God with Us: Knowing the Mystery of Who Jesus Is

By Daniel R. Hyde

JESUS. The name means so many things to so many people. This book has as its aim to know Jesus. In order to know Him experientially and personally we must know what the Bible says about Him. To come to this knowledge we must delve into the holy mysteries of the Word of God and the historic Christian faith. Whether you are a skeptic, an agnostic, an inquirer, or a convinced Christian, this book is meant to cause you to consider the mysteries that Jesus claimed of Himself that you too might join the cloud of witnesses that no man can number, confessing the name of Jesus—“God with us.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Reformation Heritage Books
• Release date: Sep 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781601783578

Daniel R. Hyde

Daniel R. Hyde (PhD, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam) is the pastor of Oceanside United Reformed Church in Carlsbad/Oceanside, California.

Book preview

God with Us

Knowing the Mystery of Who Jesus Is

Daniel R. Hyde

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Reformation Heritage Books

Grand Rapids, Michigan

© 2007 by Daniel R. Hyde

Published by

Reformation Heritage Books

2965 Leonard St. NE

Grand Rapids, MI 49525

616-977-0889 / Fax: [phone]

e-mail: [e-mail]

website: www.heritagebooks.org

All Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Holy Bible.

Chapter 7 originally appeared as Who Do Men Say That I Am? The Christ of the Qu’ran vs. the Christ of the Bible, Christian Renewal (April 12, 2004): 20–23 and is used by permission.

ISBN 978-1-60178-357-8 (epub)

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hyde, Daniel R.

God with us : knowing the mystery of who Jesus is / by Daniel R. Hyde.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-60178-031-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Jesus Christ—History of doctrines. I. Title.

BT198.H93 2007

232’.8—dc22

2007045389

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For additional Reformed literature, request a free book list from Reformation Heritage Books at the above address.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. An Event like No Other

2. The God Who Is Also Man: Christ’s Two Natures

3. The Son of God: Christ’s Divine Nature

4. The Son of Man: Christ’s Human Nature

5. The God-Man: Christ’s Single Person

6. The Importance of This Mysterious Doctrine

7. The Christ of the Qur’an vs. the Christ of the Bible

Appendix 1: The Ecumenical Creeds

Appendix 2: Confessional Statements on the Two Natures

Appendix 3: The Seven Ecumenical Councils

Appendix 4: The Tome of Leo I

Scripture Index

Acknowledgments

We are all products of a lifetime of experiences. This is no truer than when we read Scripture, meditate on it, and seek to write down some of its ideas on paper. Thankfully, the expertise and experiences of others teach us how to step outside our finite view of things in order to gather additional information from various points of view. In saying this, I desire to thank all those who have endured my membership classes at the Oceanside United Reformed Church, including my attempt to explain the profound mysteries of Christ contained in this book. Whether you are a dear old saint or a baby Christian, your insightful and timely questions have given me the building blocks of what I have written here.

The perspectives of Leigh Breckinridge and Debby Rau, both editorial and theological, have helped make this a readable manuscript. Jay Collier and Dr. Joel Beeke of Reformation Heritage Books also deserve hearty thanks for their encouragement and Pamela Hartung for her editorial assistance. I also wish to thank my friend, Dr. David VanDrunen, for his encouragement to seek a publisher for this material. As always, I am indebted to my wife Karajean—my best friend, the mother of my boys, my conversation partner, and my most honest critic. Apart from her, I could not make it through this earthly pilgrimage. Finally, although they cannot understand this yet, my young sons Cyprian James and Caiden Daniel teach me every day something of the wonder Mary must have experienced in raising her child—a child who was also the Lord.

Venite adoremus Dominum

Christmas 2007

Introduction

Imagine that you are a sophomore at a small Christian college, having come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ only three years earlier. You are in a chapel service and the guest speaker is explaining the marvelous event of what we as Christians call the incarnation—the conception and birth of the eternal Son of God in human flesh. It goes a little something like this, he says. God came to earth and took on a human body. While speaking, he illustrates what that process of taking on a human body must have involved by taking his coat, which lay over a choir pew behind him, and putting it on.

