Jesus We Talk About Relevance
Dear Thomas,
Let me say again how much I thank you for your questions. They show that you have already spent some time thinking about the spiritual dimension of your life as well as the lives of those around you.
your questions cover a very wide range ofspiritual and religious issues and how those issues translate into everyday lives. it will take some thought and study on my part to give you consistent and clear answers.
I have to confess that my answers come from my perspective, experience, and spiritual awareness as expressed in my last letter. If any of my answers to your questions seem too brief, too inadequate, or too religiously esoteric for ease of understanding or if they don’t satisfy your query or just seem to miss the mark, please let me know.
I will also have to say that my answers come from my current knowledge, experience, and understanding. As time goes on, I might answer your questions in a slightly different way, for I am on a journey of discovery myself. but what an exciting adventure!
With that preamble, let me go to your first question. you asked, “Jesus of Nazareth died for sedition —some two thousand years ago on a Roman cross in Jerusalem. how could Jesus’s death two thousand years ago have anything to do with me now?”
The answer is absolutely nothing if Jesus were just another human being like you and me or like Zoroaster, Confucius, Mohammed, Buddha, and other historical religious figures.
In fact, if Jesus were just another charismatic human being, a teacher with a gift for healing and the ability to inspire others to carry on his teachings and sayings, the best we could say is that he was, as history indicates, a significant world personality who changed western civilization and thus world history.
But the same could be said about Buddha or any other person, such as Mohammed, who had a profound effect on the arab world and the Middle East, which in turn is affecting current world history. thus, saying that Jesus was significant isn’t enough.
If Jesus were just another human being, we could say many unflattering things about him. we could say that he wasn’t a very honest man or maybe just self-delusional at best.
certainly, neither his followers nor the world could claim he was moral and ethical if the claims he made about himself were not true.
Jesus’ sayings and claims about himself were significant. let’s take a look at them.
Thus, Jesus claimed to be much more than just another human being like you and me just as the evidence of his actions and the effect of his life testify.
This is the way Jesus, this god-man, intended it to be. As I said in my last letter, the most important question of all is this: who is Jesus?
Now if Jesus were indeed as he claimed and as his life and actions indicate, fully god incarnate yet fully human in the one person Jesus Christ, then the question of the relevance of his death two thousand years ago has very real significance.
It goes to the issue that he didn’t remain dead when He was crucified on a Roman cross. It is an issue that the apostle Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 when he says, now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand.
By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. otherwise, you have believed in vain. for what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the twelve.
After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also,
But even if Jesus didn’t stay dead, the question of “what does that death have to do with me now” still remains.to arrive at an answer, we must first ask, “What kind of death did Jesus suffer? was it the same kind of death that you and I experienced because of old age, disease, accident, or at the hands of another? or was it a different kind of death resulting from the fact that Jesus was not just a human being who was dying but god himself joined with us in human form?
Can god be killed like the rest of us? and if he can, would he even be a god in that event?” there was something very different and profound about the union of god and man in Jesus Christ.
Jesus, though god, willingly set aside his divinity, except when and as directed by the Father, and lived as one of us. it was our humanity, our corporate or collective humanity in Jesus Christ, that died on the cross. Jesus said that he laid down his life voluntarily and that no one took it from him by force. Jesus is quoted as saying in
That is a nice claim. but can such a claim be verified when the results of his trial and subsequent hanging on a cross brought about his death? we would have to look at the whole of his life and how that life fits into the entire history of prophetic Hebrew scripture in order to put faith in the voluntary claim.
And if it is true that he voluntarily laid down his life and that he could have stopped the torture of the Roman executioner at any time, so what? how was his death any different from anyone else’s who has gone through unbelievable torture at the hands of unbelievably cruel human beings? this is a tough question to answer in any short way.
your question and my answer will reflect on some of your other questions about creation, the introduction and entrance of evil, sin, rebellion, and the brokenness of this world, which I will just label the “sin problem.”
