God Became a Real Man with Flesh and Soul

Belgic Confession 18; Hebrews 10:1-14

We are often impatient people. When we have a plan, we want it to be executed now. This happens everywhere. Children want immediate gratification. In sharing toys, they want the other person’s turn to end now so they can have them. They don’t know how to cultivate a relationship so they can play together. That takes time. In organizations, building relationships with coworkers is important to cultivate trust and win hearts. But sometimes, we just want to push our agenda to achieve goals. Goals may be achieved, but only the agenda pusher’s goals. Many don’t know how to play the long game. We prefer to play checkers instead of chess. This was Eve. A few weeks ago in Belgic 17, we saw how God comforted fallen man with the promise that he’d give him his Son, born of woman, to crush the head of the serpent and to make man blessed. But she wanted it now - thinking she had gained that son when she got Cain. But it was not yet time. God plays the long game and has a reason - we may not know it, but he does. We can only “confess, therefore, that God has fulfilled the promise He made to the fathers by the mouth of His holy prophets, when, at the time appointed by him, sent into the world His own only-begotten and eternal son.” It was a time appointed by him. And this promise wasn’t only given in the garden. This promise continued to be articulated by the prophets. In this message, there are 2 propositions. Firstly, the prediction of this savior was provided partially in pictures. Secondly, the provision of this savior was provided perfectly in a person.

Firstly, the prediction of this savior was provided partially in pictures. Hebrews 10:1 says, “For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.” God commanded the people to offer sacrifices. But the commands were not laws as an end to themselves. They were given by the holy prophets to the fathers to prepare them for Christ. They were preparatory. Now, the author wasn’t just talking about sacrifices but the law. All the ceremonial laws of washing and cleaning, all the sabbaths, the new moons, the festivals - were all a shadow. The original word for shadow describes the preliminary outline made by an artist before he gets to the colors. It’s the sketch. It’s not the final product, or the very image of things. Hence, all of these things were sketches - version 1. Not even version 1, but the outline. In Colossians 2:16-17, Paul said - “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.” And he says throughout Colossians, don’t let anyone fool or beguile you into doing these things again; they are a shadow - a sketch. Hence, their purpose was only preparatory. They were there to prepare the people for Christ. The sketch doesn’t tell the whole story. The prophecies had to be pieced together to form an outline. And this was given to the fathers.

And they didn’t work. They were imperfect. The fact that the sacrifices had to be repeated over and over show their lack of efficacy. Verse 2 tells us that if they had worked and cleansed the conscience, then they should have ceased or stopped the offering - “For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshippers once purged should have had no more conscience of sins.” We see here that the conscience could not be purged of sins. Why were they ineffective? Verse 4 - “For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.” These laws were ineffective. Some medicines are meant to heal. For example, you take antibiotics when you have an infection. The antibiotics are meant to kill the bacteria. Once you’re healed, you don’t take it anymore. But there are drugs that don’t heal. Now, not talking as a medical practitioner, but only layman terms - like HIV retro-viral medication. They must be taken for life because the disease can’t be cured. The reason that the sacrifices didn’t work was because they were animals. There had to be human sacrifice for human beings. As the Belgic says, “He not only assumed human nature as to the body, but also a true human soul, in order that He might be a real man. For since the soul was lost as well as the body, it was necessary that He should assume both to save both.”

So these animal sacrifices were only a prompter - to remind the people of the prophecies concerning Christ’s coming. And the way they did that was to assure the believer that they were still sinful. Verse 3 - “But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year.” Imagine! That was the purpose of animal sacrifices - not to give relief, but to increase the burden. What a horrible institution it was, in one sense - the fact that they had to be offered daily, weekly, yearly - meant that you still had sin. But these were the prophecies given by holy prophets to the fathers. If the fathers understood them rightly, they’d find comfort in the prophecy of Christ’s coming. If they understood them wrongly, they’d find no comfort in the sacrifices. So the preparatory and imperfect sacrifice were meant to prompt them to look to God alone for forgiveness - to look to the seed of the woman. When we play the long game, each setback is not a setback. Even when you lose your queen in chess, it’s for a purpose. And God was setting it up so that his chosen king would come to offer the actual and perfect sacrifice.

And this king would be a real man. Secondly, the provision of a savior was performed perfectly in a person. It couldn’t be an animal. Bulls and goats can’t take away sin. Saying it in another way - the sacrifice of bulls and goats can’t atone for sin. The conscience is still filled with sin. The sacrifice must match the prophecy of the seed of a woman. It must be a real man. The Belgic tells us that God sent his only-begotten and eternal Son, meaning the second person of the Trinity, into the world. He took a human body. He had a real human nature with all its weakness, but without sin. And in due time, at the right time, in the fullness of God, as it were, playing the long game, if that can be said, through the Holy Spirit conceived Christ in the womb of Mary. There was a physical availability.

While the other sacrifices were preparatory and imperfect, this sacrifice was perfect. To make this point clear, the author quotes from the Old Testament scriptures - from the promises to the fathers. So in verses 5-7, he quotes from the Greek version of Psalm 40:5-7 why Christ had to born as a man. These record to us the very words of God the Son to God the Father. Somewhere in eternity past, Christ said, “Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.” God prepared a human body for Christ, so that he would come to die. And the first thing we realize here is that this physical availability was Christ’s idea. When it says “a body thou has prepared for me,” it’s talking about his incarnation - God had to prepare a human body for Christ to come and obey and die. “A body thou has prepared for me…I come to do thy will” This was Christ’s idea. That’s why this sacrifice pleased God; it originated with God. And this was promised in the Old Testament scriptures - when God pronounced the curse on the serpent, he said, that the seed of the woman will bruise the head of the serpent. God even prophesied it in Isaiah - the Lord will give you a sign, behold a virgin will conceive. And when Gabriel appeared to the blessed virgin Mary, he said the Spirit would come upon her and she’d conceive and carry the holy one. This was the design of God. The Father planned it; the Son agreed; and the Spirit fulfilled it.

