God's Word For You is a free Bible Study site committed to bringing you studies firmly grounded in the Bible – the Word of God. Holding a reformed, conservative, evangelical perspective this site affirms that God has provided in Jesus Christ his eternal Son, a way of salvation in which we can live in his presence guilt free, acquitted and at peace.

 
 

STUDY 18: GOD’S GOODNESS AND THE INCARNATION - 2

© Rosemary Bardsley 2023

The incarnation is a powerful demonstration that God in his goodness does not write us off, even though we have written him off, denied his existence and put other ‘gods’ in his place. Here in the person of his Son, God addresses our human ignorance of him. He answers our human questions that rise in every generation and every people group: ‘Is there such a being as ‘god’?’ and ‘If there is a ‘god’, what is ‘god’ like?’ We have tried to answer these questions for ourselves ... and we have come up with a never ending range of answers – in world religions, in cultural belief systems, in various cults, in human philosophies and ideologies, and in the personal definitions of ‘god’ we have created in our own minds. Our innumerable human ideas of ‘god’ reflect our deep-seated ignorance of him.

A. OUR IGNORANCE OF GOD

According to the Bible, no one knows God. This ignorance began with Satan’s deceptive insinuations about God in Genesis 3:1 – 5, where he suggested that God was less than good. Ever since then, our human concepts of God have been twisted in one way or another, even though God has revealed himself in the created universe, and through the history and prophets of the nation he chose for that purpose. But God in his goodness comes to us in Jesus his Son, in a way that, for those whose eyes God opens, reveals his truth, his glory and his power.

What do these verses teach about our human ignorance of God and misrepresentation of God?
Jeremiah 2:9 – 13

Jeremiah 5:30, 31

Matthew 11:27

John 1:18a

John 8:19, 55a

Romans 1:18 – 32

Romans 3:11

2Corinthians 4:4

B. THE REVELATION OF GOD BY JESUS CHRIST ANTICIPATED IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

Foretelling the coming of Jesus Christ, the prophets said that his coming would bring knowledge of God to the world:

How do the Old Testament prophets describe this revelation of God in Christ?
Isaiah 40:5, 9

Isaiah 42:6b, 7

Jeremiah 31:34

Habakkuk 2:14

In the incarnation God comes to us: Immanuel - God with us. The Son who is born of Mary is called ‘Mighty God’ (Isaiah 9:6). ‘Incarnation’ does not mean that Jesus was god-like, or that Jesus was godly, or that Jesus was just a human being who allowed God to have full sway in his life. Rather it is this: that the man Jesus, the carpenter from Nazareth, is God. His awareness of his identity, and his expressions of that awareness of his divine identity, is what brought the wrath of the religious leaders upon him, and, from a human perspective, resulted in his crucifixion. Because he is God, he made God known. He showed us what God is like – both by his teaching and by his actions and attitudes.

C. JESUS HAS MADE GOD KNOWN

In fulfilment of this Old Testament anticipation, Jesus came and made God known.

What do these verses teach about Jesus making God known?
Matthew 11:27

John 1:14

John 1:18

John 8:19

John 12:45

John 14:6 – 9

John 17:6 – 8, 26

1John 5:20

These verses contain some amazing claims about Jesus Christ, some spoken by John, some spoken by Jesus himself. If we believe these texts, then we believe that:

Only Jesus Christ, the Son of God, can make God the Father known to an individual person.
That Jesus Christ has indeed made God known.
That seeing Jesus is seeing God.
That knowing Jesus is knowing God.

There are two important flow-ons from this simple but highly significant truth –

[1] that if our concept of ‘god’ is not identical to Jesus Christ then our ‘god’ is not God. John makes this clear in 1John 5:21, where, having told us in verse 20 that Jesus Christ has made the true God known, he tells us to keep ourselves from idols. That is, from any concept of God that is not the God revealed by Jesus Christ.

[2] That if we do not recognize Jesus Christ as God, then we simply do not know God. If we know God, we will recognize him in Jesus Christ. (John 5:37 – 47; 8:19, 38 – 47, 55).

Read John 8:12 and 14:6. How do these verses reveal the goodness of God in sending Jesus to make him known?

 

D. WHAT JESUS REVEALED ABOUT GOD

Jesus, the Son of God, reveals exactly what God is like.

How do these verses describe Jesus?
Colossians 1:15a

2Corinthians 4:4

Hebrews 1:3

Jesus Christ makes God known. As Paul wrote in 2Corinthians 4:6 the same God who said ‘let there be light’ ‘has made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.’

