Morning Sermon - 4th October 2026 - Why Jesus Had to Be Both God and Man

Now in our Bibles we're turning to Hebrews chapter 12...

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

Or chapter two please, Hebrews chapter two, and we're gonna take time to read the whole chapter.

So Hebrews chapter two, reading the whole chapter.

This is God's word.

Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard lest we drift away from it.

For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution.

How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation?

It was declared at first by the Lord and it was attested to us by those who heard while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come of which we are speaking.

It has been testified somewhere.

What is man that you are mindful of him or the son of man that you care for him?

You made him for a little while lower than the angels.

You have crowned him with glory and honor putting everything in subjection under his feet.

Now in putting everything in subjection to him he left nothing outside his control.

At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to Him, but we see Him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.

For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, and bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.

For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all of one source.

That's why he is not ashamed to call them brothers saying, I tell you of your name to my brothers in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise and again I will put my trust in him and again behold I and the children God has given me.

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham.

Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

For because He Himself has suffered when tempted He is able to help those who are being tempted.

May God bless His Word to our hearts.

You know when people hear about discussions in relation to doctrine sometimes there's a reaction, negative reaction and people say, well, what does it really matter?

Some would go further and insist that doesn't matter at all.

And they argue that Christianity is mainly about how we live and that probing theology especially doctrines that divide is unhelpful, is cold or merely intellectual and doctrine they say hinders Christian living and it hinders gospel witness.

And how wrong our view is what we believe really does grow into how we actually live.

Belief is the root and Christian living as the plant and Christian living as the fruit.

And if we're not well rooted in truth, our growth of course is hindered, it's not helped, and we can't clearly communicate a plan of salvation, we don't really understand ourselves.

Teachers who lack a clear grasp leave their hears more confused than before.

And the same is true in evangelism.

Unclear doctrine produces unclear witness.

And for the Christian then doctrine really does matter.

Doctrine is not something that's secondary and this is especially true when it comes to the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We need a clear biblical understanding of who he is and what he has done and we have over previous Lord's Day, days been considering the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and this morning we ask why is it essential that He is both true God and true man.

Two natures and one person and some might think that's abstract, that's really remote to my daily living.

Well in reality it's everything to do with your daily living.

It's everything to do with your Christian living and with salvation itself.

Were Christ not true God and true man, there would be no salvation, there would be no gospel, only the God man can save.

Who else would be sufficed for it?

No one, only the God man, only Jesus Christ can save.

And that's why the title of my sermon is Jesus only saves.

And to explore this fact that Jesus only saves and the essential fact that He is both God and man there are two questions that I want to ask as the very basis of my message this morning and the two questions are these, why did He have to be man And then secondly why did He have to be God?

So those are the two major headings that we're going to take, the two major questions that we're going to consider as we think of Jesus.

Jesus only saves.

Jesus alone saves.

So let's look at this question, why did He have to be a man?

Why did He have to be a man?

Well there are a number of reasons why He had to be a man and the more we consider Christ's work the clearer it becomes that He had to be fully human to be our Savior.

And we can only mention six reasons and each of these is vital.

They're full of encouragement but we only have time to look at six but there are many more that we could look at.

Theologians have written a 100 reasons why Christ needs to be man.

So first of all, He had to be man to obey in our place.

He had to be man to obey in our place.

In the covenant of grace, Jesus of course represents His people.

What He has done is counted as done on their behalf.

He obeyed in our place.

If you remember Adam in the Garden of Eden, he was our representative in the covenant of works and his disobedience plunged the whole human race into sin.

And we are sinners by nature and by practice because our first representative failed.

In contrast, the Lord Jesus Christ represents all who trust in Him and renders perfect obedience in their place.

The obedience that we can never give.

And even as Christians, our best efforts are really poor and Christ has abated perfectly for us and what a contrast.

Adam representing us plunging the human race into sin and Christ representing His people and leading them into salvation and His kingdom.

