Monday, June 11, 2018

The mystery of Jesus Christ ............. Parables 753

May 28, 2002

About thirty years ago, I read a book whose author assumed people were getting smarter and smarter. Therefore, gods from other planets must have once invaded earth. They gave wisdom to the people who built the pyramids and other wonders. Then I read another book that suggested people were recycled from one life form to another. At the same time, I was thinking about my dad’s theory about energy. He said it was not created or destroyed, just changed from one form to another.

These books plus my dad’s theory had me thinking: Did gods ever come to earth? What would happen to me after I died? Were these ideas somehow connected? It did not occur to me that God was setting me up.

The book about reincarnation had a Bible verse in it. It was taken out of its normal context, but as I read, God spoke to me. His voice was not audible, but just as you know the voice of your mother or your child, I knew it was God speaking. He said: “Jesus is God.”

At that moment, the room became brighter, and so did the dark, confusing things in my life. Every part of me knew it was true and at that instant, I knew Jesus. I also wanted to live for Him.

Later, I found out that many people take issue with that statement: “Jesus is God.” Some think Jesus was only a good teacher or a prophet. Others are confused — if there is one God, how can He be a trinity, which must be three gods?

I don’t have a problem with the concept of a triune God. He created the very elements of the world in a triune form. Even H2O illustrates the trinity—it can be steam, water, or ice. Each is radically different in appearance and other distinctives, yet all three are the same H2O.

For me, the dual nature of Jesus Christ is more difficult to understand. The Bible says Christ is both human and divine. He is God but He is also man. How can that be? As a human, Jesus looked like an ordinary man. Isaiah said, “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2). He also became hungry, thirsty and tired, just as we do.

Yet Jesus did things no man has ever done. He healed the sick with a word or a touch, turned water to wine, calmed storms, knew peoples’ minds, walked on water, raised the dead to life. A Roman soldier said of Him, “No one ever spoke the way this man does” (John 7:46). How can a man be both human and God?

Shirley McLaine thinks she has the answer. She says it is normal—and claims that she is God. She must not realize that statement parallels the original lie Satan used to tempt Eve in the garden of Eden? (“If you eat the fruit, you will be like God.”) Such audacity. We have yet to see Ms. McLaine prove it as Jesus did, by doing the things only God can do.

Despite her bold claim, we cannot grasp the dual nature of Jesus that way. If we honestly compare ourselves as humans with the God who revealed Himself as a human, how can we dare say we are Him or even like Him? Jesus sets the standard. His life was pure and holy. Our human life is nothing like that.

We cannot find fault with the man Jesus. He simply did not sin. He never violated the laws of God. He became hungry and tired, but He never put His personal needs before the needs of others. He sacrificed time and energy to bless people, and, after an amazing, short ministry, He made the ultimate sacrifice; He gave Himself as a sin offering to God as our substitute. No human being would or could do that.

Yet God makes a relationship with Jesus possible. He offers forgiveness of sin and salvation through Him. When we believe, Jesus comes to live in our hearts. The Bible calls it: “this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

With faith, we can become, in a sense, a model of what He is. We fall short in our humanness (we are not perfect), and we are not God, yet we can share in His life. When we know Him as our Lord and Savior, He gives us at least a small glimpse into the mystery of who He is.

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