It also goes to the nature of man, as he inherited certain attributes from his first physical and spiritual parents, Adam and Eve, whose choices and actions led to mankind’s separation and alienation from god.
It also goes to how God planned to correct that separation and alienation. and it goes to the subject of the end of sin and sinners.
with the backdrop of these other issues and subjects, which we will talk about as we address other questions, let me first say that the correction of the sin problem is what the gospel (or good news) of the life, death, and resurrection of jesus christ is all about.
It is the good news of salvation (salvation meaning “preservation from destruction” or “rescue”). if it is going to have any real, significant meaning, this salvation or rescue cannot be for only a select few but must be for all mankind.
Jesus was god’s delivery system for the rescue. the historical reality of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection nearly two thousand years ago made the ultimate rescue of mankind possible. As the son, the creator himself was born of a woman and came to man.
With our same propensity or bent toward sin common to all and with free will, he lived a perfect relational life with god the Father through the indwelling of the holy spirit and showed us what a restored relationship with the Father would look like.
In addition to that, Adam infected all humanity with sin (one’s chosen separation from god) and thus led us to our ultimate destruction or death, “for the wages [or consequence] of sin is death” nonetheless, god so loved the world that he sent Jesus, the creator of the world, and of Adam and Eve and by extension all humanity, to become the means of our salvation.
As the apostle John says, “In the beginning was the word [Jesus], and the word [Jesus] was with god, and the word [Jesus] was god. he was with god in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him, nothing was made that has been made. in him was life, and that life was the light of men.”
Jesus willingly suffered the consequence of human rebellion—not just death on the cross but total separation from god. Jesus, who represented all humanity, was willing to say goodbye to life forever if that was what it took for his creation to have life. in effect, god, in and through Jesus, said, “I love you.
I accept you. I have provided a way for you. I will come to you. I will rescue you. I will heal you. I will be with you. I will ultimately provide a new world for you. I will take my original intention for this world and make it a reality for you in a new world without the effects of sin.” all he asks is that we accept his acceptance and come back into the relationship.
The implication of our acceptance of his acceptance is profound! it is god redeeming the world back to himself. that is what the whole of scripture is about god’s redemptive history and what it took for him to rescue mankind. it is about bringing us back to what Jesus Christ, god incarnate, the creator, intended for us from the beginning.
Now forgive me for getting into a bit of religious language here.I am going to say some things that may sound religiously esoteric, but read it anyway and lay it aside. it will gain meaning as we proceed through your questions. From time to time I’ll refer back to this description of the gospel or, as it is alternatively called, the good news.
Let me say it again. What I want to do over time is to give you a picture of the God I know, love, and admire. I also want to introduce you to Him so that you might know Him personally as you allow Him to reveal Himself to you.
Let me say first that god is absolute love, as expressed in 1 John 4:8 and as expressed in the life of Jesus and throughout the whole of scripture. god runs his universe on the principle of love. he never violates his principle in the context of our ultimate salvation or rescue.
There is also another operative at work in this world that will explain a lot of things, and that is the existence of an evil power that pervades history and the human experience. between these two influences or forces, we also have free will.
So what are we being rescued from? we are being rescued from our separation from a holy, righteous, loving, and creative god. sin exhibited in all its various forms, has resulted in our blindness to and alienation from god, and this natural condition or state of sin is inherited.
we are all born with this condition. it is our natural inclination toward self-centered love expressed in self-enhancing, self-serving, self-interested, and self-sufficient terms. it affects our thoughts, choices, and actions toward ourselves and others. thus, we find that we totally miss god’s intention for us.
The original intention was for us to have god at the center of our lives. the original intention was for us to be other-directed, loving people who reflect his image.