And Adam was tested if you remember in the garden and the field that set out for us in Genesis three.

And Christ was tested in the wilderness and He stood firm even in the face of the enemy.

He didn't flee as we read about in Luke chapter four last week.

And the representative principle works both ways.

Adam's failure brings condemnation.

Christ's obedience brings blessing.

And that's why Paul writes in Romans chapter five in verse 19, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous.

And that's the heart of salvation.

Human obedience was needed and Christ provided that human obedience.

He obeyed in our place.

And second, he had to be a man to be a substitute sacrifice.

Taking our place meant becoming a sacrifice for our sins.

To be saved we need someone to pay the price.

We need someone to redeem us, someone to make atonement for us.

And our sins against God are so grieved that they require of course the death of the Lord Jesus himself in the place of his people.

And at the heart of his obedience is obedience that really took him all the way to the cross.

And he had to be man.

Only a man could atone for man's sins and the Savior had to share our nature.

That's why we read Hebrews chapter two verse 17 if you remember.

And we mentioned this last week, it says there that He had to be made like His brothers and sisters in every way in order to make propitiation for the sins of the people.

And only by sharing our nature could He deal with our sins.

Our substitute must be fully human.

And Hebrews stresses that the animal sacrifices of previous centuries could never take that away, could never take sin away.

And it required the death of one who shared our very nature.

He was our substitute sacrifice.

That's the second reason.

And then the third reason he had to be a man was to be the mediator between God and man.

And the mediator who stands between sinners and a holy God must share our human nature to bring God and man together.

He must also share the nature of God, and we're gonna look at that a little bit later.

But Paul writes in first Timothy chapter two and verse five, there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.

And he had to be a man to represent us.

All these reasons revolve around representation.

What he did, he did in our behalf for our benefit.

There was obedience, there was sacrifice, there was mediation.

He the only mediator between God and man.

He died for us and He was man.

But then the fourth reason He had to be man was to rule over creation.

And this appears in our reading in Hebrews chapter two.

Adam with Eve was given the task of ruling creation and exercising godly dominion.

We read that in Genesis chapter one, They had failed.

And human beings still do not exercise dominion as they should.

Everything of course is twisted and corrupted by sin and yet we have one fully qualified to reign.

And the writer to the Hebrews in chapter two here quotes from Psalm eight and shows that while the human race fails Christ succeeds.

Because we read in verse nine of Hebrews chapter two we see Jesus who was made a little lower than the angels now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death and because He suffered and died for sinners and rose again the God man He reigns over all things.

After His resurrection Jesus declared Did He not?

In Matthew chapter 28 and verse 18, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

And then Paul writes that God placed all things under Jesus' feet and appointed Him head over all things.

We're told that in Ephesians chapter one.

And Christ exercises the dominion that Adam failed to exercise and that we fail to exercise.

Jesus is King.

In Him we already begin to reign and we look forward to the day when He returns in glory and we will reign with Him forever in the new heaven and the new earth.

And that's the prospect for every Christian.

He had to be man to do what Adam failed to do.

Who failed to rule over creation.

And the fifth reason why he had to be man was the pattern for our living.

Some reduce Jesus to a mere moral example.

He was a great teacher and they say the world would be better if everyone were to follow Him and follow His example.

But we mustn't lose sight of the fact that He was more than a teacher.

He was more than a moralist.

He's the savior of the world.

He's the reigning Lord yet a savior He is also the true pattern for human living.

And you know what it means to live a fully human life?

Do we really know that?

Well to see a fully lived perfect human life is to look at none other than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

His life was marked by joyful obedience to His Father's will and He delighted to do God's will.

And if we belong to Christ we are to imitate him.

That's why John wrote in his first epistle in chapter two in verse six, whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.

And that's a powerful description of the Christian life.

Walking as Jesus walked and of course some things were unique to him.

We're not called to die on the cross and make that atoning sacrifice but he sets that moral pattern for godly living.

