About Jesus    Steve Sweetman

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Conclusion

 

We have seen that there are certain Biblical teachings that make the gospel of Jesus what it is.  Without even one of these elements, you do not have the gospel as described in Biblical terms.  In many parts of the church at the beginning of the twenty first century some of these elements have been forsaken.  It is so important for us to know what these indisputable elements are.  Once knowing what they are, we should be able to clearly  and simply relate them to others.  This is the mandate that has been given us from the Lord Himself.

 

The Deity of Christ, that is, Jesus being God is the first element that we need to understand.  Jesus was, when He was on earth, fully God and fully human.  There has been no other person in the history of humanity that has been like Jesus.  He was and is one of a kind, never to be duplicated again.  He now sits on the throne of the universe as Lord of all there is.  He is so powerful that He has absolutely no competition or rivals.  You may think that the devil is His competition, but not really.  The devil is more of an annoyance than anything.   Jesus is also Saviour for anyone who gives his life to Him, and begins that trusting relationship.  He saves us from many things, not the least is from God Himself. 

 

Once we understand who Jesus was and is, we need to understand who we are in the sight of God.  We are totally depraved and worthless when compared to  God.  This is a hard thought for us to accept in this day and age when relativism has penetrated our thinking.  Like the popular book title from the 1970’s said, “I’m Okay – You’re Okay”.  The world around us believes that man is basically very good.  That was the case when Adam was first created, but according to Scripture that is not the case any longer.  When man fell away from God and His ways, he became totally depraved of all goodness.  Leave anyone to his natural tendencies, and he will sink to a level beyond what we could ever imagine.  We do have restraints put on us by society and ourselves that for the most part helps us not to sink to such a state.  Beyond these restraints man is capable of any evil imaginable.  Especially in light of who God is in His perfect nature and character, we are worthless. 

 

For this very reason, God put forward a Law that would show us why and where we have gone astray.  He chose a people, a nation in Old Testament days to be an example of what He wanted a group of people to be like.  He gave these people the  Law, telling them what was right and what was wrong.  He made provision in this Law for them to find acceptance with Himself when they went astray and broke the Law.  Yet this Law with its provisions was temporary.  It would not satisfy God’s perfect justice.  These chosen people constantly went astray and did what they felt was good in their own depraved thinking.  God could not turn His back on their depravity for ever, so He did something about it.

 

What He did was perfect in every way.  God Himself became a man.  That man was named Jesus.  Jesus, who was God in human flesh, lived the perfect life.  He was the first and last in history to ever live such a life.  God, in His perfect sense of justice was satisfied with the perfect life of Jesus.  Finally someone actually lived the way He wanted man to live.

 

In fact Jesus lived the perfect life for us, or on our behalf.  This is partly why Jesus can intercede on our behalf before God.  His perfect life is a constant reminder to God that it has been done, that the perfect life has been lived.  When looking on mankind in his depravity, God always turns to see Jesus.  When looking at Jesus, He is pleased.  The very presence of Jesus tempers God’s feelings of wrath for those He loves.  Jesus takes our case before the Father when necessary, which is basically all of the time.  He stands before God as a lawyer, defending the people who trust in Him.  It is important to realize that Jesus will not defend anyone who has not asked Him to do so.     

 

Living the perfect life was not the end of the matter for Jesus.  Someone had to be punished for our evil ways.  This was the problem.  God is totally perfect in His sense of justice.  This means that He has to punish people for their sin.  The ultimate punishment would be death.  Because of God’s sense of perfect justice, He has  great anger and wrath towards the wrong doer.  Everything about God is perfect.  In modern language you might even say that God is extreme.  His anger and wrath are extreme as well.  He had to punish someone for our sin.  The punishment had to be an execution.  Does this sound somewhat severe?  It certainly does.  Severity in every respect is common place when it comes to such perfection as seen in God..

 

Yet on the other hand, God is perfect in His love.  More than perfect, He is total and extreme in His love.  God does not do anything in half hearted ways.  God loved us with such an extreme love that He needed  to do something extreme to help us out.

 

In human terms this is a dilemma, but God had an answer.  God is perfectly  just and therefore needs to execute the ones He loves for the evil they do.   His everlasting love towards us is in major conflict with His anger and wrath, and sense of justice.  So what can He do?  Part of Him needs to kill us for our sin, but part of Him loves us too much to do that.

 

The solution is found in Jesus.  He would be punished for our sin.  The Perfect One would be executed as a criminal for the sin of all mankind.  Also, while on the cross He became sick with all imaginable illnesses in order that we could be healed in all imaginable ways.  As a result God’s perfect sense of justice and His accompanying anger was appeased or satisfied by the death of Jesus.  He no longer had that overwhelming desire to punish us.  Punishment for man’s evil had been paid for by Jesus on the cross.