And that is the rub. with our natural inclinations, we can’t. within our natural selves, we just can’t help missing the mark of god being at the center of our being. we fail to live out other-directed love .
somehow we know it. something inside of us recognizes the disharmony, disease, and dissatisfaction with our natural condition of self-centered love. Try as we might by works of will or adherence to laws, we can’t seem to undo this natural state of sin and all the brokenness it exhibits. but even though it is our nature to think and act this way, thanks be to god in Jesus Christ that we don’t have to stay this way. there is a way out! there is a rescue plan!
Jesus accomplished all that was necessary and provided the means and opportunity for us to be healed from the guilt and consequences of sin. By His acceptance of us and our acceptance of His love, we become spiritually alive, and healing from sin condition begins. Christians call the acceptance of His acceptance justification.
We are justified, or perhaps a better way of saying it is that we are put right or set in the right relationship with God, not by any of our doing but totally by His doing. It is also likened to a new birth or being born again.
By putting our faith in a gracious God from the evidence of His working in history and His king in the lives of others as well as allowing Him to work within us and through us, we experience personally this transforming relationship in our work with God.
God loves us in spite of anything we think about ourselves, anything have done, or any way we have failed to love. our recognition that we are put back into the right relationship with him by his doing and not because of anything we do to merit this favor is the good news of the gospel.
There is nothing we can do to earn our salvation or rescue. it is a gift. all we can do is accept it and express our appreciation for it. this appreciation is expressed by opening our lives to the indwelling and working of the holy spirit, who can heal and transform our lives from those of self-love to ones of Christ-centered, other-directed love.
This process of transformation is called sanctification. it is the process of healing from the effects of sin in all its forms. the spiritual birth (justification, which means “set in or put in a right relationship”) leads to a growing up and maturing (sanctification) by means of a new operative that works from within.
It is the process of eliminating the power of sin and our seeming slavery to it. nonetheless, our inclination and condition of sin will remain, however operative or seemingly inoperative, while we grow in our relationship with Jesus Christ.
Now there is further good news in that there is also a future promise, as evidenced by the resurrection of Jesus from the grave. like him, we, too, will someday have minds and bodies free from the inclination, nature, and presence of sin. This is called glorification or our promised glorified state of being at the end of this age of existence.
All three aspects of the rescue justification, sanctification, and glorification are initiated and accomplished by god, who continually comes to man to accomplish his “good and perfect will”(Rom. 12: 2) in each person. This is demonstrated by our receiving his love and giving love back to our creator and redeemer as well as our transferring that kind of love to our neighbor.
This salvation or rescue is also described in two other ways. The first way is within the concept the apostle Paul talks a lot about, which is “you in Christ” that is, our salvation or rescue because of Jesus Christ This “you in Christ” is another way of saying that we are set into the right relationship with God because of the doing and dying of Jesus christ. It is a salvation imputed to us and given to us freely. it is his doing not ours but his!
The second is described in the concept of“Christ in you” that is, experiencing Christ in the form of the holy spirit in our inner life. this is the realization of our being born again, where god’s spirit dwells and enlivens us spiritually. it is the concept of man who was heretofore spiritually dead now has his body (physical being), soul (mind, emotions, and will), and spirit enlivened by the holy spirit. This is salvation imparted to us, making known, disclosing, bestowing, and revealing to us what God intends for our new life, our redeemed life to be. again, it is his doing—not ours but his!
The “you in Christ” also features the element of corporate, a commonality, or collective oneness of all humanity. when god created humanity, he created Adam spiritually alive.
However, because of Adam’s choices, he died spiritually. all of us are descendants of Adam, and since we came after his fall and spiritual death, we are all born spiritually dead. Adam’s fall and its consequences have been transferred through the generations to you, me, and all humanity.
when the creator god, Jesus Christ, who created Adam and thus collectively all humanity, came to this earth, he came as a man born of a woman, though He was god.
As a man, he was like Adam in his fallen state with the same inclination, yet no sin was found in him Jesus assumed the same nature as that of the human race he came to save, redeem, and rescue.
