Written by J. Thomas

Brethren Of Christ Articles - Doctrinal Matters

Humanity - The Perfect Humanity of Jesus is an article that proves that Jesus came with hunan nature contrary to the Churches Theory that he came with divine nature.

It is charged, that we deny “the perfect humanity of Jesus” and consequently that we deny that the Son of God became incarnate in flesh like ours; and under the foolish idea of conferring a great honour on the Lord Jesus asserts that his body was made of a better kind of flesh than his brethren’s! — That it was essentially holy, pure, immaculate, and immortal per Se, and consequently in no one respect similar to human nature, or similar even to any creature whatever! This is what the superstitions of heretics style, “the perfect humanity of Jesus". “They affirm that his flesh was a different and better flesh than “the brethren’s” — that theirs is an imperfect, and his a perfect, humanity. But theirs is “the flesh,” common to the race of man. To say, then, that Jesus was not made in all things like to this — that he had a better nature — is to say that “Jesus did not come in the flesh.”

This is the heresy that the book, ‘Elpis Israel’ (The Hope of Israel), is condemned for not teaching. It is true, Elpis Israel affirms, that Jesus came in sinful flesh; but that notwithstanding the plague of such a nature, he was obedient in all things, “did no sin, nor was guile found in his mouth;” in which sense there was no sin in him, “he was without sin;” thus, “he knew no sin, was made sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.” In opposition to this, Rome and her meretricious progeny heretically affirm, that Jesus did not come in the flesh; but in a different nature, which they style “immaculate.” They perceive, however, the difficulty of bringing a clean, unwrinkled, spotless nature, out of an unclean; so that they have fallen upon the expedient of cleansing the nature of Mary, by a papal decree. Protestants, the seed of the papacy, however, would object that they do not believe in the immaculate conception of the Virgin; true, but they believe the equivalent absurdity of pure and spotless flesh coming of sinful flesh! Doth not the Scripture inquire, “How can he be clean that is born of woman? The stars are not pure in God’s sight; how much less man, who is a worm? And THE SON OF MAN, WHO IS A WORM?” Job 35:6. And that the reader may see that this has reference to Christ, styled the Son of man in the New Testament, we will quote the words of the Spirit in David concerning him, saying, “I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted in Yehu that he would deliver him; let him deliver him if he delight in him,” Psalm 22:6. This was fulfilled to the letter in Jesus; for “they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads. Likewise also the Chief Priests mocking, with the Scribes and Elders, said, If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the stake, and we will believe him. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now if he will have him, for he said, I am the Son of God,” Matthew 27:39-43.

To affirm, then, the immaculate nature of the body prepared for the Spirit, is as unscriptural and absurd as to affirm the immaculate conception and nature of its virgin mother. One absurdity begets another; and the spirit of Antichrist has generated them both. These two heresies, idolized by papists and protestants, prove them to be all of one family. They all, who claim to be “orthodox,” deny that Jesus came in the flesh. “Many deceivers,” says John, “are entered into the world, who confess not that the anointed Jesus is come in flesh. This is the Deceiver and the Antichrist,” 2 John 7. In another place, he styles these “deceivers” false prophets, or “spirits;” for they professed to have the Spirit, and to speak by it, like the Gentile pietists and spiritualists of our day, who make the word of God of none effect by their foolishness.

In John’s time there were those who really had divine gifts; but when did men ever possess the genuine without the world being imposed upon by the counterfeit? It was so in the heritages of the first century; and so great and subtle did the evil become, that the authority of the apostles themselves was imperilled. John, therefore, found it necessary to lay down a rule by which the true might be distinguished from the false. “Beloved,” says he, “believe not every spirit,” or prophet; “but try the spirits, whether they be of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.” He then gives the rule by which they are to be tried. “Hereby,” continues he, “know ye the spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that the anointed Jesus came in the flesh is of God; and every spirit that confesseth not that the anointed Jesus is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that of the Antichrist which ye have heard that it comes; and is now in the world already.” Here, then, was the heresy, from which has ripened the fruit of the “immaculate Conception” — the latest edition of Antichrist’s infatuation and stupidity. Its seed was sown by false prophets, or teachers, before popes and popery had raised aloft their serpent forms. In the apostles’ day it existed as a spirit, or dogma, opposed “to the doctrine of Christ,” which did not acknowledge the distinctiveness of the Father and the Son, but merged them into one. But, “he that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son,” 2 John 9; he maintains the real humanity of Jesus, or the Father by the Spirit manifested through Sinful Flesh; or as Paul states it, “God manifest in the Flesh” — a mystery incomprehensible to the darkness of the anti-christian apostasy, John1:5.

This heresy against the proper humanity of Christ is far more subtle than the counterpart of it. Which, denies His proper divinity. The orthodox have never been slack in excommunicating those who reject this; but they had better look well to themselves; for the “Sinful Flesh” is as much an element of the divine Jesus, as “the Spirit.” In body, Jesus only differed from other men in paternity. God was the father of that body, not Joseph; therefore the body was Son of God, as Luke testifies of the first Adam. The logical consequences resulting from the denial of the true humanity of Jesus, are destructive of the Mystery of the Gospel, for if the Spirit did not take our nature but a better nature, then is that better nature not our nature, and redeemed from whatever curse it may have laid under, and been reconciled to God. But if the human nature of Christ were immaculate, (excuse the phrase, O reader, for since the Fall we know not of an immaculate human nature) then God did not “send Jesus in the likeness of sinful flesh;” he did not “take hold of the seed of Abraham;” he did not “become sin for us;” “sin was “not “condemned in the flesh;” and “our sins were” not “borne in his body upon the tree.” These things could not have been accomplished in a nature destitute of that physical principle styled “Sin in the flesh.” Decree the immaculateness of the body prepared for the Spirit, (Psalm 40:6, Heb. 10:5), and the “Mystery of Christ” is destroyed, and the gospel of the kingdom ceases to be the power of God for salvation, to those that believe it. If the Son of Man did not live a life of faith, and if he did not experience all the temptations that we feel, then is his life, and his resistance of evil, no example to us. But “he was tempted in all things after our likeness without sin;” this, however, can only be admitted on the ground of his nature, and “the brethren’s” being exactly alike; hence,

He knows what sore temptations are,

For he has felt the same:

enticements within and persecutions without, made up the sum of his “sufferings for us, leaving us an example, that we should follow in his steps; who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.”