gustine was later to say that in the pagan philosophers he could find par allels for everything in the New Testament except for one saying— “The Word became flesh.” As John saw it, to deny the complete reality of the incarnation, to deny the com plete manhood of Jesus Christ, was to strike at the very roots of the Christian faith. To deny the complete reality of the incarnation has certain quite definite consequences. (I) It is to deny that Jesus can ever be our pattern of example. If He was not in any real sense a man, living under the same conditions as men, then He cannot show men how to live, for life for Him was a com pletely different thing from life as it is for us. (II) It is to deny that Jesus can be the High Priest who opens the way for us to God. The true High Priest, as the writer to the Hebrews saw, must be like men in all things; he must know our infirmities and our temptations (Heb. 4:14, 15). To lead men to God the High Priest must be a man, or else he will be pointing them to a road which it is impossi ble for them to take. (III) It is to deny that Jesus can in any real sense be Saviour. To save men He had to be one with men; He had to know human experience; He had to identify Himself with the men whom He came to save. (IV) It is to deny the possibility of the salvation of the body. On one thing Christian teaching is quite clear — salvation is the salvation of the whole man. The body as well as the soul is saved and consecrated. To deny the incarnation is to deny the possibility that the body can ever be consecrated and dedicated to God, and that the body can ever become 31
A m id a l l t h e exuberance of spir itual activity of that world of the early church, John lays down one final test. For John, Christian belief could be summed up in one great sentence: “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). Any spirit which denied the reality of the incarnation was not of God. John lays down two tests of belief: (1) To be of God a spirit must acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah. As John saw it, to deny that truth is to deny three things about Jesus, (a) It is to deny that He is the center of history; the one for whom all history was a prepara tion; the one for whose coming God had chosen the man Abraham and the nation Israel; the one for whom all history had been a preparation, and who came in the fulness of time, (b) It is to deny that He is the ful fillment of the promises of God. All throujgh their struggles and their de feats, all through the agonies of their history, the Jews had clung to the promises of God. To deny that Jesus is the promised Messiah is to deny that these promises were true, (c) It is to deny His Kingship. Jesus Christ came, not only to sacrifice, but to reign. He came, not only to accept a Cross, but also to found a King dom; and to deny His Messiahship is to leave out the essential kingliness of Christ. (2) To be of God a spirit must acknowledge that Jesus has come in the flesh. It was precisely this that Gnostics could never accept. Their view was that matter was altogether evil; that, therefore, the body is evil; and that, therefore, a real incarna tion is an impossibility, for God could never take flesh upon Himself. Au
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