Dr. Ryrie’s Basic Theology

Section IX -- On Jesus Christ our Lord

(CHAPTER 40) The Preincarnate Christ

The doctrine of Christ may include both a study of His person and His work. However, since His principal work was the Atonement, soteriology is usually separated from Christology. His other works are normally considered under Christology.

The doctrine can be organized more or less chronologically. A study of the preincarnate Christ comes first. This would be followed by a section on Christ in His humiliation, i.e., during His earthly life. (It would be erroneous to call this section Christ Incarnate, since the Incarnation continues beyond His earthly life.) Then would come a study of His present and future ministries.

The major theological problems appear in the period of Christ’s humiliation while in an earthly body, problems like the meaning of kenosis, the relation of His two natures, and impeccability.

The doctrine of the person of Christ is crucial to the Christian faith. It is basic to soteriology, for if our Lord was not what He claimed to be, then His atonement was a deficient, not sufficient, payment for sin.

I. THE PREEXISTENCE OF THE PREINCARNATE CHRIST

A. The Meaning of Preexistence

Preexistence of Christ means that He existed before His birth. For some writers it means that He existed before Creation and before time. But strictly speaking, preexistence is not synonymous with eternality. Practically speaking, they stand for a similar concept, for a denial of preexistence almost always includes a denial of eternality and vice versa.

B. The Importance of Preexistence

1. At birth. If Christ came into existence at His birth, then no eternal Trinity exists.

2. Not God. If Christ was not preexistent then He could not be God, because, among other attributes, God is eternal.

3. Liar. If Christ was not preexistent then He lied, because He claimed to be. Then, the question arises, what else did He lie about?

C. The Evidence for Preexistence

1. His heavenly origin. Verses that claim heavenly origin for Christ attest to preexistence before birth. Note especially John 3:13 and 31.

2. His work as Creator. If Christ was involved in creating, then, of course, He had to exist before Creation. See John 1:3; Colossians 1:16, and Hebrews 1:2.

3. His relationship with God. He claimed equality of nature with God (John 10:30). He claimed equal glory with the Father before the world began (17:5). Paul also claimed Christ had the same nature as God (Phil. 2:6). These passages are evidences for eternality as well.

4. His attributes. He claimed full Deity and others attested to it. These claims will be examined later, but for now Colossians 2:9 will suffice—in Christ dwells all the fullness of Deity.

5. His relation to John the Baptist. Though John was born before Jesus, John acknowledged that Jesus existed before him (John 1:15, 30, literally “first of me” but referring to preexistence as the basis for Christ’s superiority over John). See also Isaiah 40:1-3 and Malachi 3:1.

II. THE ETERNALITY OF THE PREINCARNATE CHRIST

The Meaning of Eternality

Eternality means not only that Christ existed before His birth or even before Creation but that He existed always, eternally. Usually eternality and preexistence stand or fall together, though Anus taught preexistence of the Son but not His eternality. He insisted that if Christ was the Only Begotten He must have had a beginning. Jehovah’s Witnesses today have an Arian-like Christology which denies the eternality of the Logos.

The Importance of Eternality - If eternality is denied then (a) there is no Trinity, (b) Christ does not possess full Deity, and (c) He lied.

The Evidence for Eternality - His relationship with God as of the same essence demonstrates eternality, since God is eternal. Notice the word charakter in Hebrews 1:3 which indicates that Christ is the exact representation of God’s nature or essence.

Possession of divine attributes includes the attribute of eternality.

The Old Testament prophets claimed eternality for Messiah. Micah said that His goings forth are from the days of eternity (5:2; see Hab. 1:12). Though the words can mean “from the days of old,” that is, from earliest times, they can also mean from eternity. Isaiah 9:6, “Eternal Father,” likely refers to Christ as a Father to His people always (thus it only looks forward, not backward to eternity past).

Christ claimed eternality when He declared, “Before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58). This is more than limited existence before Abraham was born because He said “I AM.” “I was” might indicate that He existed for several centuries before Abraham, but I am (eimi) states eternality.

John’s plain statement that Christ is God (John 1:1). “The Word was God.” Not the Word was divine (as Moffatt and Goodspeed) since that would require theios (as in Acts 17:29 and 2 Peter 1:3). Nor does John say that the Word was a god (as Jehovah’s Witnesses translate it). Definite nouns that precede the verb, as here, regularly lack the definite article (see Leon Morris, Commentary on the Gospel of John [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971], p. 77n).

III. THE ACTIVITY OF THE PREINCARNATE CHRIST

A. His Activity as Creator

1. The extent of it. He was involved in the Creation of all things (John 1:3; Col. 1:16; Heb. 1:2). This demonstrates His power (to be able to create all things).

