Emmanuel Volume 1

Part One — In trying to explore the wonder of the man who is also God, Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of Glory, my first intention was to devote one part to his humanity and a second part to his deity. But the aim proved impossible. Humanity and deity are so interwoven in Christ that they cannot properly be separated. His full humanity cannot be understood apart from his deity, nor can his full deity be understood apart from his humanity. Still, I have struggled to present all that it means to know Jesus as the Man of Galilee, and also what it means to see him enthroned as the Son of God at the right hand of the Father. In reality, of course, we must always blend the two visions, and see him, worship him, and serve him as both truly man and truly God, Lord of all, and the Saviour of everyone who becomes his disciple. So the pages of both volumes (Emmanuel Part One and Part Two) explore aspects of Jesus as both the Son of Man and the Son of God, and more particularly, what this doctrine should mean to us in our daily lives, and how to apply its ramifications to your Christian service. I hope you will find here not just dogma, but real help in working out your salvation in the fear and love of God. The two volumes also deal with aspects of the mysterious doctrine of the Trinity, but the second volume explores that remarkable concept more fully. It is both the glory of Christianity and also its major difficulty. We proclaim ourselves monotheists, and we are, but Muslims and Jews, who also believe in one God, are mightily puzzled by, or even scornful of, our Trinitarian doctrine. They suspect that we are actually polytheists. No one has ever fully explained this mystery, but I hope you will find in these pages a sufficiently satisfying account of what it means to worship one God who exists in Three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.