Our Mysterious And Majestic King

As we affirm Jesus' humanity, in the very same breath we must acknowledge that as the Son of God, Jesus is fully divine. Just as Jesus possesses the full range of human characteristics, so Jesus possesses the full range of divine characteristics. Consider all that Matthew shows us. First, Jesus has power over disease. He is able to cleanse lepers, give sight to the blind, and cause the lame to walk, all by simply speaking healing into reality. At strategic points, Matthew talks about how Jesus went about healing every disease and every affliction among the people (4:23-24; 9:35). He graciously exercises His power over the whole range of human infirmities.

Second, Jesus' divinity is on display as He shows His command over nature. In Matthew 8 Jesus rebukes the storm and it immediately calms down, to which the disciples respond, "What kind of man is this?—even the winds and the sea obey Him!" (8:27). Only God possesses this kind of power over nature.

Third, Jesus has authority over sin. That is, He is able to forgive sins, something Matthew tells us explicitly in Jesus' healing of the paralytic (9:1-6).

The fourth way in which Matthew points to Jesus' deity is in His control over death. Jesus not only brings others to life (9:23-25), but He even raises Himself from the dead (John 10:17-18). These claims may sound extravagant, yet this is precisely the portrait Matthew gives us of Jesus. He is fully able to identify with us, and as God, Jesus is fully able to identify with God.

When you put these truths concerning Jesus' nature together, you begin to realize that the incarnation, the doctrine of Jesus' full humanity and full deity, is the most extraordinary miracle in the whole Bible. And if this miracle is true, then everything else in this Gospel account makes total sense. After all, is it strange to see Jesus walking on the water if He's the God who created the very water He's walking on? Is it strange to see Him feeding 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish if He's the One who created their stomachs? Furthermore, if what Scripture says is true, is it even strange to see Jesus rise from the dead? No, not if He's God. The strange thing, the real miracle, is that Jesus died in the first place. The doctrine of the incarnation and Christ's identity as fully human and fully divine is the fundamental point where Muslims, Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, and countless others disagree with Christianity. It is23 the ultimate stumbling block. Furthermore, if we're honest, this important doctrine contains some mystery even for those who hold firmly to the biblical witness. So how do we even begin to understand it?

There are some things we must keep in mind if we are to uphold the truth of the incarnation. Clearly Jesus' human nature and divine nature are different, that is, they are to be distinguished in certain ways. One of the heresies that had to be rejected in the early centuries of the church's life was the idea that the human nature of Christ was absorbed into His divine nature, with the result that a third nature was formed, a nature that was neither God nor man. Such a view undermines Jesus' role as our mediator (Grudem, Systematic Theology, 556).2 Consider how Scripture holds together the separate truths of Christ's human and divine natures:

While we have to maintain a distinction between His natures, we must affirm that Jesus' human nature and divine nature are unified. He is one person, so we don't have to specify in every instance whether Jesus performed a certain action in His divine nature, or whether it was His human nature that did it. The Gospel writers don't say that Jesus was "born in His human nature" or that "in His human nature he died." No, He acts as a unified person, even if His two natures contributed in different ways. Scripture simply says, "Jesus was born" or "Jesus died." One theologian gives the following analogy to illustrate this point: If I were to write a letter, though my toes had nothing to do with the writing process, I would still say, "I wrote the letter," not "My fingers wrote the letter, but my toes had nothing to do with it." I simply say that I wrote the letter, and the meaning is understood (Grudem, Systematic Theology, 562). Similarly, everything that is done by Jesus is unified in such a way that we don't need to distinguish between His two natures when we speak24 of Him.3 It does not matter whether His divine or His human nature is specifically in view, because they are always working in perfect unity.

The Incarnation is the most profound mystery in the whole universe. This mystery is encapsulated in what Matthew writes about the virgin birth of Jesus. There are, after all, other ways Jesus could have come into the world. On the one hand, if He had come without any human parent, then it would have been hard for us to imagine or believe that He could really identify with us. On the other hand, if He had come through two human parents—a biological mother and a biological father—then it would be hard to imagine how He could be fully God since His origin would have been exactly the same as ours. But God, in His perfect wisdom and creative sovereignty, ordained a virgin birth to be the avenue through which Christ would come into the world (Grudem, Systematic Theology, 530).

In light of everything we've seen so far in Matthew 1, there are three clear takeaways. First, God is the Creator and Re-Creator of all things. Interestingly enough, the word Matthew uses for "birth" in verse 18 is transliterated "genesis," which means origin—the origin of Jesus Christ. The imagery, then, in the first book of the New Testament takes us all the way back to the first book of the Old Testament, for in Genesis, the Spirit brings life to men. Scripture opens with the Spirit giving life to all of creation: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness covered the surface of the watery depths, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters" (Gen 1:1-2; emphasis added). Then the Lord breathes life into Adam, the first man (Gen 2:7). Now in Matthew, the Spirit gives life to the Messiah. There were pagan stories of mythological gods who physically procreated with mortal humans, but there is nothing of that kind in this text (Carson, Matthew, 74). This is a picture of the Spirit breathing life into the Messiah in Matthew 1, just as He did for man in Genesis.425

You may recall that in Genesis, God promises a seed from a woman. Specifically, He promises to raise up a seed, a singular offspring, who would crush the head of Satan, the serpent (Gen 3:15). Now in Matthew, God delivers that seed through a woman. The parallels between Matthew and Genesis can be drawn out further: in Genesis, a man is born who would succumb to sin. The first man, Adam, initially lived in unhindered communion with his Creator before rebelling against God and falling into sin. Paul tells us in Romans 5 that from Adam's one sin condemnation came to all men (vv. 12-21). We have all inherited a sinful nature from Adam, and we have all succumbed to sin. But with Jesus the story is different.

