[ Index |
(i) Background: 1 / 2 / 3 |
(ii) Problem: 4 / 5 / 6 |
(iii) Solution: 7 / 8 / 9 ]
The purpose of this book is to provide a carefully considered explanation of Christian revelation. In Part (i) we considered some relevant background. In Part (ii) we discussed the problem of sin. In Part (iii) we shall explore the solution that God has revealed through his Son Jesus Christ.
In Chapter 7 we shall consider Jesus Christ, the man who is God. In Chapter 8 we shall discuss how Jesus provides a solution to the problem outlined in Part (ii). And in Chapter 9 we shall explore how this solution fits with the Old Testament.
7A. The Son of God
Who can possibly solve the problem?
We have discussed at some length the problem that we all face. The sin of which we are all guilty leads inevitably to death and to our permanent separation from the God who is the source of all goodness. We may not like it, but God tells us that this is how things are, and we are in no position to argue. There seems to be no way out.
Any solution to the problem must involve a way of sin being dealt with. But according to God’s revelation it is only human death that can atone – or make amends – for sin (cf. Hebrews 10:4 again). As we have seen, animal sacrifices cannot solve the problem. So if I am not to die for my sin, another human being must die instead of me.
But who? According to God’s revelation, all have sinned and “each will die for their own sin” (Deuteronomy 24:16, cf. Jeremiah 31:30, Ezekiel 18:4). It is not possible for one sinner’s death to atone for another. In the words of Psalm 49:7-9, “No one can redeem the life of another or give to God a ransom for them – the ransom for a life is costly, no payment is ever enough – so that they should live on forever and not see decay.”
On this basis, the prospect of a solution looks impossible. While in Genesis 3:15 there is the implicit promise of a man who would somehow defeat sin, albeit at a cost to himself, it is far from obvious how this could actually happen. If all have sinned, and if one sinner’s death cannot atone for another, we may reasonably wonder how the problem could ever be solved.
In principle, we might reason that while it is impossible for a sinful person to redeem the life of another, it might be possible for a sinless person to do so. In theory, a human being who was free from sin, i.e. someone who thus did not need to die, could die instead of a sinner in order to redeem that sinner’s life. Such a redeemer could potentially be the promised serpent-crusher. But the question remains, even at the end of many centuries of Old Testament history: who could this be?
While in theory a sinless person could redeem the life of another, in practice there is no one free from sin apart from God himself. And God cannot die. He is immortal; indeed he is alone in being so. On that basis, a solution still eludes us, requiring as it does the death of a human being who is free from sin. All human beings are sinful. Only God is free from sin, and he cannot die.
Conceptually though, we might perhaps envisage a solution in the form of God somehow becoming a human being – someone who, as God, is free from sin; and someone who, as a human being, can die. We saw hints of this in the previous chapter when we considered the promised servant of God. And according to the Bible, there was once a man who not only claimed to be God, explicitly and implicitly, but who lived a life consistent with the claim. That man is Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ
Ordinary and extraordinary
In some respects Jesus Christ can be considered as an ordinary human being. He was born into a Jewish family around 2,000 years ago (cf. Luke 2:21ff), and he lived in the part of the world that we now call Israel. He had brothers and sisters (Matthew 13:55-56). And he did things that ordinary people do. He worked as a carpenter (Mark 6:3). He went to parties (Luke 7:34, John 2:1ff). He went to the synagogue (Luke 4:16). Etc. And yet in other respects Jesus Christ is utterly extraordinary.
Even before Jesus’ birth it is evident that he is going to be an extraordinary human being. The gospel of Luke describes a messenger from God appearing to Mary, “a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David” and saying to her: “You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High” (Luke 1:26-32). In the gospel of Matthew we find Joseph, who was pledged to be married to Mary, being told similarly that “what is conceived in [Mary] is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:20-21).
As we noted in the previous chapter, the Old Testament provides important background for a careful consideration of the New Testament. It is no coincidence that the first book of the New Testament begins with an account of the ancestry of Jesus, back through the line of David to Adam (Matthew 1:1ff). The events of the New Testament do not come out of the blue. As we shall see again and again, they are the culmination of the story that begins in the Old Testament.
In relation to Jesus’ birth, some words of Isaiah, spoken to God’s people around 700 years earlier, are particularly noteworthy: “[God] will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14). This is very important, not so much because Jesus’ birth fulfils an ancient prophecy, but because his being born of a virgin means that he is in no way tainted with the “sin [that] entered the world though [Adam]” (Romans 5:12 again). The necessity of this should by now be clear.
