June 11 – Jesus, Both Divine and Human

Hope for Today: A Daily Devotion from Reasons for Hope*Jesus

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“No one has ascended to Heaven but He who came down from Heaven, that is, the Son of Man who is in Heaven.” John 3:13

No mere man whatever has entered or can enter into the secrets of God’s heart in Heaven, relating to the great mysteries of salvation, so as immediately and perfectly to understand them and make them known to others. This privilege is peculiar to the Messiah, who is spoken of under the character of ” the Son of Man” (Psalm 80:17; Daniel 7:13), and always had an existence in Heaven as the Son of God. He came from thence in an incarnate state, that He might reveal God’s counsels to men.

As many are perplexed about the Divinity of Christ, the following note may help them to conceive of that matter more properly:

The Divine and human natures were united in the person of Christ, yet some have attributed things to one nature, which properly belong to the other.

When it is said in 1 Corinthians 2:8 that the Lord of glory was crucified and, in Acts 20:28, He is called God who purchased the Church with His own blood, the meaning is not that God, as the Lord of glory, was crucified or shed His blood (as if the Divine nature could be crucified and bleed). It is to say that the Person, who was the Lord of glory in one nature, was crucified in the other nature.

Likewise when Jesus said, “The Son of Man is in Heaven” (John 3:13 above), the meaning is not that Jesus, as the Son of Man, was there while He was on the earth. Rather it is saying that He who was here in His human nature, was there in his Divine nature.

Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh

Devotion by Karl Heinrich von Bogatzky (1690—1774)