And why it was his idea is because animal sacrifices could not atone. Animals aren’t human beings - they do not have human bodies. In order for there to be atonement, there has to be identification. Animals can’t be mediators. Which is why also, the High Priest once a year represented man to God because only he was a man. Hebrews 5:1 says, “For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins.” Although the High Priest was a man, and therefore fit to represent man, he was sinful, and therefore unfit to represent man. This is why God had to prepare a human body for himself - because only he was without sin. Hebrews 7:26-27 says of Christ the Great High Priest, “For such an high priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people’s: for this he did once, when he offered up himself.”

Now, to be clear, during the time of the Reformation, some of the Anabaptists were saying that Christ didn’t have a human body. They couldn’t see how Jesus could be sinless in body and soul by the conception of the Spirit, when his mother was a sinful human being. So they proposed that Jesus didn’t get his human body from Mary. Rather, Jesus’ body was a heavenly body - a special physical body. So the Anabaptists taught that Mary was merely a conduit through whom God worked. No part came from her. She was merely a funnel which God used to transmit Christ from heaven to earth or a field in which God planted the heavenly seed to germinate and fruit. But this would mean that Christ was not a human descendent of the woman.

And another reason why Christ had to be human was because only humans have souls. Animals aren’t human beings - they do not have reasonable souls. They can’t obey from the heart. But Christ did. There was spiritual willingness. He said, “Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.” So God didn’t only want sacrifice, he wanted obedience. He wanted Adam and Eve to obey. But they wouldn’t obey. God wanted Israel to obey, but she didn’t obey. Animals can’t obey God. Only human beings can. So God needed a human being who would obey. As the Belgic says, “But he not only assumed human nature as to the body, but also a true human soul, in order that he might be a real man.” And he needed a human soul to represent humans who had souls. And his sacrifice was better because of his willingness. “Lo, I come to do thy will, O God.” Father, you desire obedience in the inward parts. You don’t have pleasure in sacrifices and burnt offerings of the law. Lo, I come. Behold, here I am - I will do your will. I will obey, and by my sacrifice, you will be pleased. When the animals were sacrificed, it didn’t involve the mind and the will - in fact, I’m sure the animals knew they were going to be slaughtered - there would have been resistance. The animals could not consent. But here was Christ coming willingly to offer himself. He fully accepted it. There was eager obedience. There’s a difference between obedience and willing surrender to obey God’s will. It involved the reasonable soul. The phrase “reasonable soul” was something used past theologians to distinguish the rational soul given by God. That part of man created in the image of God. So Adam and Eve were not willing to obey. Christ was, as the second Adam.

Jesus came to make sure God got what he wanted. As a child in the temple, he said to his mother - don’t you know that I must be at my father’s business? When he started his ministry, his meat was to do the Father’s will. When Peter forbade him to go to the cross, Jesus called him Satan! You do not the things of God! At the Last Supper, he told Judas - what you do, do quickly - betray me! And when it was getting late, he told his disciples to hurry up so that they could get to the Garden - “Arise, let us go hence.” He didn’t want to miss that appointment - he wanted to be there when Judas came with the guards. And when he did come, Peter drew out the sword and cut off the servant’s ear - Jesus rebuked him, “Shall I not drink the cup the father has given me that the Scriptures be fulfilled?” “Lo, I come to do thy will, O God.”

Because he had a fully human body and willing soul, his sacrifice was better. It was completely efficacious. We see the result of his being born, living, and dying in verse 9 - “He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second.” The first covenant was inferior - it didn’t work. The sacrifices didn’t work. They couldn’t forgive those in the Old Testament who offered them. But these prompted the offerers to look at the promised savior. This is why when they looked to him in faith, and not to the sacrifices, they were saved. Hebrews 9:15 - “And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.” And so you see the comparison between Christ and the other priests. Verse 11 - all the other human priests stood to minister everyday these soulless animal sacrifices which couldn’t take away sin. But Christ in verse 12, being also called human, after offering his body as a sacrifice sat down at God’s right hand. They couldn’t sit. He could because he finished his work.

How do we apply this message to ourselves? We’re always looking for things to redeem us or to help to stand out - self-esteem, friendships, relationships, career, money, doctrine, good behavior, the body beautiful, youth, looks, dress, good family, pedigree, education, service, well-behaved children, etc. There are so many things we seek after. But what we need is the man Christ Jesus. Only his obedience and sacrifice makes us complete in God’s sight. To know that he left heaven, laid aside his glory, to be born as fully human to represent us. And he had no where to lay his head on earth. But he did this to die for us. So that he might bring us to heaven. That’s the long game - that we’d be a people in an eternal paradise - not the one in Eden - but a better one. And the way we’d get there is through our hero - the Lord Jesus, perfect man, where Adam was imperfect - to take us there. And he’s there now - the first ever human being, body and soul - preparing a place for us. “In this way He is in truth our Immanuel - God with us” forever. And because he is, we too, can forsake sin, we can fight sin. Because our hearts have been renewed. Christ by God spirit dwells in us. And his example spurs us on. He rose victorious body and soul, the perfect man forever in heaven, that we may follow after him.

1. The Prediction of a Savior Was Provided Partially in Pictures

A. Preparatory

B. Imperfect

C. Prompter

2. The Provision of a Savior Was Performed Perfectly in a Person

A. Physical availability

B. Spiritual willingness

C. Complete efficacy