All-Inclusive Christ — New Testament Reality

Human Living

In His human living Christ was a despised Nazarene. After being born in David’s honorable city Bethlehem, in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy (Micah 5:2), Jesus was brought to a number of other towns by Joseph and Mary according to God’s leading. Eventually they came to dwell in Nazareth, where Jesus was raised (Matt. 2:21-23). Nazareth was a despised town in the Gentile region of Galilee out of which nothing good was believed to come (John 1:45-46). As a Nazarene the Lord grew up as a “root out of a dry ground,” having “no form nor comeliness,” “no beauty that we should desire him,” being “despised and rejected by men” (Isa. 53:2-3). In His first coming, Christ did not appear in grandeur as a king. Rather, He came in a lowly, unassuming way, making Him so approachable to all men.

We need to know Christ in His inward reality and not according to any outward situation or appearance.

The designation “Nazarene” given to Christ may also refer to the “Branch” in Isaiah 11:1, which in Hebrew is netzer. There Christ is likened to a “shoot of the stump of Jesse,” the father of King David. Christ was indeed a descendant of the royal line of David. However, by the time of his birth David’s throne had been overthrown, “cut down.” This “shoot” that had sprung forth from the stump of Jesse grew up in a lowly situation, not as a lofty branch. The Lord Jesus was a carpenter, the son of a carpenter (Mark 6:3; Matt. 13:55). Many were “stumbled” by His lowly human position; most of the Jews had been expecting their Messiah to come a triumphant king or a mighty prophet from God. They, in fact, despised the Lord’s lowly status. (Witness Lee, Conclusion, 292-294) All of this indicates that we need to know Christ in His inward reality and not according to any outward situation or appearance. We should not know Him according to flesh, but according to Spirit (2 Cor. 5:16).