HE CAME, HE DIED, HE ROSE

Jesus Christ came to the earth about 2000 years ago. The heavenly bodies announced his arrival with the extraordinary shining of the star which the wise men of the east used in locating the baby – Jesus. Multitudes of angels announced to men the arrival of man’s Saviour. The afore-mentioned is the general way the story of the birth of Jesus Christ is typically enumerated. However, there are certain questions that though subtle, lie on the inner recesses of our mind. The big one is, "how did God have a son to send to save man?" The general answer usually given is that God can do all things!!! My dear friends, you see God interestingly told us these words in Proverbs that: ‘While it is to God’s glory that a matter is concealed, it is to the glory of kings to search out the hidden issue’. So today, as kings, let us dig deep into Scriptures to understand the core of man’s salvation.

GOD CAME

The core of our salvation lies in recognizing that the person born of the Virgin Mary was not just a human, rather the baby in the manger was God in the flesh. 1 Tim. 3:16 describes this as a mystery. It was not public knowledge, it was hidden information. What was hidden was not the birth of the baby! What was hidden was the identity of the baby. The birth of Jesus was described here as God being revealed in the flesh i.e. in human form, with a body. By the very nature of who God is, it is almost unimaginable that God could become manifest in the flesh!!! God is known as the Invisible One! Who no man has ever seen! Who dwells in unapproachable Light! (1Tim. 1:17; 6:16). Here we must evaluate our knowledge with the simple question: ‘Who did God send to save man?’ God didn’t just send his ‘son’, as we are told in John 1:14, the Word of God was made flesh. Sonship came with the birth of the Word of God in human form. The person who came to save man was God himself. To put the entirety of John 1 simply, Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel is the Word of God, He became a human being; this human being is whom we know today as the Son of God and He is Jesus Christ.

GOD LIVED WITH MAN: We need to understand that God in human form is Jesus Christ!!! With this knowledge, comes the understanding of Scriptures that talk about Jesus. For example:

• Isaiah said: the child to be born will be The Mighty God and Everlasting Father (Is. 9:7). The only person who is called God and Father is God and no one else!!!

God in human form lived with humans; this is why He is called Emmanuel – God with us. God faced all the challenges we face today! He experienced hunger (Mark 11:12), tiredness (John4:6), storms (Luke 8:23) and agony (John 11:35), but that was not all, as everyday was a miracle as well. He healed the sick, fed the hungry, restored the disabled, showed man the true definition of man and did many other things that cannot be quantified in writing (John 21:25). However, we need to pay attention to the hints that were left for us by the very words Jesus said about Himself:

• I and the Father are One (John 10:30).

• The Messiah is Lord  (Matt. 22:42-44).

• He said he is: I Am (John 8:58).

It is vital to understand who the Saviour of the world is; to know that the man Jesus Christ (1Tim. 2:15; Titus 2:13) is God revealed in human form! The Son sent by God to save men is God in human form. In order words, it is to us – humans – that the idea of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Persons of Trinity exists; to God, the revelation as God-Jehovah/Father, God-The Word and God-The Spirit are all One and the same. So we must understand that the mystery of salvation lies in the fact that the Son of God, is God in human flesh, even as Jesus points out in John 3:13b (‘Jesus was on earth, yet he said the Son of Man-himself was in heaven at the same time as He was on earth). This is why Col. 1:15 enumerates that the entirety of God resides in Jesus Christ; every single aspect of God is revealed in Jesus Christ. Dear friends, though this is humanly incomprehensible, yet it is the basis of the beautiful mystery of our salvation.

HE DIED

So what made the death of Jesus on the cross special? After all, you may wonder: ‘He died ages ago in a country that has no business with me’. The first aspect of the death of Jesus on the cross is that it is towards God that this death was most important to God. When man does wrong, he does not just hurt himself, he also sins against God even as Joseph and David confirm (Gen. 39:9; Psalm 51:4). So to save man from sin, God also had to be appeased; man had to be saved in the way that pleased God! Is. 53:6 explains that God laid all sin on Jesus. You see this was God’s choice of salvation. To deal with sin, God chose to take all sin (both the sinful nature and the sinful deeds) and place it on Jesus. In death, God united Christ with all men, so that in God’s eyes when Jesus died all men died. Col. 2:20 and 2Cor.5:14b expatiate this; understand that what matters is that on God’s side/perspective, Jesus dying meant all men died! You see, on the cross what God did was to unite the whole of humanity with Christ, such that Christ carried all sin (Is.53:4). The blood of Jesus was shed on the cross so as to deal with sin. Col. 2:14b explains that Jesus nailed trespasses to the cross. By this blood Jesus opened up the Father’s realm and reality to man (Heb. 9:12).