Shifting scenes, you are now in a famous Southern California beach city on a summer Saturday morning. Thousands of evangelical Christians who have gathered for the March for Jesus celebration walk through the city with praise music blaring from loudspeakers attached to the tops of vans and trucks. There are Christian t-shirts proudly worn and there is a sense of evangelistic purpose and zeal among the participants. In the midst of the crowd is a group of men holding up on poles an enormous sign reading: JESUS: ALL GOD IN A BOD.

These are actual examples from my life. The purpose in mentioning them here is to illustrate that all of us, from theologian to novice, have some way of explaining what the Bible says about the Son of God becoming a man. Although these examples are imprecise, unhelpful, and even incorrect ways of expressing this truth, nevertheless they are symbolic of a much larger problem within contemporary American Christianity. The problem is that the foundational doctrines of Scripture, as understood in the history of the Christian church, are rarely taught or preached, and when they are, they are presented without much precision. This is the result of generations of preaching with the intent of simply making converts rather than disciples. In its rush to convert as many people as possible before Jesus returns, evangelical churches have turned their message into a watered-down, feel-good Christianity. Instead of seeking to make disciples—followers and students of Christ—as Jesus commanded His apostles (Matt. 28:18–20), this method of evangelism by accommodation has made it necessary to give converts relevant, practical sermons about how to live day by day with purpose. After all, the reasoning goes, it is not important to understand how Jesus Christ is both God and man but it is vital that we live our lives for Him and It is not important to know things about Him, but to know Him. Whom, though, is Him referring to in the phrase "live our lives for Him? Many have been deceived into thinking that what they and the world need is a practical Christianity, not a doctrinal" faith. Sadly, this attitude among self-professed Bible-believing, evangelical Christians shows how far adrift Protestant evangelicalism has gone, since these types of comments are precisely the attitude that Protestant Liberalists had in the early 1920s and that the Presbyterian minister and professor J. Gresham Machen wrote so vigorously against.1 In the strange union of liberalism and evangelicalism, it is believed that doctrine is only for the academic community to debate and has no relevance for the daily life of the ordinary believer. Doctrine divides, we are told, but love for the Lord unites. Therefore, the best that evangelicalism can do is produce a Christian culture of bumper stickers, sound-byte theology, and witness wear t-shirts and wristbands. It is no wonder that the esteemed English theologian, J.I. Packer, said that American evangelical Christianity is 3,000 miles wide and half an inch deep.2

If the truth were told, doctrine is not a manmade exercise for the elite, but is the result of obeying God’s commands to study and meditate on what He has revealed of Himself in His Word. For example, in the Pastoral Epistles the apostle Paul wrote to two young pastors, Timothy and Titus, exhorting them to teach and defend the following:

Good doctrine (1 Tim. 4:6);

Sound doctrine (1 Tim. 1:10; 2 Tim. 4:3; Titus 2:1);

That good thing which was committed unto thee (2 Tim. 1:14);

The doctrine which is according to godliness (1 Tim. 6:3);

The faithful word (Titus 1:9);

The form of sound words (2 Tim 1:13);

The mystery of the faith (1 Tim. 3:9);

The words of faith (1 Tim. 4:6);

Wholesome words (1 Tim. 6:3).

Doctrine, then, is simply biblical teaching that is good for the soul. Because of the New Testament’s insistence on doctrine as exemplified in the Pastoral Epistles, J. Gresham Machen said, The Christian movement at its inception was not just a way of life in the modern sense, but a way of life founded upon a message.3 This is why the earliest Christian church’s life of love and fellowship—described as having all things common (Acts 2:44) and exemplified in selling their possessions and goods and giving to all men, as every man had need (Acts 2:45)—is said to have been founded on their dedication to "the apostles’ doctrine" (Acts 2:42; emphasis added). John even warned his audience not to welcome certain people into their homes based on their doctrine:

Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed (2 John 9–10; emphasis added).

