Friday, November 27, 2015

SO, WHO IS THIS JESUS ? Advent Meditation 2015

Mary had fallen pregnant  with Jesus by the supernatural agency of the Holy Spirit. Joseph  her fiancée was very worried, for he did not understand what had happened.   So, to the  naked  eye   we find  a  pregnant woman,   dubious  circumstances  and a disturbed fiancée.

But this happened not to be the reality. For this reason God sent a messenger, an angel of the Lord  to help  Joseph to understand what he could not see with the naked eye. The  explanation  he receives  is this :

“ Joseph , son of Mary  do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus , for He will save his people  from their sins.”  

And  then the  angel backed  it up with  an  ancient  7th century BC Old Testament  prophecy : 

“All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “ Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call  his name Immanuel, which means “God with us.” (Matthew  1:18-22)

Information  provided   by way of a supernatural being  changes the picture completely   so that : 

·         Mary cannot charged  with  immorality. This is a  supernatural conception.

·         The supernatural conception  will  produce a supernatural child .

·         He will accomplish  a supernatural  thing : He will save His people from their sins .

So,  who  is this Jesus?  The Bible shows us  that  He is  BOTH,  human and divine.  But  in this He is  not  half God and half man. He is fully divine and fully man at  the same time [1]“ In him  the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily...” ( Col. 2:9)   This means that in the single person of Jesus, He has both a human and divine nature. The divine nature was not changed when  He, the Word became flesh (John 1:1, 14). Instead, the Word was joined with humanity (Col. 2:9) and His divine  nature was not changed  by this. Jesus is not merely a man who "had God within Him," nor is He a man who "manifested the God principle." 

He is God  come in the  flesh,  the second person of the Trinity. 


"The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word" (Heb. 1:3).

The following   table help us  to  see the two natures of Jesus "in action":

AS GOD
AS MAN
He is worshipped (Matt. 2:21114:33)
He worshipped the Father (John 17)
He was called God (John 20:28Heb. 1:8)
He was called man (Mark 15:39John 19:5)
He was called Son of God (Mark 1:1)
He was called Son of Man (John 9:35-37)
He is prayed to (Acts 7:59)
He prayed to the Father (John 17)
He is sinless (1 Pet. 2:22Heb. 4:15)
He was tempted (Matt. 4:1)
He knows all things (John 21:17)
He grew in wisdom (Luke 2:52)
He gives eternal life (John 10:28)
He died (Rom. 5:8)
All the fullness of deity dwells in Him (Col. 2:9)
He has a body of flesh and bones (Luke 24:39)

So, it is utterly impossible  to be neutral about  Jesus. He was by far the most remarkable man  that ever walked this earth. He is infinitely  more  than remarkable. He is God !   
Listen to  what  C.S. Lewis , a former atheist  had to say   about Jesus :

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity


[1] This is  called the “Hypostatic union”. 

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