 

When we read the New Testament reports of what Jesus said and did we are reading of God’s self-revelation. We are seeing what God is like, we are learning who God is and what God does. Here in Jesus Christ God, the good God we have been learning about, comes to us, and says to us: ‘This is who I am. Believe in me. When you receive my Son you are receiving me.’

D.1 Jesus reveals God as the Sovereign Creator
When we look at what we might call Jesus’ ‘nature miracles’, we see him exercising his power and authority over the created world.

Check these verses. How do they demonstrate that Jesus Christ is Lord over creation?
John 2:1 – 11

Mark 4:35 – 41

Mark 6:30 – 44

Mark 6:45 – 52

Mark 8:1 – 9

Each of these miracles demonstrates the power and authority of Jesus Christ over nature. As John remarked in 2:11, Jesus’ changing water-into-wine was a ‘miraculous sign’, a revelation of his glory. And as Mark reported, Jesus rebuked his disciples for their failure to understand the significance of these miracles (Mark 8:14 – 21). They were in the presence of the Creator God, but, failing to realize that, they were worried about not having enough bread, just as they had been afraid in the storm because they did not at that time believe that Jesus Christ was indeed God, the Creator of all that exists (Mark 4:40). In seeing Jesus exercise authority over nature, we see the goodness of God.

D.2 Jesus reveals God as the Sovereign Judge who has the ability and authority to reverse the impacts of Genesis 3
In the next list of verses we see Jesus reversing and undoing the impacts of Genesis 3 – sin, suffering and death – that have characterised human life ever since. This trilogy of evil is present in the world only because we humans rejected God and God’s word. [See Genesis 2:17.] They are what God said would happen when we rejected him. But Jesus showed us an amazing aspect of God’s goodness – every time he forgave someone, every time he healed someone, every time he raised the dead – that God can and does interfere with, and undo, the penalties and outcomes that are present by his own decree and in keeping with his divine justice. God, in his goodness, reverses what is the result of our badness, suspending, interfering with, his just judgements and the cause/effect results of Genesis 3. In strict justice, he could leave us alone in our sin and suffering. He could leave us alone trapped in death, forever separated from life. Forever separated from him. But he doesn’t, because he is good.

Check these verses. In what ways did Jesus’ demonstrate his goodness in reversing the results of Genesis 3?
When he exercised divine authority over sin?
Mark 2:1 – 12

John 8:2 – 11

When he healed the sick?
Matthew 8:1 – 17

 

When he raised the dead?
Mark 5:35 – 43

Luke 7:11 – 17

John 11:38 – 44

In all of this interference with and reversal of the impact of our Genesis 3 sin, Jesus demonstrated the sovereign goodness of God. Given the authority of life and death, and given all judgement, by the Father (John 5:21 – 27), Jesus shows us in these miracles of forgiveness, healing and life, that our sin does not have the last word: God does. God, our good God, revealed before our human eyes in his Son, has both the ability and the authority to reverse Genesis three. In the life and ministry of Jesus, the Son, he did it in a localised and temporary way. At the end of the age, when Jesus returns, he will do it completely and permanently (Revelation 21:1 – 6).

Check John 3:17 for a one sentence summary of this goodness of God revealed in Christ the Son.

 

 

D.3 Jesus reveals God as Victor
Some people have a dualistic philosophy – believing that there are two equal powers: good and evil, God and Satan. The Bible leaves no room for such a concept. Jesus Christ revealed the utter supremacy of God, the God who is good.

How did Jesus reveal the supremacy of God over Satan?
In his victory over the evil one’s deceptions and temptations?
Matthew 4:1 – 11

Matthew 16:21 – 23

In his authority to cast out demons?
Mark 1:21 – 28

Mark 5:1 -17

In his victory over Satan in his death?
John 12:31

Colossians 3:15

Review: Some people teach that Jesus did everything he did as a human being fully empowered by the Spirit. To believe this overlooks the New Testament affirmation that Jesus Christ, the Son, has made God known because he is God: that Jesus Christ is the Light, the Truth, and the Way. That if we don’t recognize that he is God, then we simply do not know God. When we see Jesus, for example, raising the dead, we are not looking at a Spirit-empowered human being, we are looking at God. We are learning that God is good. As Jesus said: 'Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say ‘Show us the Father’? John 14:9.