100% God and 100% man
The names given to people in the Bible are often highly significant, and this is especially so with Jesus Christ. “Jesus” is the Greek form of “Joshua”, which means “the Lord [i.e. God] saves” (Matthew 1:21 again). The title “Christ” – literally “anointed” – is the Greek word for the Hebrew “Messiah” (John 1:41, cf. Matthew 1:17, Luke 4:18). It functions as a title rather than what we might think of as a surname. We thus find references in the Bible not only to Jesus Christ but to “Christ Jesus”, “Christ” and “the Christ”.
The name Immanuel, mentioned in Isaiah’s prophecy above, is another of the names given to Jesus (cf. Matthew 1:22-23). Immanuel – or Emmanuel – means “God with us”. According to the New Testament, Jesus Christ is the “radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” (Hebrews 1:3). This extraordinary man is “the image of the invisible God” in whom “God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell” (Colossians 1:15,19, cf. Colossians 2:9).
Jesus Christ was “in very nature God” and yet he was also “made in human likeness” (Philippians 2:6-7). This is sometimes described as the Incarnation, i.e. God made “flesh” (John 1:14). Jesus was “fully human in every way” (Hebrews 2:17). He experienced hunger, thirst and fatigue. He felt pain, desire and loss. He knew what it was to sweat, to weep, and to bleed.
We noted earlier that human beings are made in the image of God, but that the image has been marred by sin. In contrast, Jesus Christ is the perfect image of God. He is 100% God and he is 100% man. This is such a strange idea that it is hard to believe that someone would invent it. But it is consistent with a God whose “ways [are] higher than [our] ways and… thoughts than [our] thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9 again).
God the Son and Son of God
If Jesus Christ truly is 100% God and 100% man, it should not surprise us that he can be considered as both “God the Son” and “Son of God”. At the beginning of the gospel of John, Jesus is described as “the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father” (John 1:18, cf. Matthew 28:19). And at the end of the gospel of John, Jesus is described as the “Son of God” (John 20:31, cf. John 1:49 and e.g. Mark 1:1). But there is no inherent contradiction.
The use of father and son imagery helps us begin to understand the relationship between God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ. But even the closest relationship between an earthly father and his son is a mere shadow of the relationship between the Heavenly Father and his Son. “I and the Father are one,” says Jesus (John 10:30); and “anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Again, this is not easy to understand. But it is consistent with Jesus being the exact representation of a God who transcends both space and time.
The promised Saviour
There is relatively little recorded in the Bible concerning the early life of Jesus Christ, but accounts of several events of particular significance can be found in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem, the town of the Old Testament king David (cf. 1 Samuel 17:12, Micah 5:2), a theme to which we shall return. Shortly afterwards, he was visited by shepherds to whom an angel had appeared announcing “good news that will cause great joy for all people… a Saviour has been born… he is the Messiah” (Luke 2:8-20). It is worth noting (a) that the birth of the promised Saviour was announced to shepherds, i.e. people with modest status in society; and (b) that the announcement was accompanied by an unprecedented appearance of many angels: “a great company of the heavenly host… praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests’” (Luke 2:13-14).
Around a week later, Jesus’ parents took him to be consecrated according to the Old Testament law (Luke 2:21ff, cf. Exodus 13:2,12). At the temple, an elderly man called Simeon, who had been promised by God that he would not die before he saw the promised Christ, took Jesus in his arms and praised God with these remarkable words: “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations” (Luke 2:29-31; these verses are sometimes known as the “nunc dimittis” from the Latin “now dismiss”). With God’s help, Simeon is able to recognise Jesus as the promised Messiah. Around 400 years after the end of the Old Testament, God is delivering on his promises.
Sometime later – it is not clear exactly when – Jesus was visited by Magi, traditionally “wise men”, from the east. We are not told in the Bible how many Magi there were, but Matthew records that they brought three “gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh” and that they “worshipped [Jesus]” (Matthew 2:11). Even as a baby, Jesus Christ was acclaimed as a king. Indeed Herod took the threat of Jesus to his own kingship so seriously that he ordered the slaughter of all the boys in the region under the age of two (Matthew 2:16-18) – the so-called Slaughter (or Massacre) of the Innocents. Jesus and his parents escaped to Egypt as refugees.