God’s plan for sin was not to cover up sin using the blood shed on the cross. God’s plan is the most dramatic I have ever heard of!!! It is actually unfathomable. God’s plan was to wipe sin out of existence, as the angel first hinted to Joseph when he said that Jesus was born to save people from sin (Matt. 1:21). However we see the plan more clearly when John the Baptist met Jesus, he could not help but shout it loud: ‘See the Lamb of God who will take away the sins of the world – John 1:29’. Good news is that on the cross, Jesus did actually take sin out of existence. Heb. 10:4, 11 and 12 also expatiate on Jesus taking sins away. Finally, 1John 3:5 confirms that Jesus came to take away sin. You see, God’s plan in the eternal covenant is to remember sins no more (Heb. 10:17 and Jer. 31:34). In the Old Testament sin was present but covered by the blood of animals, however, in Christ, sin is entirely taken off!!!

So when does God forgive you of your sins? After you confess to God and say you’re sorry? No!!! God forgave all sins as soon as Jesus dealt with sin on the cross; Eph. 4:32 and Col. 3:13 both enumerate that God forgave us already, He is not about to forgive, He has forgiven us! In fact God does not live in the consciousness of sin anymore. Now this is God’s reality! A believer is a person who has accepted this reality that God has forgiven him. So man does not confess sin so that God will forgive (Acts 3:44 and 1John1:8), rather man confesses sin so as to receive God’s forgiveness. Don’t think that God waits for you to confess your sin, and then afterwards forgive you, Nopes! Rather, God already forgave you; this is what the Gospel preaches. We inform the world and ask them to believe in the truth of God’s forgiveness via the death of Jesus Christ in the cross. What is left is for man to accept and receive the reality of God: ‘that in Christ, sin is totally dealt with’. This is why God says we His children cannot sin and do not sin (1John 3:9) since He has already taken it out of the realm (God’s realm) that we have translocated into! So when Jesus died, God reckoned it as that all men died. Don’t bother your mind with the possibility of this (i.e. saying in your mind: ‘how does this make sense?’); it was God’s plan! Rather look at the abundance of love, wisdom, careful thought and intricate simplicity God set in place to save you! Your worth is the price God paid to save you and this price is God himself in human form!!! Can you see the ‘price’ tag God has placed on you?

JESUS AROSE

This is the apex of the tower, the apogee of the pyramid, the crest of the wave and the zenith of the plans of God for salvation! After 3 days and nights, Jesus Christ woke up from death via the power of God!!! Now you may still wonder: ‘how does this relate to me?’ Again, this answer is awesome! Remember that when Christ died on the cross, God reckoned it (i.e. set it in His own mind) that all men were united and died with Christ. Now with this in motion, God set it such that everything that happened to Christ afterwards happened to all man as well (all this in God’s perspective/realm). So when Christ arose, all men were: given life together with Christ, raised up together with Christ, (and when Christ ascended) we all were seated together with Christ (Eph. 2:5-6; Col. 2:13 and 3:1).

You need to see how this forms the core of our salvation! Our union with divinity, even with God Himself!!! You see, God’s accomplishment via salvation is mind blowing. You may say: ‘how now?’ Well see:

• Your spirit is one with God in spirit, completely united, same essence and perfect union. The very type of union Jesus has with God, we now all have with the entirety of the God-head, even as 1 Cor.6:17 explain and Jesus clarifies this in prayer in John 17:21. You see, when you believed, God (who is a spirit) gave birth to you (John 3:6).

• Today, God has given us His mind and He His daily melding our minds with His own. 1Cor. 2:16b shows God giving us His own mind. Philip. 2:5 explains that it is our choice to unite our mind with God’s, till God’s mind dominates us. Finally, Rom. 12:2 points out the need for persistence in letting God’s mind make the necessary change in our personality. So we no longer say God’s ways are higher than ours, rather we are the people of the way and we show the way to the world!

• Now our body is God’s dwelling place! This is in particular incredible. God is Invisible! God is Omnipresent! God is beyond human-word description! Then you go looking for God and find him living inside humans! Ain’t that seemingly implausible? Yet this is God’s lovely dwelling place, the body of men who have made the choice to believe in Him. Jesus explains this in John 14:23 and Paul expatiates in 1Cor. 3:16.

Dear friends, Jesus is alive! He is the first man to be born into this new life we live in! He is God with us! We need to see this reality, appreciate it, understand it and accept it even at the very level of our sub-conscious. Jesus is a living being! He talks, He speaks, He gives life and He is Lord of and over all!

With this, we round off our series on “Man” and we will be moving back to posting some of our inspirations and experiences on the Christian race. Kindly ask your questions freely and post comments as well! We hope that you learned one or two new things through this series and you’ve been able to come to a better understanding of who you are as a Christian, or if you’re not, of whom a Christian is.