The person of Christ is of two aspects. Christ as the God-man is both divine and human because He is both God and man. God is divine and man is human, so in this one person there is divinity and humanity. Divinity and humanity are mingled together as one person. We have to see these two aspects of Christ’s person.
Now let us consider Christ’s humanity. In humanity, as a human person, He was the seed of David. David, the king of Israel, was one of the forefathers, ancestors, of Christ. In the Bible there is a genealogy of Christ in Matthew 1, which speaks of Christ as the son of Abraham and the son of David (v. 1). The son means the seed, and the seed is a son, so the seed of David refers to Christ’s humanity (Matt. 22:42-45).
Christ as the seed of David is a human seed belonging to the old creation (the old man—Rom. 6:6) of God (Col. 1:15b). So in the essence of the person of Christ in His humanity, the first thing you have to remember is that Christ in His humanity was of the old creation, the old man. If I say that Christ is of the new creation, the new man, we will absolutely agree. But we need to see here that the essence of Christ is first that He belongs to the old creation. He is of the old man.
Christ’s being a human seed belonging to the old creation implies His incarnation (John 1:14). Christ’s incarnation brought Him down. He was the God of glory. But His incarnation brought Him down from His glory to be a man. He went down to the bottom to belong to the old man. He came in incarnation not to be a part of the new creation, but to be a part of the old creation of God. These are items of the essence of Christ’s person.
In His humanity He was “according to the flesh,” “the flesh of sin” in its likeness but without sin (Rom. 8:3b). Christ was in the flesh, but His flesh was only in the likeness of the flesh of sin and was without sin. All these are the particular points of the essence of Christ’s person.
The flesh is the framework (“the body of His flesh”— Col. 1:22) of Jesus Christ the God-man. Thus far, we have seen three items related to the essence of Christ’s person in His humanity: Christ belonged to the old creation, so Christ in His flesh was an “old man” (Rom. 6:6), and Christ had the flesh without sin in it, but He was still in the likeness of the flesh of sin. Therefore, outwardly in the framework, the body of His flesh, Christ was not that excellent.
Both Satan and sin (the inward sin in our nature) are involved with this flesh (Heb. 2:14; John 3:14; Rom. 8:3b). Satan induced man to commit sin. By that he infused man with his sinful nature. Romans 7 tells us that sin dwells in our flesh (vv. 17-18). In our flesh there is something that is condemned by God, which is sin. Sin comes from Satan. It is the nature of Satan. Since sin is now in our flesh, and Satan is linked with sin, Satan and sin are involved with the flesh, even with the flesh of Christ indirectly.
There is also the involvement of the world in this flesh through Satan, the ruler of the world (John 12:31). The flesh of this seed of David is an old man of the old creation involved with Satan, sin, and the world. This seed is of the old creation. This seed is an old man. This seed has the flesh, and with this flesh, Satan, sin, and the world are all involved. Do you like to be such a person in the old creation, involved with Satan, sin, and the world? Anyhow, Jesus became such a person in the flesh, the seed of David.
This seed of David in His humanity was sonized, was made (“designated”—Rom. 1:4) the Son of God. Jesus in His humanity, in that part, was not the Son of God. He was of the old creation, the old man, having the flesh, which is involved with Satan, sin, and the world. So this part had to be made divine, to be sonized, designated, that it might become a part of the Son of God.
It is very hard to say what the word designated means in Romans 1:4. Sonized means to be made a son, but what is designated? Christ is a wonderful person. He has two parts: the man-part, the part of man, and the God-part, the part of God. The part of man is human. The part of God is divine. The human part is in the flesh, involved with the negative things, and the divine part is marvelous. How could this human part in such a flesh be made a part of the Son of God? It was in His resurrection that Christ made His humanity, divinity. His resurrection uplifted the humanity of Jesus into the level of divinity. Here is the essence of the person of Christ. This is very, very deep. Jesus’ divinity is the Spirit of holiness, having the divine power and the divine element to transform Jesus’ humanity, making it divine. This is what it means to designate, and this is to sonize.
This is the fulfillment of the prophecy in typology in 2 Samuel 7:12-14. In this fulfillment we have seen the essence of Christ’s person as the seed of David in His humanity.
The Son of God is the divine part of Christ. He was designated the Son of God in His humanity. He was the Son of Man in the flesh. How could He be the Son of God, so divine? It was by designation in resurrection.
This designation was in power according to the Spirit of holiness. The Spirit of holiness is the divinity (Rom. 9:5) in the seed of David—a man of humanity (Rom. 5:15, 17b, 19). Romans 9:5 shows us that Christ is God. As God He had divinity in Himself to be the seed of David, a man of humanity.
Jesus Christ as a man in the flesh was designated the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness out of the resurrection of the dead. The resurrection is the consummation of the processed Triune God. Resurrection is a person. The Lord Jesus said, “I am the resurrection” (John 11:25a). The Triune God in eternity was just the Triune God, only divine. But He was processed through incarnation, human living, death, and resurrection. Then He was consummated to be not only divine but also human. Now He has passed through all the processes of incarnation, human living, and death. In resurrection He became the consummated Triune God, who is resurrection itself.
Out of such a resurrection, which is the consummation of the processed Triune God, Jesus Christ as a man in the flesh was made the firstborn Son of God (Rom. 8:29). He is the Son of God, but now the Son of God is different from what the Son of God was before. When the Son of God was merely the only begotten Son of God, He had only divinity. But now He has His humanity, and His humanity has been made divine to become a part of Him as the Son of God. Now this Son of God is different. This Son of God is now the Firstborn of God.
An only son could never be the firstborn. Christ’s being the firstborn Son indicates that many sons follow. These many sons are God’s chosen people; the millions of them were all regenerated in the same resurrection (1 Pet. 1:3), in which Christ was made the Son of God in His humanity. In that big resurrection, which is the processed and consummated Triune God, the human part of Christ was made divine to be sonized. At the same time, all His believers were regenerated. These believers, of course, were also human. So in His resurrection, all these human believers were made divine through the regeneration to be the many sons of God. Thus, Christ became the firstborn Son of God with many brothers.
Christ was the only begotten Son of God (John 1:18) before His incarnation, having divinity only, without humanity. Jesus Christ became the firstborn Son of God in resurrection, with His God-created humanity uplifted, having both divinity and humanity. The regenerated believers, having both humanity and divinity, are to be conformed to the image of this firstborn Son of God.
Thus, the person of Jesus Christ the God-man implies the intention of God in His gospel, that is, that He, as the unique God, wants to become a man that the fallen men redeemed by Him could become His many sons, made the same as God in His life and nature but not in His Godhead.