It was not until Jesus was around thirty years of age that his ministry began in earnest (Luke 3:23). His emergence as a public figure was preceded by John the Baptist “preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 3:3-6, cf. Isaiah 40:3-5, Malachi 3:1), but preparing the way for someone much greater (Luke 3:17). This someone is Jesus Christ, “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29), another theme to which we shall return. At Jesus’ request, John baptised him. And just after he was baptised, Jesus saw “the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased’” (Matthew 3:13-17, cf. Isaiah 42:1). In this remarkable moment, the relational nature of God is seen as never before: God the Son receives God the Spirit, and his identity is affirmed by God the Father.
After forty days and forty nights fasting in the desert and resisting temptation (Luke 4:1ff), Jesus went to Nazareth, his home town, and an otherwise insignificant place (cf. John 1:46). On one Sabbath in the synagogue, he read these words from the prophet Isaiah, originally spoken to God’s people in exile: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” He then sat down and declared that “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:16-21, cf. Isaiah 61:1-2).
This is, of course, an utterly remarkable thing to say, but there is much more to come. And while Jesus’ claim to be the fulfilment of the above Old Testament verses is extraordinary, it is consistent with the many extraordinary things that he is recorded as saying and doing elsewhere in the New Testament. As we shall see, Jesus’ words and actions repeatedly point to him being God in human form.
7B. God in human form
What God is like (revisited)
In Chapter 4 we noted that God defies simple description. It is very difficult to say exactly what he is like. He transcends time and space, and to attempt to define what he is like is akin to trying to describe the indescribable.
But while in one sense God eludes description, in another sense he has completely described himself. And he has done so not in a theological treatise or a philosophical discourse but as a human being, his Son Jesus Christ, God in human form. In the opening words of the New Testament letter to the Hebrews that we considered back in Chapter 1: “In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son” (Hebrews 1:1-2 again). Throughout Old Testament times, God spoke at many times and in various ways. But in his Son Jesus Christ he has spoken like never before. In Jesus Christ, God has a face. And so it could be said that it is actually quite straightforward to say what God is like. When we want to know about God, we need to look at Jesus Christ. God has not merely spoken through the Scriptures, the word of God. He has spoken through his Son Jesus Christ, the ultimate Word of God.
Jesus Christ reveals God’s character and purposes in a way that other types of revelation never could. But before we consider in more detail some of what Jesus said and did, it is important to appreciate that his words and his actions are often inextricably intertwined. When Jesus does miracles, he does not do them for their own sake, like conjuring tricks. His actions complement and reinforce his message. If anything, he seems to place more emphasis on what he says than on what he does. For example, when Jesus is particularly in demand following some remarkable healing ministry (Luke 4:38-42), his response is not to do more healings. Instead, he says, “‘I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.’ And he [keeps on] preaching in the synagogues…” (Luke 4:43).
Jesus’ miracles function as signs pointing to his identity as God in human form, which is arguably the greatest miracle of all. As Jesus puts it, “The works that the Father has given me to finish… testify that the Father has sent me” (John 5:36, cf. John 14:11, Acts 2:22, Hebrews 2:4). Jesus Christ does not merely claim to be the promised Messiah (John 4:25-26). He backs up what he says with what he does. The signs and wonders that he performs point to him being not just the promised Messiah but the face of the covenant-making God of the Old Testament. Through what he says and does, Jesus Christ exemplifies the nature of the creator God who is eternal, relational and holy.
The creator God in human form
Some of Jesus’ most striking words come in the context of his being persecuted by some Jews for healing a man on the Sabbath. John records that “in his defence Jesus said to them, ‘My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working’” (John 5:17). Such are the implications of Jesus’ words that “the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God” (John 5:18). Jesus’ reply (and subsequent teaching) only confirms this interpretation of his words: “I tell you the truth,” he says, “the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does” (John 5:19, emphasis added, cf. John 5:23).
Again and again in the records of Jesus’ life we see evidence consistent with his remarkable claim to be one with his heavenly Father, the creator of the universe. Jesus demonstrates remarkable power over nature, echoing the power of God displayed in the Old Testament. This extraordinary man can heal sickness and disease (e.g. Mark 1:29-34,40-45, cf. e.g. 2 Kings 5:1-15). He can feed thousands of hungry people with one boy’s lunch (e.g. John 6:1-13, cf. Exodus 16:1ff). He can control the weather (e.g. Matthew 8:23-27, cf. e.g. Exodus 14:21-22, Psalm 147). And perhaps most remarkably of all, he can bring dead people back to life (e.g. Mark 5:21-43, 2 Kings 4:8-37). These miracles point to the fact that Jesus Christ can do things that the creator God does, something which is particularly evident in the context of the Old Testament references cited above.
This and other evidence points to Jesus Christ being the creator God in human form. In this context we should not be surprised that the apostle Paul writes of Jesus, “By him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him” (Colossians 1:16).
