The stock answers most
Christians give include: "He came to die for our
sins." "He came to save us." While these answers
are correct -- Jesus' name does mean "Savior" after all -- there are
other exciting reasons if we look deeper and consider "Saved for what?"
Let's start our deeper investigation by looking at who and
what God is. We're assured that He is love in 1 John 4:8 and
also in verse 16. 1 John 4:14-15 tells us, "...that the
Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. Whoever
confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in
God."
Jesus is God, God the Father is God and the Holy Spirit is
God. These three members of the triune Godhead eternally live
and work in perichoretic
relationship,
in a "community of being" sharing a continuously active,
inter-penetrating, dynamic, joyous love with each other. This
isn't a begrudging sort of love like you see in a dysfunctional
marriage or broken family where members essentially live alone
together. The members of the Godhead involve themselves with
each other, they give to each other, they really like each other, they
love one another and they enjoy doing things
together. It's with this understanding of God that
the wonder and the beauty of Jesus incarnation as God-become-man, as
the Incarnate Son of God, becomes more profoundly apparent.
God is God and He is perfect. God cannot
sin. Man, on the other hand, is sinful -- we all sin and fall
short of the glory of God. It has been God's plan since
before Creation that we become his adopted children.
Ephesians 1:3-6 explains, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every
spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before
the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his
sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons
through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will -- to
the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the
one he loves."
Jesus is God's gift of Himself to humankind to bridge the
gap between the perfection of God and the imperfection of the sinners
we are. He came to be Emmanuel, God with us. But
not only is Jesus "God with us," Jesus is also "man with
God." Jesus ascended into heaven with a glorified human body
(Luke 24:39) and now sits in the center of the circle of all that it
means to be God. He is man with God and He is there as our
mediator. 1 Timothy 2:5-6 point this out "For there
is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man
Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men..." Jesus came
to mediate -- He came to be a bridge between the dynamic loving God
that we spoke about earlier and us as sinful humans. He came
to invite us to participate and share with Him, as adopted children, in
the same dynamic, joyful interpenetrating love that is God. 1
John 3:1 assures us, "How great is the love the Father has lavished on
us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!"
So why the Incarnation? To bridge the gap between
God and man. But oh so much more -- LOVE
came
down
-- Jesus came to invite us to share the loving God-life with God as His
adopted children -- not only now, but for Eternity. That's
what He's saved us for. "For God so loved the world that he
gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not
perish but have eternal life." (John
3:16) It's salvation with a purpose!
Now that's good news!!!
O come let us adore Him. |
