Veiled in flesh the Godhead see, hail the incarnate deity.”
Very God, begotten not created.
One of the things that people have consistently had trouble with through the ages has been the identity of Jesus. This goes right back to the early church when the Gospel message about him kept encountering pagan beliefs about the world.
The root of those beliefs was the idea that God was impersonal, unknowable spirit and that creation had been some kind of cosmic accident of the kind when your pet cat is sick on that basis, physical matter was yucky, bad, something to escape from. And God wasn’t likely to want to get involved, to come into contact with the contamination.
So, people concluded that Jesus could not be fully God and at the same time. In fact, they tended to assume both. Jesus, was obviously special, so not human. He must have been a semi divine being or perhaps an angel. Indeed, he must also have been only giving the appearance of having human nature, wearing flesh like a coat he could take off, a god with skin on.
This led to two heresies, Gnosticism and Arianism. They still get their tentacles into a lot of thinking today.
The Bible says different. John 1:1 names Jesus aa “The Word” and tells us that he was not only there at the beginning with God, he was God. John goes on to tell us that
“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”
Jesus is fully God and fully man. He is “Emmanuel, God with us.”. This points to some great truths that give us hope.
- God is not impersonal, unknowable, distant. He is the one who has drawn close to us.
- Jesus is fully able to save.
- We have sure and certain hope of resurrection.
Faithroots 