What we call doctrine, or theology, offers the only solid foundation on which a believer in Jesus Christ can reliably live the Christian life and face temptations and trials. It is the only firm foundation on which we can and which all people should base their lives on. The pattern of the New Testament epistles evidences that Christian doctrine was first proclaimed, and then applied, to Christian living. This is clearly the structure of the book of Romans, for example. In this letter Paul proclaims both the doctrine of man’s sin and the doctrine of God’s salvation in chapters 1:18–11:33 and then he applies those doctrines to life in the church and in the world in chapters 12:1–15:33. Doctrine and life are inseparably united. Even prior to Machen, B.B. Warfield, the great Princeton theologian, lamented that in his day (late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century), not unlike our own, many so-called Christian theologians were rejecting the historic Christian doctrine of the two natures of Christ. This is a doctrine—explained later in this book—that teaches that our Lord Jesus Christ is both God and man. Instead of this teaching, liberal Christian churches in Warfield’s day were calling for a more relevant Christianity. To this Warfield said,

…the doctrine of the Two Natures is only another way of stating the doctrine of the Incarnation; and the doctrine of the Incarnation is the hinge on which the Christian system turns. No Two Natures, no Incarnation; no Incarnation, no Christianity in any distinctive sense.4

Although the spirit of this age is to feel rather than to think, as Christians God calls us to be transformed by the renewing of your mind instead of being conformed to this world, that is, the spirit of the age in which we live (Rom. 12:2). One of the ways in which the church has been conformed to this age is pragmatism in the form of a relevant, user-friendly religion. Prior to our life in Jesus Christ, our identity was characterized by having a futile mind, a darkened understanding, an ignorant, hardened, callous heart, and an impure life (Eph. 4:17–19). Now, however, our behavior is transformed and we are light in the Lord (Eph. 5:8). Enlightened by the gospel and the work of the Holy Spirit, we undergo a metamorphosis, as described by Paul’s words in Romans 12:2. Jesus commands us to love God not just with our hearts, but with our minds also (Matt. 22:37). This is a part of the lifetime work of putting off the old self of sin while putting on the new self which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him (Col. 3:10).

What does this mean for what we intend to discuss in this book? It means that we must come to realize that without understanding who Jesus Christ is as God and man (what we call His Person), we will be left puzzled about what He has done for us (what we call His work).5 Simply put, how can we know Jesus as Savior and Lord unless we know something about Him? In our western culture, for example, a person does not select a spouse before he or she knows the personality, strengths, and weaknesses of that other person. In a similar manner, we must know God. The Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q&A 1 states that our chief end and purpose in life is to enjoy him [God] forever.6 The Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 1, states that our only comfort is the assurance that we belong to Him body and soul, both in life and in death.7 Most assuredly, our only way to recognize what God has done for us is to come to a firm understanding of who He is.

When we understand who Jesus is we conclude that He is absolutely essential. Knowledge of who Jesus is leads those who already have a relationship with Him to know Him more deeply. For those who have not placed their trust and hope in the Lord, it is necessary to come to know Him in the first place before their relationship can grow. We must clearly understand that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man. If Jesus Christ is not God, then He cannot be the Savior, for only God saves. Furthermore, if He is not God, then He cannot hear our prayers. On the other hand, if Jesus is not human, then He cannot be our Savior because only man can pay for the sins that man committed before God in Paradise (Gen. 3). In addition, if He is not human, then He cannot sympathize with us in our weaknesses. Finally, if the divine and human natures in Jesus Christ are not united in one person, He cannot be our Savior because He is neither God nor man, but a third entity. He would be neither completely God nor completely man.

The relation of factual knowledge to relational knowledge is also essential for expressing our faith. If we profess to believe in Jesus Christ then we must express this belief. As the great Dutch theologian Herman Bavinck said, If we believe that we have the Christ, that we have communion with Him, that we are His own, then such belief must be confessed with the mouth and be spoken in words, terms, expressions, and descriptions of some kind or other.8

Our faith must have expression in words, yet we can only express this faith if we have certain knowledge about who our Lord is. In order to pray, to bless the Lord with all our hearts, and to tell the world about Him, we must have a foundational knowledge of who He is and what He has done for us.9 This knowledge, then, is of a great