DO I BELIEVE - 1 John 4:1-6

I believe Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully human - the Doctrine of Incarnation. It is easy for me to take a belief like this for granted. First, I seldom fight a battle over this belief. Most people calling themselves Christians accept it as true. Also others in history fought to silence the arguments opposed to this understanding of the person of Christ. Second, I must confess, life is too busy and practical to be bogged down with such a weighty theological matter. I need self-help messages to keep my life headed in the right direction - I need wisdom, not theology.

Maybe you would agree with me; maybe not. Either way, there are huge implications for us who hold to the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. Our paragraph for study this Sunday calls us to remembrance about the importance of the humanity and Deity of Jesus. Like a trumpet blast, John calls us to confess our belief is Jesus, "what do you really believe about the one they call the Christ?" The paragraph finds at its center this confession, "Jesus Christ, who has come in the flesh, is from God." It is this confession alone that reveals genuineness about our faith in God and citizenship in his Kingdom.

Why is this doctrine so important? Here are several implications of the doctrine of Christ's Deity & Humanity:

1. We can have real knowledge of God.
Jesus said, "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9) If we would know what the love of God, the holiness of God, the power of God are like, we need only look at Christ.

2. Redemption is available to us.
The death of Christ is sufficient for all sinners who have ever lived, for it was not merely a finite human, but a infinite God who died. He, the Life, the Giver and Sustainer of life, who did not have to die, died.

3. God and man have been reunited.
It was not an angel or a human who came from God to man, but God himself crossed the chasm created by sin.

4. Worship of Christ is appropriate.
He is not merely the highest of the creatures, but he is God in the same sense and to the same degree as the Father. He is as deserving of our praise, adoration, and obedience as is the Father.

5. Help is available to us.
Jesus' intercessory ministry is dependent upon his humanity. If he was truly one of us, experiencing all of the temptations and trials of human existence, then he is able to understand and empathize with us in our struggles as humans.

(Reference Material on Implications of Incarnation: Erickson, Christian Theology. Pp. 703-706)