The Real Jesus, Upclose!

Why did God need to be incarnated in human form? Why did Jesus come? (culled from GSoM Course 102)

This question was extensively answered in Course 101: Understanding God. We may as well lift the relevant section of the teaching on why a Son became necessary and place it squarely here in our systematic study of Jesus Christ.

Why a Son became necessary - it's all about the unsurpassable love of God!

It is significant to note that from the time of the fall when it was announced that the Seed of the Woman would crush the head of Satan (Genesis 3:15), till that Seed came in the form of Jesus Christ, provisions made for resolving the sin question were largely inadequate. The blood of bulls and goats and other sacrifices were ordained to provide temporary relief. The reason is that those sacrifices were of less stature than man and were all products of the curse on the earth (see Genesis 3:17, 18).

The sacrifice that would satisfy the just requirements of God as a righteous judge of the original sin of Adam and Eve:

• needed to be of the class of man or higher:
• needed to have capacity to take away the sins of the whole world from Adam till the time of consummation of all things;
•  needed to be pure and also have the capacity to open the doors for the entire human family to have access to Father God again;

Only a perfect human of divine origin could meet all these requirements. Jesus the Christ (The anointed One) was the perfect human of divine origin - Hebrews 9:11-28; Hebrews 10:1-23.

The divine plan of action which made it possible for all of mankind - regardless of race, color, gender or status - to be reconciled to God was hidden from both Satan, his cohorts as well as humankind for thousands of years until a misguided zealot of the Old Covenant named, Saul of Tarsus, was arrested by the very Jesus Christ He sought to expunge from the consciousness of Jewish believers - Acts 9:1-30. In a funny twist of destiny, the said Saul was specifically commissioned and sent to the Gentiles to explain the strange events of the past few years when a fellow assumed to be a Jewish Rabbi named Jesus, son of, as was popularly assumed, Joseph and Mary was cruelly killed by Roman soldiers, at the instigation of religious leaders of the land - Acts 13:1-49; Acts 17:16-34; Acts 22:1-20; Acts 23:1-9; Acts 24:1-26; Acts 26:1-32; Acts 28:17-31. Ephesians 3:1-21.

What John the beloved wrote about in his epic treatise - the Gospel according to Saint John and his epistles regarding the divinity of He who was pierced on the Cross reveal an exceptional wonder: that a personality in the God-head actually shed His glory and for 33 1/2 years, lived in flesh and blood to qualify as a paschal Lamb whose death was ordained to open the doors of reconciliation of not just Jews but gentiles as well to a Father whose essential nature is love - 1 John 4: 7, 8; John 3:16. The revelation of this mystery lies at the heart of the Pauline Epistles which some pseudo kingdom preachers prefer to be expunged from the Holy Writ because of the blindness that covers their eyes of understanding. It is impossible to fully understand God, the Kingdom and the Church without factoring in the special revelations granted to Paul the Apostle. Even Peter, a leading light of the early Church recognized this much when he wrote in 2 Peter 3: 14-17. Study and meditate on Ephesians 1, 2 and 3; Galatians 3:10-29; Philippians 2:5-11.

In essence, the divine plan of redemption required the sacrifice of a divine personality whose sinless blood could atone for the original sin of Adam. This second Adam needed to come from heaven(a divine being) and take on a human body prepared for the purpose of taking away the sins of all those  who would believe entirely by faith -  Luke 1:26-35; 1 Corinthians 15:45-49; John 1:29; John 3:16; Romans 3:21-31; Hebrews 10:5. Hebrews chapters 1 and 2 present solid truths on how and why this miracle of a divine personality came in order to restore the sons to glory. Philippians 2:5-11 offers an insight into what theologians call the Kenosis or the voluntary laying aside of His glory and rights in order to operate  on earth, for a speck of time,  as paschal Lamb for  the whole world and the fact that He has assumed His full glory again, following the resurrection and ascension to heaven. The Unique Personality who is fully God and fully man is the key to recovering the Kingdom Adam lost.

The New Testament offers us an incisive understanding of why Jesus Christ is very God and very man. In presenting the most intimate account of the one on whose chest He once leaned (John 13:23-25), here is what John the beloved states in John 1:1-3 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him and without Him nothing was made that was made" (remember Genesis 1:26?). In verse 14, John states as a matter of fact "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth".  Contrasting Him and Moses, here is what John wrote in verse 17 "For the Law was given through Moses but Grace and Truth came through Jesus Christ". Of this grace, John postulated in verse 12 that "As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name".  The exclusivity of Himself as the only access to the Father was strongly made by Jesus Himself in John 14:6

References of the divinity of Jesus Christ are so clearly stated in the Holy Bible that only those who are blind or of reprobate heart can reject the self evident conclusion. His virgin birth was prophesied at the Garden of Eden - Genesis 3:15.  About 700 years before He was "born", the prophet fore-told His birth - Isaiah 7:14. Significance of the virgin birth lies in the fact that Jesus was not conceived as an outcome of the normal procreation between Joseph and Mary which would have introduced Adam's sinful blood into His being. The only way to get around this matter was for another divine personality, the Holy Spirit, to supernaturally plant the designated human body in the womb of Mary so that Jesus, the seed, would qualify to be a Son of man with legal rights to operate on earth - Psalm 115:16. Hebrews 10:5-10; Isaiah 9:6-7 speaks of His divinity in clear language.

The Love of God for us was indeed so great!

Great Parndon,

Maidmore Room Abercrombie Way.

Harlow. CM 18 6 YJ.

Wednesdays 6.30 - 8.30pm