When Christ came, He was the very embodiment of God. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Christ is God. Some so-called Christians today do not confess that He is God. But anyone who does not confess that Christ is God is not our brother. All real Christians must confess this. Without Christ and outside of Christ we simply cannot find God. “In Him dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:9). God is in Christ, and Christ is the manifestation of God (1 Tim. 3:16; Heb. 1:3).
Christ was God in the beginning, but He was made something else. “The Word was God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:1, 14). God was made flesh. Spiritually speaking, the term flesh is not positive. God did not create flesh; God created a man. Man in the beginning was not flesh. It is not until Genesis 6 that we read that man became flesh (v. 3). This was something that resulted from the fall. Man was man, but due to the fall he gradually became rotten and corrupted. This condition of man is called by the Bible, flesh. So we see that the flesh is not glorious. It is a term denoting fallen and corrupted man.
In John 3:14 we are told that the brass serpent lifted up on a pole was a type of Christ. When the people of Israel were wandering in the wilderness, they rebelled against God. Therefore they were poisoned by serpents, and many were dying. When Moses prayed for them, God told him to raise up a brass serpent, and whoever looked at the brass serpent would be healed (Num. 21:4-9). The brass serpent was only a serpent in form, not in nature. It did not have the poison of the serpent, but only the form. This was a type of Christ. He was lifted up on the cross just like the brass serpent. In the eyes of God, Christ was a serpent on the cross, but only in form. He did not have the serpent nature. Thus, Romans 8:3 tells us that Christ was made in the likeness of the flesh. “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” He was made only in the likeness of the flesh. He had only the form, not the poison. In our flesh there is the poison of the serpent, but in His flesh there is no poison.
Christ was made flesh in form because at the time of His incarnation man was fallen and corrupted. Man had become flesh; so He also became flesh (Heb. 2:14), but only in form. If He had not become flesh, He could never have been a man. Then He could not have been the Lamb of God to shed His blood for the sins of the world (John 1:29).
So we see that the very God was made flesh. Hallelujah! God was made flesh, and His name was called Jesus. Jesus was God in the flesh. He lived on the earth some thirty-three years, and eventually He went to the cross in the flesh to take away all sins and to terminate every negative thing. He did a wonderful job in the flesh. Ephesians 2:15 tells us that in His flesh He even abolished all ordinances. “Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace.”
All things were terminated by Him in the flesh. We should not do anything in the flesh today, but He did many things in the flesh. He bore our sins in the flesh. He died for you and me in the flesh. He terminated all negative things in the flesh. He abolished all the ordinances in the flesh. In flesh, He destroyed the devil who has the power of death (Heb. 2:14). God was made flesh to accomplish all of these things.
God created everything, but Satan sought to poison God’s creatures, especially man. And he did it by injecting himself into man. He thought that he had poisoned man, but he did not know that he was trapped. After Satan came into man and made man the flesh, God came into this flesh and used it as an instrument to destroy Satan (Heb. 2:14). He put this flesh upon Himself and went to the cross to crucify this flesh. By doing this, God terminated all the old creation. He terminated Satan, you and me, and every negative thing. He did this in the flesh.