And God has not only given commandments, He has provided one who lived them out perfectly in the details of life.

And Paul writes in two Corinthians three eighteen, We are being transformed into His likeness.

And what does the Christian really look like?

Well, at our midweek meeting we have been thinking about the fruit of the Spirit, Galatians chapter five verses twenty two and twenty three and that describes the fruit of the Spirit, that describes a Christian love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.

And who's described there in fullness?

Well we've always started off looking at each fruit by saying Christ is the example.

He's the fullness of this fruit.

He exemplifies the fruit of the Spirit.

We bear that fruit insofar as we become like Him and if we want to know what godliness and holiness is like we look to Jesus.

Fully man He is the pattern for our living.

And the sixth and final reason He had to be fully man was to be a sympathetic high priest.

And of course reference to Him being a sympathetic high priest is set out for us in Hebrews chapter two and Hebrews chapter four.

We have a Savior in heaven who knows what it is to be human.

He still has a human body, now glorified, that endured temptation He knows human life from the inside, He passed through childhood and youth and manhood, He understands our struggles.

He understands our battles.

At every point it was essential that the Savior be fully man.

And we must allow no compromise on the humanity of Christ.

It's vital.

If he is not fully man there is no gospel.

There is no salvation.

And why did he have to be made man for the six reasons that I have just outlined.

Six reasons but there are many more.

But that leads us to address this second question, why did he have to be God?

Why did he have to be God?

It's not enough to say that he's a perfect man.

We have to take it a stage further, why must he also be God?

And again, there are many reasons, but I've taken three reasons this morning, three important and special reasons why he had to be God.

And the first is this, He had to be God because we need a divine Savior.

He had to be God because we need a divine Savior.

We need a Savior who is fully human yet we need a Savior who is fully a divine Savior.

Wherever we look in Scripture, salvation is the work of God.

No human being can save himself from the beginning.

Deliverance is from God.

That's why we've got the great examples of the Old Testament.

Go to the Exodus, you've got a picture of salvation.

God led His people out of bondage.

Israel did not save itself.

God delivered them.

And that pattern runs through the Scriptures and it reaches its climax in Christ.

And Jonah learned in the belly of the wheel did he not exclaim, 'Salvation belongs to the Lord.' And that's always true when we consider what salvation involves.

Who but God could ever accomplish that salvation?

We're all sinners ourselves.

We can't save anyone else.

I can't contribute to your salvation.

I need to be saved myself.

And a mere mortal cannot deal with the sins of others.

Only God could save the vast multitude of those who were to be redeemed and Scripture says that when the whole church is gathered only God will be able to number them.

Who but God can make the dead alive?

Who but God can come to those dead in sins, in hopelessness, in powerlessness and make them alive?

God alone regenerates.

Remember Jesus told Nicodemus, you must be born again or better.

You must be born from above.

And God must save.

We have got to be born from above.

It's got to come from God.

And that was the picture given in Ezekiel chapter seven if you remember in Ezekiel's Valley of Dry Bones it teaches the same lesson.

Only God could perform that miracle.

No mere man could.

It's a picture of God giving life to those dead and sinned and only God can save.

And we find that divine Savior, the divine Savior alone is Jesus Christ, the God man and we need a divine Savior.

That's why He must be God.

But then second He had to be God because there's an infinite penalty to pay.

There's an infinite penalty to pay.

And this is tied of course to the greatness of salvation.

Think of what our sins deserve.

Our sins deserve nothing but the eternal wrath of God.

And that's the penalty due to each and every sinner.

Our sins against the Holy God are so grieve that His wrath is infinite.

In other words we could never pay it even through eternity under judgement.

If we are to be saved God Himself must intervene.

Many protest, Well I haven't done the worst of things.

I'm not like such and such a person.

And yet the darkest sin is to live without regard for God who made us and to whom we are answerable.

That's the darkest sin of all.