In the virgin birth, Jesus did not inherit a sinful nature, nor did He inherit the guilt that all other humans inherit from Adam. However, we shouldn't conclude from this that Mary was perfectly sinless, as the Roman Catholic Church has historically taught. Scripture nowhere teaches this; instead, Jesus' birth was a partial interruption in the line that came from Adam. A new Adam has come on the scene, a man who would not succumb to sin. In contrast to the first Adam, in Matthew, a man is born who would save from sin. The God who creates in Genesis 1 is re-creating and redeeming in Matthew 1. He is making a way, through the virgin birth of Christ, for humanity to be rescued from sin and reconciled to God. Just consider how glorious it is that God is the Creator and Re-Creator of all things:

In addition to being the Creator and Re-Creator of all things, Matthew 1:22 tells us that God is always faithful to His Word. What has been promised will be fulfilled. As Matthew quotes Isaiah 7:14 and the prophecy of the virgin birth, he says, "Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet." This is the first of ten times that Matthew uses this kind of phrase to speak of Jesus' fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy and expectations (1:22; 2:15, 17, 23; 4:14; 8:17; 12:17; 13:35; 21:4; 27:9). Matthew makes clear throughout this book that when God makes a promise in His Word, He fulfills it in the world.26

We can be certain that God is faithful to His Word, but what we don't know for sure is how to understand the fulfillment of Isaiah 7:14. Is Isaiah 7:14 a prophecy with a single or double fulfillment? The prophet says, "Therefore, the Lord Himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive, have a son, and name him Immanuel." This prophecy was given at a significant point in Israel's history, approximately seven hundred years before Jesus' birth in Matthew 1. King Ahaz, who was mentioned earlier in the genealogy (Matt 1:9), was a wicked king facing threats from foreign nations, and instead of seeking the Lord for help, he sought the help of the Assyrian king. Isaiah brought news to Ahaz that God would deliver His people, but Ahaz refused to listen. This is the context of Isaiah's promise; despite the people's rebellion, God would give a sign as a guarantee that the people of God and the line of David would be preserved, not destroyed.

The question is whether or not that sign—the virgin giving birth—was in any way fulfilled around the time of Isaiah's prophecy. Some scholars believe that this sign was partially fulfilled by a virgin who got married, had relations, got pregnant, and gave birth in the seventh century BC, but then the sign was ultimately fulfilled in the birth of Christ hundreds of years later. Other scholars believe this sign was only fulfilled in the birth of Christ. In the end, it's difficult to determine whether this prophecy has a single or a double fulfillment; nevertheless, there are some things we do know.

What we do know is that Isaiah 7:14 is a prophecy with certain fulfillment in Christ. The God we worship made a promise through the prophet Isaiah that was fulfilled seven hundred years later in the virgin birth of Christ, and based on that picture, we can be sure that this same God will also prove Himself faithful to us today. So when God says, "I will never leave you or forsake you" (Heb 13:5; Josh 1:5), that is a guarantee. When He says that He is your "refuge and strength, a helper who is always found in times of trouble" (Ps 46:1), you can bank on it. And when He says that "not even death or life, angels or rulers, things present or things to come, hostile powers, height or depth, or any other created thing will have the power to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom 8:38-39), you can be confident in His sustaining power. And when God says that there is coming a day when "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will no longer exist; grief, crying, and pain will exist no longer, because the previous things have passed away" (Rev 21:4), that too is a guarantee. God is always faithful to His Word.27

Finally, Matthew 1:18-25 teaches that although God is transcendent over us, He is present with us. That is, in His glory, God is far above us, but in His grace, He is near to us. He is "Immanuel," which means "God is with us" (v. 23). Stop and consider who this is who promises to be with you: this is the God who spoke the world into being, the God who rules over all creation—every star in the sky, every mountain peak, every grain of sand, the sun and the moon, all the oceans and all the deserts of the earth—the God whom myriads of angels continually worship and sing praise to, the God whose glory is beyond our imagination and whose holiness is beyond our comprehension. This God is with you.

I once had an opportunity to bear witness to the incarnation while sitting across the table from a group of Muslim men in the Middle East during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month. We were finishing a meal late one night (they had just broken their fast), and they asked me to share with them what I believe about God. Knowing that Muslims believe Jesus was a good man, but certainly not God in the flesh (such a claim is blasphemous in Islam), I began to share about who Jesus is. I told them that when I decided to ask my wife to marry me, I did not send someone else to do it for me; I went myself. Why? Because in matters of love, One must go Himself. That's a picture of the incarnation.

This astounding truth of Christianity—the reality that God became flesh (John 1:14)—may be incomprehensible to many, but to those who believe it is irresistible. There is an infinitely great God, mighty in power, who out of His love for us has not simply sent a messenger to tell us about His love. Even better, He has come Himself. And what He came to do is the greatest news in the whole world:

As we reflect on these and other blessings of Christ's ministry, we must remember that ultimately, He came to rescue the lost (1:21). Jesus came to a sin-stained world to endure the penalty of sin and to stand in the place of sinners. He came to die on a cross, to give His body, to shed His blood—all so that you and I could be rescued from our sin and28 reconciled to God. That's the good news of the incarnation. That's why Jesus came.