2. The purpose of it. All things were created for Him (Col. 1:16), meaning for the purpose of achieving His ends in the Creation. This demonstrates His prerogative (to have Creation serve His purposes)

3. The continuation of it. He also now sustains His creation, for in Him all things hold together (v. 17). This demonstrates His presence (continuing to sustain creation).

B. His Activity as Angel

1. His identity as Angel of Yahweh. Clearly the Angel of Yahweh is a self-manifestation of Yahweh, for He speaks as God, identifies Himself with God, and claims to exercise the prerogatives of God (Gen. 16:7-14; 21:17-18; 22:11-18; 31:11-13 Ex 3:2; Judges 2:1-4; 5:23; 6:11-22; 13:3-22; 2 Sam. 24:16; Zech. 1:12; 3:1; 12:8). Yet He is distinguished from Yahweh (Gen. 24:7; Zech. 1:12-13).

That He is a Member of the Trinity is indicated by the fact that the appearances of the Angel of Yahweh cease after the Incarnation. This is confirmed by the Old Testament statement that the Angel of God accompanied Israel when they left Egypt (Ex. 14:19; cf. 23:20) and the New Testament statement that the Rock who followed Israel was Christ (1 Cor. 10:4).

2. His ministries as an Angel of Yahweh. (1) He often acted as messenger to various people (Gen. 16:7-14; 22:11-18; 31:11-13). (2) He guided and protected Israel (Ex. 14:19; 23:20; 2 Kings 19:35). (3) He was the instrument of judgment on Israel when God sent a pestilence on the people (1 Chron. 21:1-27). (4) He was the agent of refreshment to Elijah (1 Kings 19:5-7).

C. His Other Activities

No other historical activities of Christ are revealed as happening in His preincarnate state. His work as Messiah required the Incarnation, though it was predicted in the Old Testament. Likewise His work as Savior necessitated the Incarnation. The Old Testament does not give specific revelation of the second Person as Savior, only God as Savior. To have done so would also have required an Old Testament revelation of the Trinity. Rather that period is called “the times of ignorance” (Acts 17:30).

Though our Lord was not inactive in His preincarnate state, His greatest works necessitated the Incarnation. Nevertheless, He stands magnificent in His person as the eternal God, but, as it were, in the shadows, waiting the spotlight of the Incarnation to reveal His glory and grace (John 1:17; Titus 2:11).

(CHAPTER 41) - The Incarnation of Christ

1. THE MEANING OF INCARNATION

Though the word itself does not appear in Scripture, its components (“in” and “flesh”) do. John wrote that the Word became flesh (John 1:14). He also wrote of Jesus coming in the flesh (1 John 4:2; 2 John 7). By this he meant that the eternal second Person of the Trinity took on Himself humanity. He did not possess humanity until the birth, since the Lord became flesh (egeneto, John 1:14, in contrast to the four occurrences of en in vv. 1-2). However, His humanity was sinless, a fact Paul guards by writing that He came “in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Rom. 8:3).

II. THE PREDICTIONS OF INCARNATION

A. Prediction of the God-Man

In this prophecy concerning Messiah in Isaiah 9:6; Isaiah foretold the union of Deity and humanity in Him. He said that a child would be born (a reference to humanity) and that His character would be such that He may be designated as the Mighty God (el gibbor; a reference to Deity). Isaiah uses el only in reference to God (see 31:3); gibbor means hero. Thus the phrase means a hero whose chief characteristic is that He is God. Thus in this single verse both the humanity and deity of our Lord are predicted. (See Edward J. Young, The Book of Isaiah [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964J, 1:335-8.)

The name Immanuel reveals the same truth about the Lord (7:14). This means more than God’s presence with His people in His providential dealings. It means in this text that the very presence of the virgin-born Child brings God to His people (see Young, 1:289-91).

B. Prediction of the Virgin Birth (Isa. 7:14)

In this prophecy Isaiah foretold the means of the Incarnation as being a virgin birth. Liberals have challenged the translation “virgin” for the Hebrew word almah, stating that bethulah should have been used if Isaiah unmistakably meant virgin. It is true that almah means a sexually mature, marriageable maiden, and bethulah means a separated woman, usually a virgin, but not always (Es. 2:17; Ezek. 23:3; Joel 1:8). Thus it is not true to say, as the critics do, that bethulah would have been a more precise word to use if Isaiah clearly meant virgin.