And want to live for self instead of God and by nature we're children of wrath.

That's what Paul emphasizes very clearly in Ephesians chapter two.

Eternal punishment hangs over us.

Only a Saviour who is fully God could bear the weight of God's wrath against the sins of a vast multitude.

And Paul writing in second Corinthians chapter five and verse 21 says, For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin so that at Him we might be made the righteousness of God.

Who but a divine Savior could bear that weight?

His own wrath as the Son of God.

A mere human would have been crushed and Christ bore it because He is fully God.

His deity gives infinite value to His sacrifice.

He needed to be a human to make the sacrifice but He needed to be God so that that sacrifice would be sufficient to save His people.

In Isaiah chapter 53 and verse six it declares, The Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 53 · chapter mention

Who but the Son of God made flesh could bear the iniquity of all who would be saved.

There's an infinite penalty for your sins and mine and only a divine Savior can pay that.

And then thirdly, He had to be God because we need a suitable mediator.

We need a suitable mediator.

We've already quoted first Timothy chapter two in verse five, there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.

And he must be man to belong to our side and he must also be God.

He represents both God and man and brings us together in salvation.

And no mere human mediator can fill the space between God and man or be that agent of our salvation.

We only need and we have only need of one who is both God and man, and God and His love has given Him even before the very foundation of the world, the Lord Jesus Christ is exactly that one and He has done that work.

First Peter chapter three and verse 18 speaks of Christ brings us to God.

God the Son deals with our sin.

The infinite penalty is paid and we're reconciled to God.

And what a wonderful mediator and savior we have fully equipped to save us from sin, to give us eternal life, and to redeem us.

And the more we understand Christ as God and man, the richer our grasp of salvation becomes.

It should comfort us and fill us with thanksgiving that God would do this for sinners like you and me, that the God, the Son of God would take on human nature and the union with Himself, suffer and die and rise again so that we might be saved.

And we will marvel at it throughout eternity, and we will never exhaust the wonder of it.

Only the God man can see it.

He had to be God and He had to be man.

And praise the Lord He is the perfect Savior and the perfect salvation.

And I say to you, make sure you're trusting in Him.

He's able to see if any sinner who comes whatever the sin or burden of guilt, only the God man can see it.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the God man and only He can save and we need a suitable mediator and the Lord Jesus Christ is that mediator.

So what have we learned?

Doctrine is not cold.

It's not distractive from Christian living.

It's the very root of living and the very witness, the very basis for our witness about Christ and growing for Christ.

At the center stands the person of Christ.

He had to be fully God to obey in order to die for us.

He had to take our place.

He had to die as our substitute sacrifice.

He had to mediate between God and humanity.

He had to reign over creation as the last Adam.

He had to set the pattern for holy living and he had to be that sympathetic Savior who knows our freedom.

And He had to be fully God because salvation is always the work of God because only a divine Savior can give life to the dead, because only He can bear the infinite penalty of God's wrath against our sin and because only one who is both God and man can truly mediate and reconcile us to God and remove either of these natures and there is no gospel.

Only the God man can save and he's done everything necessary.

Now the challenge comes especially to any who are still on save this morning.

You may admire Jesus as a great example and as a great teacher, but really that's not enough.

You stand under the wrath of a holy God.

If you're not saved this morning, you're dead in your sin.

You're unable to save yourself.

No effort, no religion, or no amount of religion or moral improvement can pay the debt or give you new life.

Only the God man can save you.

He abid where you failed.

He died in the place of sinners.

He rose again and now reigns with all authority.

And He is able and willing to save any who come to Him.

And it's the coming.

You see your need.

And if you see your need, you plead that the Lord would give you the ability to repent and the faith to believe in Jesus as Savior.

And I admonish you to do that.

Don't delay.

Turn from your sin and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ alone.

Trust in the God man, the only Saviour and call upon him today and you'll be saved.

There's no other name, there's no other way, only the God man can save and make sure He is your Saviour.