1959 Bible Studies - page 194

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BIBLE STUDIES

logic of which is that Jesus is God, and Mary is the mother of Jesus, hence the illogical conclusion that she is the mother of God.  Did Jesus become God by being born of Mary ? No, certainly not, for He was God in the beginning (John 1. 1).  There is not, and never was, motherhood in the Godhead, but in the Godhead there is both Fatherhood and Sonship.

Women are not the mothers of gods, even though both men (judges)

(Exodus 21. 6) and angels (Psalm 8. 5) are called in Hebrew Elohim

(God plural).  " Mothers of gods " is mythology and paganism, as is the statement, " Holy Mary, mother of God. " The Scriptures are ever careful, when speaking of the Lord in His manhood, to use the words " according to the flesh " (Kata Sarka) (Romans 1. 3; 9. 5). The same considerations arise in the case of those who hold that Christ became the Son of God through His birth of Mary in Bethlehem. If this is so, then the whole argument of Paul as to the Person of Christ disappears, for the One who is the theme of the gospel which He preached is God’s Son, who was born of the seed

of David, according to the flesh, and who is declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness.  "According to the flesh "

and " according to the spirit of holiness " describe the two natures of Christ as Man and as God, Son of Man and Son of God.  Who was born of the virgin Mary in Bethlehem ? The answer is, One who was to be

called the Son of the Most High and the Son of God.  Did He become the Son of God by that birth ? He no more became the Son of God by that human birth according to the flesh than He became God by that birth.

He became the Son of David by that birth. To Him shall be given the throne of His father David (Luke 1. 32-35), for He is the Son of David and the Son of Abraham (Matthew 1. 1) and also the Son of Man (Adam) (Psalm 8. 4; Hebrews 2. 6-8) in His manhood.  But to confuse His manhood with His Godhood and to confound His being the Son of God from eternity, before all ages, with His being born the Son of Man in time, is a fatal mistake and a heresy of the worst kind.  What happened at His incarnation was that He, the eternal Son, of uncreated essence and nature took the body prepared in the womb of His mother, a body of created substance of blood and flesh which God had prepared for Him (Hebrews 10. 5-7).  In contrast to Psalm 40. 6, "Mine ears hast Thou opened (digged)". Hebrews 10. 5

follows exactly the LXX rendering of this psalm, "A body didst Thou prepare for me. " Human ears demanded a human body in which the will of God, which He heard with His ears, might be done. Jesus Christ is one Person, not two beings, a Man called Jesus, and God the Son. He is One Person, the Son of God, only begotten and eternal, who became Man by a

human birth according to the flesh. The Word, who was fully and truly God in the beginning (John 1. 1), became flesh in time (John 1. 14), and was

" manifested in the flesh " (1 Timothy 3. 16) " for your sake " (1 Peter 1. 20).  To say that the Lord became the Son of God by His human birth is utterly wrong, and heretical, and antichristian.  If God had no eternal Son, then God the Father is not the eternal Father.  The Fatherhood of God and the eternal Sonship of Jesus Christ stand or fall together.

J. M.

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