MenuWhy Not An Angel?
“Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil – and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” – Hebrews 2:14-15
At Christmastime we hear a number of announcements from angels – to Zechariah, to Mary, to Joseph and to the shepherds. Why was the Son of God born into human flesh? Why not an angel?
Could an angel take on human flesh? Could an angel be tempted in the same way as humans, and resist? Most importantly, why would the sacrifice of an angel do anything for human beings? The problem is that no angel could redeem human nature.
So Jesus became, and still is, a human being – truly our brother. Through His incarnation, born of the Virgin Mary, Jesus shares our human nature, except without sin. Because He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, He did not inherit original sin from a human mother.
As the Formula of Concord says, “He did not receive a foreign nature, but our own flesh in the unity of His person. In this way He has become our true Brother… Christ redeemed human nature as His work, sanctifies it, raises it from the dead, and gloriously adorns it as His work.” (emphasis added)
Just as children and parents share genetic unity, Jesus shared our humanity in every way. That means that He shared the condemnation that all humans face – death. And He faced death – even His own death on a cross – in order to destroy the power that death has over us. On the cross, He voluntarily took the punishment that we deserve for our sin – the condemnation of human death.
Death has a claim on all who sin. That’s why the devil uses God’s Law to accuse all who have sinned – all of us. Dr. Martin Luther wrote: “The devil’s work is to crush us under his feet and, because of our sin, to dispatch us from life into death… [But Jesus Christ’s) works are truly divine works, such as to justify, to restore to life, and to save.” Christ’s divine power over the grave – to restore to life – shines through His resurrection, ascension and return in glory. Those are divine works, not angelic works.
And because Jesus shares our human nature, Christians and our Lord Jesus Christ share a unique fellowship of the Lord’s flesh and blood through the Lord’s Supper. As Paul writes, “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16) Just as the incarnation of Jesus Christ unites the divine nature of the Son of God with human nature, so by the power of Christ’s almighty word He gives us His true body and blood in, with and under the bread and wine – a sacramental union. And He gives it for the forgiveness of our sins, just as He says – His holy and perfect human flesh and blood to sanctify our human flesh and blood. That’s why, in the Lord’s Supper, we proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.
No angel could do that for us. No fallen angel can take it away from us. Christ has done it.
~Pastor Nickel
