#10. The Deity and Humanity of the Son of God.


If the doctrines of justification, sanctification and salvation can only be seen faithfully and accurately when placed in the balance of the sanctuary, even so does the doctrine of the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, demand this even balance. Some of those who maintain the essential Deity of Christ, have gone beyond the words which the Holy Ghost teacheth, and intrude the “sonship” of Christ into that sphere and time, when He is denominated “The Word”, “The Image” and “the Form” of God. Those who have emphasized His perfect Manhood have at times done so to the sacrifice of His essential Deity. Some, to maintain His Deity, have rendered His bodily presence unreal, others, in order that His humanity shall be fully perceived have sacrificed His sinlessness, and sought to make Him but another son of Adam. All these are aberrations from the truth, and the doctrine of the Lord’s Person like all other doctrines of the Scriptures can only be perceived and understood when truth is seen in the balance. The subject, necessarily, is vast, and an adequate examination demands a study far transcending anything we can give, or the space we have available. This, however, must not deter us from pointing out some obvious passages, which show how balanced is this teaching of the Scriptures.

Let us open our study by a reference to the first chapter of the Gospel according to John. Suffice it for the moment to indicate the balance that is found in this one Gospel.



If John’s Gospel only were before us, this list could be doubled and trebled. What has been given are examples of the mighty twofold truth. The Deity of the Lord is revealed without reserve or ambiguity. When John fell down at the foot of an angel in the attitude of worship, the angel said,

“See thou do it not . . . . . worship God” (Rev. xix. 10).

yet the Saviour not only did not rebuke Thomas for ascribing full deity to Himself, He positively accepted it, granting a blessing upon all who “believe” though they may not have “seen”. The Epistle to the Romans declares the same twofold truth.



Here again our present purpose prevents us from entering into a detailed examination of these passages. The reader will find Rom. ix. 5 discussed more fully in the series on the epistle to the Romans (Volume XXVII, pages 196-198). That Christ had a real humanity is proved by the two references given where the relationship of Christ is established between Israel, David and Himself “according to the flesh”. The sinlessness of this humanity is safeguarded by the language used in Rom. viii. 3 where the apostle says that God sent “His Own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh”. The epistle to the Hebrews, likewise balances this great doctrine.


Here again, as in John i., He Who is “God” and the Maker of all things, was made “flesh” for our sakes and for our sins. The fact that Christ as “God manifest in the flesh” is the pivot upon which His Deity and His Humanity balance, is well illustrated by the structure of I Timothy.

B | i. 17. The King, incorruptible, invisible (i. 17).
           E | iii. 15, 16. The MYSTERY of GODLINESS.
B | vi. 15, 16. King, immortal, unseen (vi. 15, 16).


The reader will be aware that there is a great controversy as to the true reading of I Tim. iii. 16. This matter is discussed in a separate series of articles in the Berean Expositor, which should be consulted by the interested reader. For our present purpose it will be enough to see how the truth of chapters i. and vi. find their true resolution in the Person of Christ “God manifest in the flesh”, for in both chapters i. and vi. He is declared to be “invisible”. Paul therefore can teach that there is “One God” and “One Mediator”, the “Man” Christ Jesus, when he writes to Timothy (I Tim. ii. 5), and nevertheless declare in the contemporary epistle to Titus, that the Lord Jesus Christ is “The Great God and our Saviour”.


This essential Deity and perfect Humanity, in the Person of Jesus Christ, is implied in the title “The Son of God”. So, John, who opens with the twofold revelation of the Word “Who was God”, “Who became flesh” (John i. 1, 14), tells us that the purpose he had when writing his gospel was,

“That ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (John xx. 31).

Romans declares Him to be “The Son of God” (Rom. i. 4); Hebrews, which gives Him the title of “God” in chapter i., tells us that He partook of flesh and blood in chapter ii. and emphasizes the glory of His title “The Son” a title intended to combine both phases of truth (Heb. i. 2, 5, 8).

The very unity of the faith, is the acknowledgment or recognition of the Son of God (Eph. iv. 13)*. The Deity and the Humanity of Christ are pivoted upon His Sonship, which must not be considered independently of the Deity on the one hand, for that makes Him a mere man like ourselves, nor of the Humanity on the other hand, for that removes Him entirely from our sphere and we are left without a Redeemer or a Mediator. Truth in the balance is the only truth that honours the Scriptures and their revelation concerning the person of our glorious Lord.

[NOTE: * - For an examination of epignosis and Eph. iv. 13,
the reader is directed to a series of studies entitled “Acknowledgment”.]

To take the word “My Father is greater than I” as a “proof” that the speaker was not “our great God” as well as “our Saviour”, is to take truth out of the balance, and to misapply the relationship of the “Son” with the “Father” in order to demonstrate an entirely different relation, namely that of both the Son and the Father to essential Deity. It is equally possible having commenced with a text which taught that Christ is God, to prove, though erroneously, that as there is “one God”, the Father must be excluded. This terrible possibility is happily not attempted and the converse misunderstanding concerning “The Son” is illuminated by keeping this blessed “truth in the balance”.

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(From The Berean Expositor, vol. 34, page 242).

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