(4) The fourth class of passages comprises those which refer to the assumption of the flesh. The most important of these is the following: "The Logos became (was made) flesh" (John i: t4). This text is the theological statement of the fact of the human birth of the Christ.
That which in the accounts of Matthew and Luke appears as a simple historical fact is by John explained as a process (or episode) within the eternal life of the Divine Logos. How the Logos became, or was made flesh, we learn just: as little as we learned from Matthew and Luke, how the child Jesus was conceived and born.
The celebrated passage in Phil. ii:5-8 teaches that Christ is both Divine and human. Thus we preclude, by comparison with this text, any ex planation which might possibly posit an es sential change in the eternal life of the Divine Logos. Paul teaches, moreover, that this flesh which the Logos assumed, was "sinful flesh,'' e., flesh which, like our flesh, is subject to the rule of sin.
In I Tim. iii:t6, Paul speaks of Christ as "manifest in the flesh." (5) The last class of statement's noted com prises those passages in the Epistles of Paul in which the Apostle expounds his conception of Christ's humiliation (Rom. viii:3; 2 Cor. V :2I ; Gai. 111:T3 ; iv:4, 5; 2 Cor. xiii:4; Rom. viii:32; Phil. ii:5-8).
The general teaching of Paul is that Christ', who knew not sin, was made sin for our sakes; that he was sent in the likeness of sinful flesh ; that he redeemed us from the curse, by becoming a curse for our sakes; that he was sent in the fullness of time of the Father, being made of a woman; that though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor; that he was crucified through weakness, but liveth by the power of God; that God spared not His own Son; and that though "being in the fOrm of God" con sidered it not a thing to be eagerly grasped "to be equal with God; but made himself of no repu tation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross" (Phil. ii :6-8).
We have, then, under thesc five heads the teach ing of the New Testament on this subject. The Son of God, sent of the Father, came upon the earth being born of a woman, in the regular course of nature (yet she was a virgin, and the conception was brought about by. the instru mentality of the Holy Spirit). Or, in theological language, the Divine Logos became flesh, 1. e. assumed the human flesh, with all its liability to sin, having first emptied himself of equality with God, and the resultant product of this pro cess is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and Son of man.
A careful study of the development of the child, so far as it is possible, fails to show the least trace of duality of consciousness. The boy
of twelve in the Temple is just awakening to a great fact of his life, but there is no indica tion that he is conscious of another ego within himself : "/ must be about my Father's business" (Luke ii :49).
The man Christ Jesus, also, is ever conscious of both his Divinity and his humanity. Thus he says: "I am the living bread that came down from Heaven" (John vi:5i). "Before Abraham was, I am" (John viii :58). "Glorify me with the glory which I had with thee before the world was" ( John xvii :5).
In these and many similar passages, Jesus Christ distinctly indicates the unity of his the anthropic consciousness, and the continuity of his theanthropic personality upon which the former depends. He does not seem to feel separately conscious of his Divinity and of his humanitF, nor does his claim of existence before Abraham. and even before the world was, appear at all strained, but his consciousness of that preexist ence, and of the continuity of his identity, and of his personality since before the foundation of the world, is perfectly natural to him. Both natures intimately united make up the historic Christ of the New Testament records.
We have, then, arrived at the conclusion that the man Jesus Christ shared with us, in the fullest manner, our human constitution, both in the physical and in the psychical life. The gospels everywhere bear witness to his physical likeness to ourselves, and to the reality of his body, which was not exempt from the weaknesses of the flesh.
He was subject to bodily weariness and to thirst (John iv :6-7). He slept in the boat in the midst of the storm, an indication of great weari ness (Matt. viii :24. He was "an hungered" (Matt. iv:2; xxi:i9).
He was like us also in his soul life. He loved the young ruler who came to him to inquire the way of life (Mark x :21). He is again and again represented as "sighing," "groaning," or "trou bled" in spirit (Mark viii :12 ; John xi :33 ; xii : 27). He has mercy on the crowds that throng him (Matt. xiv :14). He weeps at the grave of Lazarus (John xi:35). He fiercely denounces the Scribes and Pharisees (Matt. xxiii.).
The great turning point in his eternal life of love is the point at which the Son of God, cast ing aside his pristine glory, and taking unto himself our human nature with all its weaknesses, becomes the Son of Man, the point at which the preexistent Christ enters into the world's history as the man Jesus Christ for the salvation of the world (John hi :16). (See INCARNATION).
Literature. F. C. H. Wendell, article in Bib. Sacr., Oct. 1897; Lange on Phil., p. 38; Van Oosterzee, Christ. Dognt., vol. ii. secs. xcv. and ci.; Dorner, Hist. of Doct. of Person of Christ, i-ii :29 ; Gore, Incarnation of the Son of God, PP- 284, 285. E. A. R.