The Third Angel's Message

“LET this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus; who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery [“a thing to be seized upon and held fast”] to be equal with God; but emptied himself, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2:5-7).

Christ was like God in the sense of being of the nature, in very substance, of God. He was made in the likeness of men, in the sense of being like men, in the nature and very substance of men.

Christ was God. He became man. And when He became man, He was man as really as He was God.

He became man in order that He might redeem man. He came to where man is, to bring man to where He was. And in order to redeem man from what man is, He was made what man is.

Man is flesh. (Gen. 6:3; John 3:6). “And the Word was made flesh” (John 1:14; Heb. 2:14).

Man is under the law. (Rom. 3:19). Christ was “made under the law” (Gal 4:4). Man is under the curse. (Gal. 3:10; Zech. 5:1-4). “Christ was made a curse” (Gal. 3:13).

Man is sold under sin (Rom. 7:14), and laden with iniquity. (Isa. 1:4). And “the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isa. 53:6). Man is “a body of sin” (Rom. 6:6). And God “has made Him to be sin” (2 Cor. 5:21).

Thus all things that man is, Christ was made. And all this He was as really as man is. And Christ became all this in order that the man might become what Christ was. Christ was the Son of God. He became the Son of man that the sons of men might become the sons of God. (Gal. 4:4; 1 John 3:1).

Christ was Spirit. (1 Cor. 15:45). He became flesh in order that man, who is flesh, might become Spirit. (John 3:6; Rom. 8:8-10).

Christ is the righteousness of God. He was made to be sin, in order that man, who is sin, “might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). Thus, literally, “in all things it behoved Him to be made like unto His brethren.” Whatsoever man is in the flesh, that Christ became in the flesh. Man is “sinful” (Isa. 1:4), Christ, who knew no sin, was made as sinful as man is sinful. For God sent His “Son in the likeness of sinful flesh”—in flesh that is like, in the sense of being like in nature, in substance. (Rom. 8:3). “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also himself likewise took part of the same.” Christ, who was the very righteousness of God, was made the very sinfulness of men.

Yet, bear in mind that none of this was He of himself, in His own right. But all of it He “was made.”

Christ was made what, before, He was not, in order that the man might be made now and forever what he is not.

Christ, who knew no sin, was made to be sin, even the sinfulness of man, in order that we, who knew no righteousness, might be made righteousness, even the righteousness of God.

And as the righteousness of God, which, in Christ, the man is made, is real righteousness, so the sin of men, which Christ was made in the flesh, was real sin. As certainly as our sins, when upon us, are real sins to us, so certainly, when these sins were laid upon Him, they became real sins to Him.

As certainly as guilt attaches to these sins, and to us because of them, when they are upon us, so certainly this guilt attached to these same sins of ours, and to Him because of them, when they were laid upon Him.

As the sense of condemnation and discouragement of these sins was real to us, when these sins of ours were upon us, so certainly he realized this same sense of condemnation and discouragement when these sins of ours were laid upon Him. So that the guilt, the condemnation, the discouragement, of the knowledge of sin were His—were a fact in His conscious experience—as really as they were ever such in the life of any sinner that was ever on earth.

And therein lies the fullness of our salvation from sin. He has gone the way of sin, in the very knowledge of it, to its very depths. It was all laid upon Him, and He was “touched with the feeling” of it.

And He did it all in order that sinful men might be made the very righteousness of God, and so be delivered to the glorious liberty of the children of God. He who knew the height of the righteousness of God acquired also the knowledge of the depth of the sins of men. He knows the awfulness of the depths of the sins of men, as well as He knows the glory of the heights of the righteousness of God. And so He became, and forever is, the author of eternal salvation to all who will receive Him, able to save to the uttermost all who come unto God by Him.

And blessed be His glorious name forever and ever!