However, it is difficult to find a verse which says that God became man. What the Bible says is this: “The Word was God...and the Word became flesh” (John 1:1, 14). Man is a good term, but flesh is not. If I tell you that you are a man, you will be happy. But if I say that you are flesh, you will not be happy because the word flesh is not a positive term. In 1 Timothy 3:16 Paul says, “Great is the mystery... Who was manifested in the flesh.” Although flesh is not a good term, the Bible says that God was manifest in the flesh.
It is not easy to understand what the Bible means by the flesh. In the Bible the flesh has at least three meanings. First, in a good sense, it means the meat of our body (John 6:55). Our body has meat and bone, blood and skin. This is physical. Second, flesh means our fallen body. God did not create fallen flesh; He created a body. When man fell, the poison of Satan was injected into his body, and the body was corrupted and became the flesh. Therefore, Romans 7:18 says, “For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, nothing good dwells.” This indicates that the fallen body, the body of sin (Rom. 6:6), is called the flesh. All human lusts come from this flesh. Hence, the New Testament has the term “the lusts of our flesh” (Eph. 2:3). Third, the flesh, especially in the New Testament, means the fallen man. Romans 3:20 says, “By the works of the law no flesh shall be justified before Him.” In this verse flesh is the fallen man.
Nevertheless John 1:14 says, “The Word [which was God] became flesh.” As we have seen, flesh means the fallen man. How, then, shall we interpret John 1:14? The Word was God, and the Word became flesh. Great is the mystery that God was manifest in the flesh. The Bible says that God became flesh and that flesh is not the created man, but the fallen man. Can we say that God became a fallen man? This surely is a difficult matter.
However, there are two verses that can help us. The first verse is Romans 8:3, which says that God sent “His own Son in the likeness of the flesh of sin.” This verse does not say “the flesh of sin”; it says “the likeness of the flesh of sin.” The other verse is John 3:14: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” The serpent lifted up on a pole in the wilderness was not actually a serpent with poison; it was a brass serpent made in the likeness of a real serpent (Num. 21:9). John 3:14 is the word of the Lord Jesus to Nicodemus. The Lord told him that as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must He Himself be lifted up on the cross. When Jesus was on the cross, in the eyes of God He was in the form, the likeness, of a serpent. But as was the case with the brass serpent in the wilderness, there was no poison in Him because He was not born of a fallen man. He was born of a virgin.
Now we must clearly differentiate two points: Christ was conceived of the Holy Spirit and He was born of a virgin. His source was the Holy Spirit, and His element was divine. Through the virgin Mary as a means, He put on flesh and blood, the human nature, taking “the likeness of the flesh,” “the likeness of men” (Phil. 2:7). However, He did not have the sinful nature of the fallen flesh. He knew no sin (2 Cor. 5:21), and He had no sin (Heb. 4:15). He had flesh, but it was the “likeness of the flesh of sin.” In appearance He was made in the form of a fallen man, but in actuality there was no fallen nature within Him. His birth was exactly the same in principle. Apparently, He was the son of Joseph; actually, He was the son of Mary.
Why was the Lord Jesus viewed by God as being in the form of a serpent when He was on the cross? Because, since the day man fell (Gen. 3:1), the serpent had been in man, and he made every man a serpent. According to Matthew 3:7 and 23:33, both John the Baptist and the Lord Jesus called people the “generation of vipers,” that is, serpents, indicating that all fallen ones are descendants of the serpent. We all are little serpents. Do not think that you are good. Before you were saved, you were a serpent. This is the reason the Lord Jesus died on the cross to suffer God’s judgment. When Jesus was on the cross, He was not only a man, but was also in the form of a serpent. In the eyes of God, for all of us serpentine people, He took on the form of a serpent and died on the cross. Perhaps you have never heard that Jesus took the form of a serpent, the likeness of the flesh of sin. You have heard that Jesus is God and that He took the form of a man, but not that He also took the form of a serpent. How wonderful He is!
We are fallen flesh, and Jesus came into this flesh that He might bring God into humanity. In Him, the divine Person of God was mingled with humanity. The birth of Christ was not simply to produce a Savior, but also to bring God into man. Although humanity was fallen, God did not take on any part of this fallen nature. God took only the likeness of the fallen flesh, and through this He mingled Himself with humanity. We should not think of Jesus in the way many others think of Him. We must realize that Jesus is nothing less than God Himself mingled with fallen humanity, taking the form of humanity, but without man’s sinful nature. This was the birth of Christ.