Apparently almah is not a technical term for virgin but refers to a young woman, one of whose characteristics is virginity (Gen. 24:43). There is no instance where it can be proved that almah designates a young woman who is not a virgin. The Septuagint translates it by parthenos in two of its seven occurrences, as does Matthew 1:23. Thus the word means a young woman of marriageable age one of whose characteristics was virginity, and necessarily so in the case of the fulfillment of this prophecy in Christ’s birth.

Who is the virgin referred to in the prophecy? The interpretations fall into three basic categories. (1) The nonmessianic interpretation which understands the prophecy fulfilled by some unknown woman in the past who may or may not have been a virgin. How then can verse 23 be explained? (2) The strictly messianic interpretation that sees the prophecy referring only to Mary with no reference to any maiden of Isaiah’s time. Unquestionably it does refer to Mary (v. 23), but whether to her only is the question. Without a reference to someone in Isaiah’s time what value would the sign have been to Ahaz? (3) The prophecy refers both to someone in Isaiah’s day and to Mary in the future.

According to this third interpretation who would be the maiden in Isaiah’s day? Again there are three answers: (a) Ahaz’s wife; (b) Some unknown maiden in Israel; (c) Isaiah’s second wife to whom he was not yet married when the prophecy was given. If (a) is true then the son was Hezekiah. If (b) is true, then the son is unknown. If (c) is true the son was either Maher-shalal-hash-baz (Isa. 8:3) or another unmentioned son of Isaiah. In this view Isaiah’s first wife, the mother of Shear-jashub (7:3) had already died.

Matthew unambiguously sees Christ as the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. Of this there can be no question. And both the strictly messianic and the double-reference views acknowledge that.

III. THE MEANS OF INCARNATION

A. The Evidence

The Virgin Birth was the means of the Incarnation. The Incarnation, once accomplished, is a lasting state for our Lord. It began at His birth and continues (albeit in a resurrection body now) forever. The Virgin Birth was an event that lasted only a matter of hours.

When Gabriel announced to Mary that she would bear the Messiah, she protested that she would need a husband. The angel’s response was in essence, you won’t need a husband, because the Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you (Luke 1:35). The statement emphasizes more the fact of divine generation of the Child, than the method.

Matthew carefully guards the fact of the Virgin Birth in the genealogical table of our Lord (Matt. 1:16). He records that Joseph was the husband of Mary, but that it was by Mary only that Jesus was born. The pronoun “by whom” is feminine singular, indicating clearly that Jesus was born of Mary only and not of Mary and Joseph.

Whether Galatians 4:4, “born of a woman,” indicates the Virgin Birth or not is unclear. It may simply mean that Christ assumed humanity just like He assumed a position under the Law, as the next phrase says. Or it might refer to the Virgin Birth since the verb is not the regular verb for “be born” but the same verb as in John 1:14 which refers to the Incarnation, though not to the Virgin Birth as such. However, the passages in Isaiah, Matthew, and Luke are clear.

What was the purpose of the Virgin Birth? It need not be the necessary means of preserving Christ sinless, since God could have overshadowed two parents so as to protect the baby’s sinlessness had He so desired. It served as a sign of the uniqueness of the Person who was born. How early and how widely the fact was known among the contemporaries of Christ we cannot say. Of course, when Matthew and Luke were written it was known, and from that time on the early church regarded it as a crucial doctrine, and by the early second century an established doctrine (Ignatius, Smyrna, I, 1, for example; see also Hans von Campenhausen, The Virgin Birth in the Theology of the Ancient Church, Studies in Historical Theology [Naperville: Allenson, 1964], 2:10-20).

B. The Genealogies

Matthew and Luke both trace the genealogy of the virgin-born Son. Matthew contains forty-one selected names, while Luke includes seventy-seven. Matthew traces the King back to Abraham; Luke goes back to Adam. Matthew’s list is commonly regarded as Joseph’s line and Luke’s, Mary’s.

There has been much discussion particularly over the question of whether Luke’s genealogy is that of Jesus through Mary His mother. Alfred Plummer raises this objection to that view: “It is probable that so obvious a solution, as that one was the pedigree of Joseph and the other the pedigree of Mary, would have been very soon advocated, if there had been any reason (excepting the difficulty) for adopting it. But this solution is not suggested by anyone until Amnnius of Viterbo propounded it, ca. A D. 1490” (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to Luke [ICC, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1910], p. 103).

On the other side, F. Godet argues effectively for Mary’s lineage in Luke on the basis of the absence of the article before Joseph (3:23) which links Jesus directly with Eli and seemingly puts Joseph out of the genealogical line altogether (A Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke [Edinburgh: T. &. T. Clark, 1910], 1:195-204).

