The Man Who Can't Be Moved (Part 2)
Gonna Camp in My Sleeping Bag, I’m Not Going to Move . . .
To win your heart, Jesus forever camped in a “sleeping bag” not of cotton, polyester, or goose down, but of flesh and blood.
Let me explain.
Before Christ came to earth as a human, he was not called “Jesus.” He was (and forever will be) the uncreated, immortal, eternal “Word of God” (Jn. 1:1-3).
As the second person of the Trinity, Christ was the outward expression of God’s inner thought life. He was (and is) the outshining radiance of God’s glorious personality and power (Heb. 1:3).
That Word of God was the master craftsman and raw building material through whom God the Father made the universe (Prov. 8:30, Col. 1:16). He is the divine superglue or rebar that holds everything together (Col. 1:17).
Somehow, the Word parked his glory, stepped out of heaven, became one of us, and lived on the planet he created and upheld.
The Bible states, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn. 1:14). Literally, that means, “he pitched a tent among us.”
If that's not camping, I don't know what is.
Simply stated, Jesus’ sleeping bag is his human nature. Yes, he is 100 percent fully God, but he is also 100 percent fully human.
In his humanity, Jesus experienced everything you have gone through (or will go through) without sinning. He was misunderstood, mistreated, and hated. Jesus was rejected and experienced great sorrow, grief, and loss.
As a man, Christ was falsely accused, ridiculed, and mocked. Jesus was spit upon, beaten, tortured, stripped naked, and publicly executed—not for his guilt, but rather for yours and mine. He was a man of sorrow and deeply acquainted with grief (Is. 53:3).
And the remarkable thing is that after Jesus suffered, died, and was raised to life again, he stayed in his human sleeping bag forever!
When Jesus ascended to heaven, he didn't go up as a spirit, but rather as the one and only God-Man. He is one person with two natures—divine and human—for all eternity (Is. 9:6, 1 Tim. 2:5).
When Jesus returns, we will encounter a literal man. We will touch the nail scars in his hands and feet and feel where the Roman spear pierced his side (Jn. 20:27). We will lock eyes with him and see him face to face (1 Cor. 13:12, 1 Jn. 3:2).
Bible teachers use the term “incarnation” to describe God becoming human. It comes from the Latin meaning “becoming flesh.”
Have you ever heard of chile con carne? It literally means “chili with meat.” That’s the shocking reality of the incarnation: God with meat.
The apostle Paul best describes it in Phillippians 2:5-11:
Though he was God, he did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross. Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
The act of God’s Son forever camping in a sleeping bag (of flesh and blood) is an incredible mystery. When it moves from our head to our heart, we are awestruck.
Through the incarnation, we catch glimpses of Jesus’ determined resolve to win our affection. In her book, Found in Him, Elyse Fitzpatrick writes:
We will never know how found, loved, welcomed, and reconciled we are until we see how he [Jesus] has forever taken our nature to himself and has bound us to himself in enduring oneness. God is one with man in Jesus Christ, and we are one with him.
Continued in Part 3