 

Jesus paid the price to God that was necessary for us to be free from guilt.  Guilt is not a feeling.  Guilt is a place in which we stand before God, whether we feel guilty or not.  By being punished for our sins, we are no longer guilty. This was an excessive measure on God’s part.  If anyone chooses to neglect such a great gift, there remains only one thing for him.  What remains is God’s wrath and anger that was appeased by Jesus on the cross.  If it took the execution of Jesus, knowing who Jesus is, to satisfy God’s wrath, how much more wrath will be poured out on those who reject God’s provision for our sin.  Remember, God does everything in ways beyond our thinking.  This is why I have used the word extreme so often in trying to explain this.  It is hard to put into words the attributes of God.  Simply put, God was really angry with us.  So angry that He had to kill Jesus.  Now if we neglect what He has done for us, how much more angry will He become with those who reject His act of love.  I am not capable of describing how God will feel on the day He judges mankind for how they have responded to Jesus. 

     

Yes Jesus was executed in our place, but He did not stay in the grave.  He rose from the dead, thus conquering death and the devil.  Because death, the result of sin, was conquered, we too can be raised to a new life at the appropriate time.  The resurrection of Jesus is the forerunner to our own resurrection at the end of this age.  Christ’s resurrection is fundamental to the gospel.  Without Jesus being raised from the dead, everything would be over.  Jesus not only had to die for our sin, He had to conquer sin with all of its consequences.  Death is the last consequence of sin that He had to have victory over.  Jesus beat sin by living the perfect life.  He also beat sin by His resurrection because death was the result of sin.  So He conquered sin in all of its various aspects.  If He had not been raised from the dead, sin would have beat Him.  But Jesus did rise from the dead.  He did have complete victory over sin.  Somebody actually  won the war with sin.       

 

Jesus became what the Law could never be.  He obeyed the Law which no one else could  ever do.  The Law wanted us to live perfectly.  We could not do that.  Jesus lived the perfect life for us.  God was then satisfied with His life.  All of the animal sacrifices that the Law required to make us right in God’s sight were over.  Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice, the sacrifice to end all sacrifices.  There is no more sacrifice to be made.  There is no sacrifice that is more perfect than the sacrifice of Jesus, the Son of God.  Thus the Law was laid aside.  The Law was no longer necessary.  Jesus replaced the Law.

 

If God’s Law has been replaced with Jesus, so also any man made religious rule made for the purpose of salvation should be laid aside.  There is no law, and there is nothing we can do that is better than what has already been done.  If we say we must do this or that to be a true Christian then we are telling Jesus what He has done is not good enough.  We as lowly human beings need to improve on what the Ultimate God has done.  That makes no sense.  It is completely folly and stupidity on our part.  But look at history.  We are constantly trying  to improve on what Jesus has done.  How arrogant!  How foolish!   

 

Our response to God’s perfect solution to our problem is to repent.  This means to turn from the direction that we are going, and turn towards Him.  Once we have made this change in our thinking, we need to reach out to Jesus in true faith.  We step towards Him and tell Him that we trust Him totally for our lives, including our salvation.  By salvation I mean, our acceptance by God, our re-union with Him, and all that goes along with this union.  Our salvation will be complete someday when Jesus returns for us who trust in Him.  At that time we will be like Him and God’s perfect plan will be concluded.  He will have a group of perfect people. At that time His original intention for mankind will have been restored.  

 

Once repenting and then giving our lives to Him in a trusting relationship, we will receive the Holy Spirit of God.  It is the Holy Spirit that unites us with God and enables us to walk on this path towards perfection that will be realized at the return of Christ.  The Holy Spirit is God’s seal, or stamp of approval on us, stating that we belong to Him.  Without the Holy Spirit our salvation is not complete.  Without the Holy Spirit we do not belong to God.

 

Once we have repented, believed and received the Holy Spirit, we have become something new.  The Bible calls this a new creation.  In child birth, you might say that God created us.  With this new birth, you might say that He has re-created us.  In this new creation there are many benefits, too many to elaborate on here.  One major benefit is that God now views us as totally right in every aspect of who we are.  He sees us as righteous, even as He Himself is righteous.  This is hard to imagine.  God actually views us as being perfect, just as He is perfect, even though we are not.   How thankful we should be.      

