About Jesus Steve Sweetman 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 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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