He became the “second Adam,” doing that which the first Adam did not do. the first Adam violated the trust relationship with god; the second Adam, Jesus Christ, did not.
To say it another way, god, meaning Jesus Christ, was the creator of Adam and thus collectively the creator of all humanity. In real history god became united with human flesh in Jesus Christ; He became the redeemer and rescuer of Adam and all humanity from the sin problem.
We were all lost “in Adam.” but now in and through Jesus Christ, we are rescued. Jesus did for you, me, and all humanity what we could not do for ourselves. what we are as heirs of Aam can now be changed. we can now be heirs in Christ, but only if we choose it by faith in the rescuer, Jesus Christ.
you can also think of it in another way. we have two heritages to choose from. our first heritage is by right; we are heirs of the first Adam. but we can have a new heritage by faith; we can be heirs of the second Adam, Jesus Christ.
The fulfillment of our substitute inheritance rather than our rightful inheritance is made available by and through the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ (see Romans 5). Not only is it available, but it is a life-giving, free gift that cannot be considered earned by anything we do.
Similarly, the free gift of physical life was given to Adam and to us as well. we never earned life; it is a gift. This gift, however, came with a naturally inherited problem, but Jesus Christ provided the means for a resolution to this problem.
It is available to us, however, only if we choose it. it is not forced upon us. our body and soul, through the acceptance of the gift, can become body, soul, and spirit. we can become spiritually alive. By our willing faith and acceptance of Jesus Christ, we experience a new birth and gain a new family line, a new inheritance, and a new nature. This is not earned by our performance.
we have no rights to it as sinners; it is all a free gift from a gracious and loving god in the triune form of father, son, and Holy Spirit (Rom.6:23). God desperately wants to have a continuing love relationship with each of his creatures now and forever. this is now possible because of Jesus Christ’s life and death on the cross two thousand years ago.
Ultimately there is no life apart from god. the creator of life is also the sustainer of life. there is no life if god does not sustain it. and if God, because of a person’s choice, has to let that individual go, and give him up, the consequence is death.
We can describe this as a second death, an ultimate death, and it was this second death that Jesus experienced on the cross on our behalf. It was God letting the humanity within Jesus go, giving him up to the ultimate consequence of sin.
It was Jesus dying willingly, going through the second death for us that makes his death different from our normal first physical death. All humanity died in Jesus.
When Jesus said on the cross, “My god, my god, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46). He was experiencing that ultimate, human second death separation. at that moment no external physical or emotional support was evident to him as he willingly, even unto death on the cross, set his divinity aside. the Holy Spirit and the Father were not available.
Jesus went through the crucifixion experience and to his death totally alone. what made this so painful was the fact that the only thing Jesus had was his history of relationship with the Father.
To be denied it must have been unbelievably excruciating. remember, there was no sin found in this god-man. the best Jesus could do in pure faith was to say, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46). Jesus’ humanity, mankind’s humanity was sacrificed on the cross.
As the creator of man, Jesus was the only one in the universe who could assume responsibility for humanity. in order to save or rescue man, He willingly suffered the consequence of man’s sin problem.
Through his creative act as a god, he says in effect, “come, I have paid the price, and I have suffered the consequence. you are now free to choose. come, be in a relationship with me, live with me now and forever.”
This is why Jesus is called the savior, because through him alone came life in the beginning as well as the offer of a more abundant life now. he stated in John 10:10,
“I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” the offer extends to the future, as stated in 1 Corinthians 2:9, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what god has prepared for those who love him.”
Suffice it to say, Jesus’ death two thousand years ago has everything to do with you and me today. At His death on the cross two thousand years ago, Jesus accomplished the redemption or rescue plan for mankind.
To make it effective in your life, all you need to do is accept Jesus for who He is and what He has done and then invite Him into your life to work His perfect will both in and through you.
His death and resurrection are the most significant events in all of human history, except for the creation of physical and spiritual human beings in the beginning.
Your friend,
Matt