Various explanations are given for both genealogies being Joseph’s line. One is that Matthan and Matthat are the same person, making Jacob and Eli brothers and making Joseph the son of Eli and the nephew of Jacob. If Jacob died without heirs his nephew Joseph would have become the heir, or possibly Joseph became the heir of Jacob because Eli (assuming that his wife had died) married Jacob’s widow according to the custom of levirate marriage (See J.G. Machen, The Virgin Birth of Christ [New York: Harper, 1930], pp. 207-9).

A strong argument for the Lucan genealogy being Mary’s relates to the curse placed on Jehoiachin (Jeconiah or Coniah) in Jeremiah 22:30. He was pronounced “childless” which is explained in the verse as meaning no physical descendant of his would prosperously reign on the throne of David. (He apparently did have seven sons, though perhaps adopted, 1 Chron. 3:17-18). Thus Jesus could not expect to be a ruling king (though He had the legal right) if He were a blood descendant of Joseph who was a descendant of Coniah. Therefore the virgin birth was necessary to free Him from the line of the curse (see Robert Gromacki, The Virgin Birth of Christ [Grand Rapids: Baker, 19811, pp. 150-9). However, this could also be accomplished if Jesus is linked to Joseph (not as His natural father, of course) through Nathan rather than Solomon (as Luke might be indicating). It has also been suggested that the curse on Coniah was ended by God’s choosing and exalting Zerubbabel (Hag. 2:23). Making him “as a signet” elevated him to a place of authority, and choosing him transferred to Zerubbabel and his family among David’s descendants the messianic promise. Zerubbabel’s name does appear in both the Matthew and Luke genealogies.

In any case Luke carefully avoids the impression that Jesus might be the natural son of Joseph: yet he preserves His kingly claims by not linking Him solely to His mother (since the claim passed through the male members). Never in His lifetime did anyone dispute Jesus’ claim to the throne of David.

IV. THE PURPOSES OF THE INCARNATION

Why did God send His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh?

The Scriptures give several answers to that question.

A. To Reveal God to Us

Though God reveals Himself in various ways including the magnificences of nature around us, only the Incarnation revealed the essence of God, though veiled (John 1:18; 14:7-11). The only way man can see the Father is to know about the Son, and the only way we can do that today is through studying the record of His life in the Scriptures. Because He became a man, the revelation of God was personalized; because He is God, that revelation is completely truthful.

B. To Provide an Example for Our Lives

The earthly life of our Lord is held up to us as a pattern for our living today (1 Peter 2:21; 1 John 2:6). Without the Incarnation we would not have that example. As man He experienced the vicissitudes of life and furnishes for us an experienced example; as God He offers us the power to follow His example.

C. To Provide an Effective Sacrifice for Sin

Without the Incarnation we would have no Savior. Sin requires death for its payment. God does not die. So the Savior must be human in order to be able to die. But the death of an ordinary man would not pay for sin eternally, so the Savior must also be God. We must have a God-Man Savior and we do in our Lord (Heb. 10:1-10).

D. To Be Able to Fulfill the Davidic Covenant

Gabriel announced to Mary that her Son would be given the throne of David (Luke 1:31-33). This is not fulfilled by the invisible God reigning over the affairs of men (which He does to be sure). To have an occupant of David’s throne requires a human being. Therefore, Messiah had to be a human being. But to occupy that throne forever requires that the occupant never die. And only God qualifies. So the One who ultimately fulfills the Davidic promise has to be a God-Man.

E. To Destroy the Works of the Devil (1 John 3:8)

Notice that this was done by Christ’s appearing. The focus is on His coming, not on His resurrection as might be expected. Why was the Incarnation necessary to defeat Satan? Because Satan must be defeated in the arena he dominates, this world. So Christ was sent into this world to destroy Satan’s works.

F. To Be Able to Be a Sympathetic High Priest (Heb. 4:14-16)

Our High Priest can feel our weaknesses because He was tested as we are. But God is never tested, so it was necessary for God to become man to be able to be tested in order to be a sympathetic Priest.

G. To Be Able to Be a Qualified Judge

Though most people think of God as the Judge before whom all will appear, the truth is that Jesus will be that Judge (John 5:22, 27). All judgment will be executed by our Lord “because He is the Son of man.” This is the title that links Him to the earth and to His earthly mission. Why is it necessary for the Judge to be human and to have lived on earth? So that He may put down all excuses people might try to make. Why must the Judge also be God? So that His judgment will be true and just.

Thus the Incarnation has ramifications in relation to our knowledge of God, to our salvation, to our daily living, to our pressing needs, and to the future. It truly is the central fact of history.

Personal notes: Name