Conclusion
So
the Bible and The earliest documents from the Christian
church are full of clear indications that Jesus is
both Man and God. His divine names, unity with the Father, holiness, His
sinless life, His ability to forgive sin and change lives, His acceptance of
worship, His infinite power and knowledge…Remember the many miracles Jesus
performed: He raised the dead, healed the lame, the blind, the deaf and the
dumb and the lepers, He cast out demons and was the only person who ever lived
without sinning. He walked on water, stilled the storm, multiplied a few pieces
of bread and fish to feed multitudes, and rose from the dead. At last He
ascended bodily to heaven before the eyes of His followers. These are all signs
of His deity.
While
visiting
This
is a very extraordinary claim by a Jew. While it is so easy to prove the
historicity of Jesus, it is very interesting to notice that, at least this man
understands that the way the New Testament portrays Jesus leaves no doubts that
He is God.
The late C.S. Lewis,
famous professor at
If
the Biblical claims of Jesus are true, He is God! Therefore, He is able to
fulfil what He promised ‘Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I
will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me … and you will find
rest for your souls’ (Matthew
There
are two questions we should now ask:
Did God cease to be God when He came in the
form of man?
Did
Jesus cease to be what He was - God? No! He remains exactly what He was without
any change or alteration. Has He become what He was not? Yes, He has. Is it
subtraction? No, it is not. Is it addition? Yes, it is. God became a
When God spoke to Moses
from the bush, did He stop being God? Of course not. God cannot be limited by anything.
When God revealed Himself in the form of a man, He was not limited by His
humanity. He continued to rule the universe. He continued to be what He always
had been (God), but in Jesus, He also became what He had never previously been
(man). Jesus Christ was not 50% God and 50% man. He was 100% God and 100% man.
Fully God and fully man. The divine Person took upon Himself a human nature. We
really can't understand the mystery of how this happened. But it is
conceivable, certainly, that God has the power to add to Himself a human nature
and do it in such a way as to unite two natures in one Person.
Imagine a brilliant
light. Now imagine that the light is put inside a glass. Does the glass stop
the light shining? No! In fact, as the light is reflected by the glass, it
shines even more brightly. In a similar way, when God became man in the Person
of Jesus Christ, the body did not stop Him being God. Jesus said, ‘I am the
light of the world.’ God became what He had never previously been (man) but He
continued to shine and to rule the universe. In this way, He revealed Himself
to the world more clearly.
Why did God come in the likeness of men?
Why did God have to become man? What was the point? This is a very important
question. It is the heart of Christianity. To know the answer, we must go back
to the beginning of creation. We need to grasp what happened in the Garden of
Eden.
Adam and Eve were told
that the day they sinned, they would surely die. They ignored God and sinned,
not by mistake, but through deliberate disobedience. Their bodies were
eventually put in the grave. But, in one sense, Adam and Eve actually died the
very day they sinned against God. They died spiritually. At first they had
walked with God in a loving relationship. But when they disobeyed, sin formed a
barrier between them and their Creator. There was an infinite gap between them
and God. We call this spiritual death. It is because Adam was already
spiritually dead that he died physically several hundred years later.
As a result of what happened in the Garden of Eden, all of us are born with a
huge gap between us and God. By nature we are separated from God. It is our
disobedience which separates us. The prophet David wrote, “Behold, I was brought forth in
iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me” (Zabur, Psalm 51:5). Likewise,
Paul the apostle said, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”
(Injil, Romans
The prophet Isaiah
asked the question, “How then can we be saved?” He says, “We are all like an
unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like
filthy 
rags…and our
iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away” (Isaiah 64:5-6).
What is the solution? Is there any hope?
Many people try to bridge the gap by their own efforts. Some think they
can get to God by being good religious people. They hope that their good deeds
will outweigh their bad deeds enough to get them into paradise. But they never
succeed. No one is perfect. It is not even that their contribution ‘nearly but
not quite’ reaches God. The reality is that we fall infinitely short of the
requirements. We can never reach God’s standard by our own efforts. No matter
how righteous we try to be, we are condemned by James
The question remains;
what is the solution?
Once, when I was
sitting quietly, I saw a troop of ants marching up and down a wall. They were
trying to carry a grain of wheat to the top. But without success. The grain of
wheat was too heavy. The pull of gravity was greater than their efforts! I
pitied them. I wondered how I could help those hopeless ants. If I had reached
down with my hand, I might have squashed some of them by mistake. They would
have run away in fear. I could not help them. The only way I could have helped
them was by becoming an ant, while keeping my human strength! Only that way
could I help without terrifying them.
We are a bit like those
ants. We can never reach God by our own efforts and good works. The gravity of
our sin is too great. It is stronger than our efforts. Sin weighs heavily on
our shoulders. But God pitied us. To liberate us from the tyranny of sin, He
came in our likeness. He came as a man, but lived without sin. That is the main
difference between Him and us. Who can re-establish the broken relationship
between God and man? Surely, the only one who can bridge the gap is One who is
both God and man.
When Jesus died on the
cross, He died as our perfect human substitute. He took the punishment that we
deserve 
for our sin. He removed
the barrier that separates us from God. But how could one man be the substitute
for so many people? Since Jesus is also the divine Son of God, His sacrifice
was enough to cover the sins of all those who believe in Him. To sin against
the infinite God is to sin infinitely and therefore to deserve infinite
punishment. Left to ourselves we are lost. Only Jesus, the infinite Son of God,
was able to take that infinite punishment in our place.
Indeed,
Jesus is Lord! Christians worship Jesus Christ not because He is a prophet, but
because He was from eternity the Word of God and the Son of God, perfectly one
with God. He is not a man whom Christians have exalted to be a god along with
the One True God. Rather, He is from eternity one with God, and He became man
to save sinful people and bring them back to God. Hence, He is worthy of
worship, for He is God indeed.
If you are not a committed Christian, let me
ask you this single question: What else could God have ever done for you? What
do you think about Jesus Christ? Can you honestly say that He is merely another
prophet? Every true Christian during the last twenty centuries was convinced
that Jesus Christ is in fact God who came to earth. Can you come to any other
conclusion if you honestly weigh the evidence? I pray that God,
who loves the world so much, will help you to see this issue very clearly. He
wants to help you and set you free from the bondage of sin. His desire is that
you will also be saved from its consequences. God is so concerned that He came
to earth, taking the form of a man, so that you may know Him personally and be
reconciled to Him. Will you receive Him?