01.17. Chapter 3 God in human form
Chapter 3 God in human form The greatest miracle
Central to Christian faith and practice is the fact that in Jesus Christ the eternal God became a human being. This must surely be the miracle of all miracles. Little wonder, therefore, that the way it came about also involved a miracle – the supernatural work of God within the body of the virgin Mary, so that the child born to her, though having no human father, was fully human.
Jesus was not just an ordinary person whom God adopted as his Son, but also a unique person who was actually God’s Son. He himself was God, and as the Son he existed in a relation with the Father that no other creature could share.
Like others, yet different In becoming a human being, the Son of God willingly sacrificed the supreme glory of heaven and took instead a humble place among God’s creatures on earth. In doing so, he accepted the limitations of such an existence. This means not that his divinity was in any way reduced, but that he accepted the limitations of living like other people in a world of imperfection and suffering. Yet there was no imperfection in Jesus himself. The human nature common to people in general is infected by sin from birth, but Jesus’ human nature was not.
Though a man, Jesus was also God. In him the human and divine natures existed together, without either one lessening the other. They were complete, united and inseparable. He still had divine power and knowledge, and he exercised those rights of forgiveness and judgment that belong to God alone. At the same time he was fully human. He experienced tiredness, hunger and thirst. He showed normal human emotions and reactions such as astonishment, joy, disappointment, pity, sorrow and anger.
There was no element of magic in the way Jesus lived. He never used his divine powers to avoid the inconveniences and difficulties of life. If he wanted to go from one place to another, he travelled the same as others and put up with the weariness of the journey. If he wanted information, he asked questions. He used his super-natural powers only as his Father permitted and always to help others, never to benefit himself.
Jesus experienced the same sorts of troubles and temptations as other people, but he never sinned. He was therefore not under God’s judgment and so was able to be the substitute for those who were. Peter, looking back on the life of Jesus, said, ‘He committed no sin . . . He himself carried our sins in his body on the cross’ (1 Peter 2:22-24).
Jesus Christ the Lord The early Christians were very clear in their understanding that the purpose of Jesus’ coming was to die, and the purpose of his death was to save sinners. An early Christian summary of belief was, ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners’ (1 Timothy 1:15). This fact had been revealed before Jesus’ birth, through the name God chose for the child. ‘Jesus’, though a common Jewish name, had its origins in the Hebrew expression, ‘Yahweh saves’. It was therefore a fitting name for the person whom God sent as his saviour for the world. From Old Testament times the Jews had looked for a great king, one like David, who would lead Israel to national glory. Israelite kings were often referred to as ‘the anointed’, because they were officially appointed to their position by the ceremony of anointing. Because the Hebrew word for ‘anointed’ was ‘messiah’, this longed-for kingly descendant of David was called the Messiah. In New Testament times Greek was the common language, and the Greek word equivalent to ‘Messiah’ was ‘Christ’. The word was later used as a personal name for Jesus.
Jesus was the promised Messiah, but he rarely referred to this aspect of his mission. Most Jews had a wrong understanding of the Messiah and his kingdom, and Jesus did not want to attract the wrong kind of following. People wanted a political leader who would overthrow Roman power and bring in an independent Israelite kingdom of peace and prosperity. Jesus was concerned with releasing people from the power of sin and bringing them into the kingdom of God. There they would come under God’s rule and authority of God, exercised through Jesus Christ. The title that the early Christians most commonly used of Jesus was ‘Lord’. This indicated the sovereign power of Jesus Christ as God and King. It was also the equivalent of the Hebrew word ‘Yahweh’, the ancient Israelites’ special name for God. The King and his kingdom
Jesus’ work of preaching, teaching and helping the needy was connected with the coming of God’s kingdom. That king-dom was concerned with God’s rule in people’s lives, not with political revolution. The miracles of Jesus showed that the power of God’s kingdom was working through him to conquer evil and free people from its power. His preaching urged people to enter God’s kingdom by turning from their sin and humbly submitting to God’s rule. In this way they would receive the kingdom’s benefits in forgiveness of sin and new life. Many of Jesus’ parables showed that although the kingdom of God had in one sense arrived, in another sense it had not. It had not yet been forced upon the world with irresistible power.
During Jesus’ lifetime his disciples found his teaching on the kingdom hard to understand. They did not realize that the king had first to fulfil the role of a servant. Jesus had to do, perfectly and completely, the work that God had given him to do; and that work involved suffering and death.
Only by the sacrifice of himself could Jesus deal with sin conclusively and so release people from its power. His devotion to his task was total, even to death; and for this reason God ‘raised him from death and gave him glory’ (1 Peter 1:21). The resurrection of Jesus proved that he had finished perfectly the work he had come to do. He was the triumphant Lord, Messiah, King and Saviour. With the resurrection of Jesus, the previously confused disciples became clear-sighted and confident. They knew that the resurrected Jesus was more than just a dead man come back to life. Although he was still a man, his human existence was now beyond the reach of death. It was no longer bound by former limitations. In a way beyond human understanding, Jesus was glorified in his Father’s presence. Even when he disappeared from his disciples for the last time, they knew he was still alive and helping them, and one day would return. In raising Jesus to the place of highest honour, God showed him to be King. He also gave the assurance that one day ‘all beings in heaven, on earth, and in the world below will fall on their knees and openly proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord’ (Php 2:10-11). The day will come when God will impose his rule upon a rebellious world through his King, Jesus, but first he gives people the opportunity to repent. That is why Christians proclaim the good news of his kingdom. The repentant can enter that kingdom now and begin immediately to receive its blessings.
Final victory The New Testament writers are of one mind in asserting that at some time known only to God, Jesus will return. Their assurance is based on the clear promises of Jesus himself.
Although Jesus’ return will be spectacular, we must not think of it as something unrelated to the events of his life recorded in the Bible. On the contrary it is the event that will bring to a climax all that Jesus achieved through his life, death and resurrection – the judgment of sin, the conquest of death, the giving of eternal life, the healing of the physical world and the establishment of God’s kingdom.
Jesus’ coming will bring the present world’s history to an end and introduce a new age, the age of the kingdom of God. The Bible does not satisfy our curiosity by giving a timetable of events, but it leaves us in no doubt of certain things that will take place. Among those things will be the resurrection of the dead and final judgment. In the days of his earthly life, Jesus had refused to seek the kingship of the world by violent or political means. But, because he sacrificed himself to save the world, that kingship will now be his. Through him God will rule, for judgment and for blessing. If people have refused to accept the salvation Jesus made available, they will find no way of escaping the penalty of sin. But if they have trusted in Jesus as the bearer of sin’s penalty for them, they will face the day of judgment with confidence. This does not mean, however, that they will escape all judgment; for they are still answerable to God for their behaviour as believers.
Therefore, while Christians look forward to meeting Jesus, their expectation of that meeting causes them to be careful the way they live now. Since Jesus will reappear when least expected, they should be ready always.
Arising out of Jesus’ return will be a new age, a new world, a whole new kind of existence, where God’s people will live with him in the full enjoyment of the life Jesus made possible for them. As the Son, Jesus had been entrusted by the Father with the task of restoring all things to a state of perfect submission to the sovereign God. With the conquest of evil and the restoration of all things to God, the Son’s work will be finally fulfilled. God will be everything to everyone.