THE DOCTRINE OF THE PERSON OF CHRIST

By Gary Ray Branscome

1. INTRODUCTION

The doctrine that God wants taught in His churches does not consist of opinions distilled from Scripture, but of the actual words of Scripture given to us, “Line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little” (Isaiah 28:10). Therefore, we teach that Christ is both true God and true man because the Bible tells in one place that He is true God, and in another place that He is true man. For example, the words “We know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding, so that we might know the one who is true, and we are in the one who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God, and eternal life,” tell us that Christ is God (1John 5:20). At the same time, the words, “There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,” tell us that He is true man (1Timothy 2:5). Because God has given us both of those truths, He wants us to teach both without compromising them in a vain attempt to make them more palatable to our sin-corrupted little finite minds. For that reason we reject as false every attempt to deny Christ’s deity, or His humanity, or to separate His divine nature from His human nature as if He were two beings.

The Bible tells us that, “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and He was buried, and He rose again the third day according to the scriptures” (1Corinthians 15:1-4). And, because He died for our sins we have been, “Reconciled to God by the death of His Son… by whom we have now received the atonement” (Romans 5:10-11). That good news is the foundation of our faith. Faith is believing that we are, “Justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24). And it is, “By faith we have access into this grace wherein we stand” (Romans 5:2). For that reason, the doctrine of the atonement cannot be separated from the doctrine that, “A man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law” (Romans 3:28). Together those two doctrines are the central truth of Scripture. [See 1Corinthians 3:11, 1Timothy 2:5-6.]