 

This is the perfect gospel of God.  Only a perfect, ultimate and extreme God can put such a perfect plan into action and complete it to the end.  That is exactly what He has done.  Is all this extreme?  It certainly is.  I thank Him daily for such a great salvation.   The God that true Christians serve, that is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is the ultimate God.  He never does anything in half measures.  It is not in His nature to do so.  Every part of who God is and what He does is perfect, ultimate and eternal.  Human language fails greatly in trying to explain this.  We can not properly relate who God is and what He has done, yet we can see it and experience it, and to a small degree even understand it. 

 

I give thanks to God daily for His perfect plan of the salvation of mankind and the universe around us.  I give thanks to Jesus as well for being more than willing to go through all that He did on our behalf, even though it was not His place to do so.  I give thanks to the Holy Spirit who is with me, enabling me to be united with the God who has created all that ever will be  It is all a very wonderful reality.  

 

The Call

 

Maybe you have heard old time preachers talk about the “call of God”.  If you have heard of such a thing, this is what they mean.  God, at some point in your life, maybe it’s right now, will come to you in a special way.  It is like He is knocking at the door of your life.  Maybe a human way of looking at it would be like a telephone call.  That is why some call this experience the “call of God”.   You will know that it is God.  You may ask, “how  will I know”?  Trust me, you will just know.  He will ask you to give your life to Jesus.  He will not ask you to give yourself to anyone else.  He will ask you to repent, meaning to let go of your own way of living.  He will ask you to trust Jesus for every aspect of your life.  By responding in a positive way, you are actually calling out to God yourself.  Once you make this call, He will come to you and you will receive His Holy Spirit.  You will be born again.  You will be saved.  You will be converted.  There are so many different ways of saying what happens to you at this point.  

 

In John 6:44 Jesus said that no one could come to Him except the Father draws him.  How does God the Father draw people like you and I to Jesus?  The answer to this question is simple.  The Holy Spirit is the one who draws you and I to the point of making a choice to follow Jesus or not.

 

If you are reading these words and have not responded  to Jesus in a positive way, I pray that the Holy Spirit can use these words in such a way that you will want to come to Jesus, and meet Him face to face.

 

There is a special, and somewhat secret place deep inside you and I.  You might say that it is at the centre of who we are.  Some might call this your soul.  Some might call it your spirit.  Whatever you call it, it is a place where God's Spirit can speak to you and I.  Does He speak to us in words?  Sometimes He does. Does He speak to us in an emotional feeling?  Sometimes He does that too.  However God’s Spirit comes to you, He will do something that will cause you to come to a point of decision.  The decision concerns Jesus, and how you will respond to Him and what He has done for you.  

 

Once you realize that the presence of God is with you by His Holy Spirit, He will enable you to call on Him.  Paul, in Romans 10:13 says that “whoever  calls on the name of the Lord will be saved”.  Saved from what?  We're saved from God and His wrath.  Saved from the Lake of Fire , saved from many bad decisions we make, saved from the worlds way of doing things, saved from so many other things.   

 

There are two aspects to this call.  God calling you, and you calling out to Him .  This is clear from the above two verses I have mentioned.  You will have that chance to call out to God.  He will come to you in a recognizable way.  You will know it’s Him.  He will point you to Jesus.  My prayer is that you will respond to His call in a positive way.  Your eternal destiny depends on how you respond.  It depends on how you call out to Him, whether by saying yes to Him, or by saying no.

 

Life is short.  Eternity is very long.  It’s not worth gambling over your future any longer.  This may be your chance to allow the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ into your life to do as He wishes.  We never know how many chances He will give us.  We never know how long we have left in this life to make this choice.  Once our last breath has been breathed, that is it.  It is all over.  After we die it is too late to make your choice.  How we respond to Jesus in this life will determine what happens to us after death. 

 

If God’s Holy Spirit is speaking to you about the Lord Jesus Christ at this moment, say yes to Him.  Don’t take any chances by saying no.   Don’t take any chances by ignoring His call.  This is the Creator Himself speaking to you.  Let Him speak.  Seriously consider His call.  Seriously consider what I have said in the previous chapters.  Then say yes to Jesus.  Let Him be your Lord, your Master, the One you give yourself too.  When He becomes this to you, He will also become the one who rescues you from all you need rescuing from.  The traditional way of saying this is that Jesus will then become your Saviour.  The biggest thing you need to be rescued from is God Himself.  When you say yes to Him, He will give you His Spirit and you will become a new person.  You will view all things in a new and different light.  He will view you as if you are totally right and perfect in every aspect of your life.  Just imagine, the Creator of all things will view you in the same way that He views Himself.   

 

Say yes to Him now.  Why would you not want to say anything else?

 

For those of us who have already said yes to Jesus, after understanding the truths I've set forth,  we can only respond with great thankfulness to our Lord Jesus Christ.  He is worthy of all  our devotion.                   

 

                          

 

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