelation.  Meaning the purpose of divine revelation is to know the Father.  The Son is the primary agent of divine revelation.  When the Father wants to be known He sends His only begotten Son; the eternal Word.  And the way the Son operates is in the Spirit.  This knowing the Father desires is not in the sense of a mere thought.  The Father isnt after us merely knowing about Him.  He wants communion with us.  Communion is the deepest type of intimacy you can have between two parties.  It’s when the two are in union with one another, so much so we can say though they are two, they are one.  It’s a union that occurs through the two parties partaking in the nature of the other.  It’s an experiential knowledge, where you know someone because you’ve experienced them in the depth of your being.  The closest thing we have in the material world to what we’re talking about is between a man and his wife.  Where the scripture says Adam knew Eve.  Meaning Adam experienced Eve in the depth of his being, and Eve experienced Adam in the depth of her being, and so the two become one.  

The Father wants to be known.  He wants us to experience Him.  He wants us to partake of His divine nature.  But for that to happen the two must become one.  Just as it is in a marriage where the two become one.  God and man must become one.  There needs to be a union between God and man.  Thats where the Word thats been with the Father from eternity, Jesus the Son of God, comes in.  When the Father wants to know and be known.  He sends the Son forth from His bosom to partake with us in our humanity.  He prepares a body for the Word, so that in the Word having communion with our humanity, there can be a union between God and man in the person of Christ.  

The apostle Paul says in 1st Tim 2:5-6 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.

A mediator is someone who intervenes between parties at variance with one another for the purpose of reconciling them; hence, an intercessor.  Jesus is the mediator between God and man.  Not in the sense of settling an argument between two parties, but to bring about a union between God and man.  Theres a distance that needed to be bridged.  The distance is not in proximity.  It’s not to say God separated Himself from us.  I know we have ptsd from bad doctrine that taught us God couldn’t stand to look upon us because of our sin.  We know that’s not true.  The distance we’re talking about existed in our nature.  God is by nature immortal, and mankind is by nature a created being, having been sown in corruption by the sin of one man Adam.  So the distance that needed to be bridged is the distance between mortality and immortality.  The reconciliation isnt God being angry and needing his anger to be appeased.  The reconciliation is the joining together of mortal man and immortal God.  

Hebrews 2:10 tells us the purpose of Jesus being mediator when it says …. For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.  The mediation of Christ is to bring many sons to glory.  The same glory Jesus says he had with the Father before the world was.  The only way Jesus can immerse us in the brightness of the Fathers person is if he is by nature divine, light from light, true God from true God, and then in His divinity partake with us in flesh and blood.  Christ can’t bring our humanity into the light he eternally indwells with the Father, without descending to our estate.  Thats why Paul says the only one who can be the mediator between God and men is the man Christ Jesus.  It can’t be Moses.  It can’t be Elijah.  Or David or Abraham.  It can’t be a mere mortal man.  A mere mortal man can’t approach the light of immortality, and therefore can’t bring anyone else into the light.  Paul says it this way Moses was a servant in the house where as Christ is the Son in his own house.  

1st Timothy 6:16 speaking of Jesus says …Who only has immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man has seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen. 

Johns gospel echoes the same sentiment when it says no one has seen the Father but the Son.  It’s the same thing Paul says to Timothy.  No man is dwelling in the light, and no man can approach immortality, except for Jesus, the Son of God, the Word that is God manifest in the flesh.  Only the man Christ Jesus can bring mankind into the light because he is the only one who is come from the light.  

So here’s Jesus, the Son of God.  Hebrews describes the Son of God as one who has neither beginning of days nor end of life.  Hebrews also describes Jesus as the brightness of the Father’s person.  John says Jesus is the light that’s always been with God, and is God.  So Jesus, who indwells the light of immortality with the Father and the Spirit, gave himself as a ransom.  He partook with us in our humanity, that in partaking with us in flesh and blood, he can bring us to glory, the glory He shares with the Father from all eternity, and through that we can experience the Father in the depth of our being.  

1Ti 3:16 says  And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory. 

Paul’s describing the nature of the man Christ Jesus.  Thats who Paul’s talking about when he says God was manifest in the flesh?  He’s talking about the man Christ Jesus.  He’s talking about the Son of God; the Word that descended from above, and was born as a man.  He’s talking about Emmanuel.  God with us.  Thats who was justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.  Notice how Paul invokes a union between God and man in his language.  He says God was manifest in the flesh.  God was born a man.  This scriptures speak ad nauseam about the birth of Jesus being the birth of God.   

What Paul’s doing here is explaining how Christ Jesus is able to bring many sons to glory.  Jesus is first God.  He’s the Lord from above; he’s the same Yahweh who ate with Abraham; he’s the rock which poured out water for the Hebrews; he’s the bread from heaven.  He didnt lose his divinity when he was manifest in the flesh, thats why Paul says God was manifest in the flesh.  He doesn’t say Jesus of Nazareth was manifest in the flesh.  

Paul says Christ Jesus, the Godman, was justified in the Spirit.  How should we look at that?  Jesus didn’t look like the Son of God on the cross … in fact the Pharisees raged against him telling him that he wasn’t the Son of God because he was dying on the cross … Jesus was justified in the spirit … Greek scholars interpret the phrase “ justified in the Spirit” as saying “Christ was vindicated by his own spirit; the incorporeal life he has in himself, before men by overcoming death and rising from the dead”.  Jesus was justified in the Spirit … He was proven not to be a mere mortal man, but as Roman’s 1 says he was declared to be the Son of God with power, in his resurrection from the dead.  

Great is mystery of godliness … the way to attain to God likeness is to believe on the one the Father sent … theosis, union, is revealed in the eternal Son, who partook with us in flesh and blood.  He was intimate with us in the depth of our brokenness; in his flesh he suffered our death at the hands of our sin, and then was proven to be the Son of God, having the power to immerse us in the light of his immortality, having been raised up by the life He shares with the Father and the Spirit.  The 2nd person in the Godhead, the Word, was born as a man, to offer himself as a ransom, so that in being intimate with the darkness of our death, he can bring us into the brightness of the Fathers person.  

John 3:13; Who can ascend but he that first descended; who can approach the light, except him who first came out of the light.  He who came from above returned to the glory that he always indwelled with the Father and the Spirit, only now he brought our humanity with him into the light of his immortality, having united himself to our nature, in his incarnation.  By partaking with us in our humanity that was perishing, Christ was intimate with us in our death, so that in him knowing our body of death, our humanity can know His divine nature when he’s raised from the dead, and through that, we can have communion with the Father.   

Paul says Christ Jesus was received up into glory …. It’s not just the Son of God who was always dwelling in the light with the Father who was received up into glory.  Yes its the Son of God, but its the Son of God in human flesh who was received up into glory; indwelling the light of immortality with the Father; returning from where he came.  Making intercession for us.  Interceding in our mortality, with his immortality, bringing us to glory …. The reason Jesus is able to bring us to the Father is because He is God incarnate.  If Jesus were only a mere man as some affirm, he would have no power to make us partakers of the divine nature.  

We have communion with the Son through his humanity; and we have communion with the Father through the Sons divinity … the son gives us communion with the Father.  He indwells the light with the Father.  He is light from light true God from true God.  We have communion with the Father in the Son, because the Son is the same divine essence as the Father.  We are made children of the Light, through the eternal Son because he is the light begotten from the Father of lights, having been born as a man.