The eternal God in human form
Given that all things were created by Jesus Christ, it is evident that his existence did not begin when he was born as a baby. The very nature of his existence is quite different from anyone else’s. Like his Father, Jesus Christ is an eternal, uncreated, self-existent being who transcends space and time. In John’s gospel, where Jesus is implicitly described as “the Word”, we read that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning” (John 1:1-2, cf. John 17:5). John goes on to add that “through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made” (John 1:3, cf. Colossians 1:16 above). And yet he “became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14, cf. John 3:13, John 6:51).
If God is eternal, and if Jesus Christ is God, we should not be surprised to find statements from Jesus such as “I tell you the truth… before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58, cf. Exodus 3:14 where God refers to himself as “I am”). Elsewhere in the New Testament we read that Jesus Christ “is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17) and that he “was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times” (1 Peter 1:20). The recurrent testimony of the New Testament is that Jesus Christ is the eternal God in human form.
The relational God in human form
The opening verses of John’s gospel quoted above also speak powerfully of the profound relational nature of God. The same Jesus Christ who walked the earth was not merely present with God in the beginning; in some mysterious and yet wholly real sense he actually is the relational God in human form.
We noted earlier that the relational character of God is reflected in the fact that he communicates with human beings. It is in Jesus Christ that God’s relational nature is most clearly and unambiguously demonstrated. In the gospels we see Jesus interacting masterfully with people from all walks of life: from senior army officers, wealthy princes and religious leaders (Matthew 8:5-13, Luke 18:18-30, Mark 7:1-15) to lepers, tax collectors and prostitutes (e.g. Luke 17:11-19, Matthew 9:9-13, Luke 7:36-50). People are “amazed at his teaching, because he [teaches] them as one who [has] authority, not as the teachers of the law” (Mark 1:22). He knows where people are at, and he addresses them accordingly. He identifies genuine faith (e.g. Matthew 8:10) and he exposes hypocrisy (e.g. Matthew 22:15-22). He is tough, taking on Satanic power (e.g. Mark 5:1-20), and he is tender (e.g. Matthew 11:28-30, John 11:17-37). He comforts the worried and he worries the comfortable (e.g. Luke 6:20-26).
Jesus Christ exemplifies everything that is good about human beings. He is “full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). He personifies compassion and mercy. He is wiser even than Solomon (Luke 11:31). His love for others is unconditional and undiscriminating. He cares not only for adults but for little children (e.g. Matthew 19:13-15). He does not show favouritism. He loves the outcasts in society no less than the movers and the shakers. And as we shall see, the love of God is defined by Jesus Christ, the relational God in human form.
But the love of Jesus Christ does not mean that he is in any sense soft on sin. It is Jesus who likens anger to murder and lust to adultery (Matthew 5:21-22,27-30). And it is Jesus who speaks of people being evil (Matthew 7:11, cf. Ecclesiastes 9:3, Mark 7:20-23). It is Jesus who speaks of terrible judgement to come (e.g. Matthew 10:11-16) and of his role in that judgement (e.g. John 5:19-30). And it is Jesus, more than anyone else in the Bible, who speaks of the reality of hell.
The holy God in human form
We noted earlier that Jesus is recorded as doing things that God does. Perhaps the most extraordinary example of this concerns the forgiveness of sins. Consider for example Luke 5:17-26: “One day as [Jesus] was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law… were there… Some men came carrying a paralytic on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus.”
A Pharisee was a devout Jewish religious leader, something like a cross between a bishop and a professor of theology. Presumably the Pharisees and the teachers of the law – think Old Testament scholars – were listening intently to Jesus teaching. And then suddenly a paralysed man was lowered through a hole in the roof. At this stage it would be reasonable to expect Jesus to heal the paralytic, not least given the healings recorded in the previous chapter (see e.g. Luke 4:38-40). Instead, when Jesus saw the faith of this man and his friends, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.” This is extraordinary. Jesus is offering to forgive sins – not sins committed against him as such, but sins generally.
The implications of this were not lost on “the Pharisees and the teachers of the law [who] began thinking to themselves, ‘Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?’” (cf. e.g. Exodus 34:6-7). Remarkably, “Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked, ‘Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, “Your sins are forgiven,” or to say, “Get up and walk”? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…’ He said to the paralyzed man, ‘I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.’ Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God…” As the Pharisees knew, God alone can forgive sins, because he alone is free from sin. And in forgiving the sins of this paralyzed man, Jesus demonstrates that he is the holy God in human form.
We noted earlier that in the Old Testament God commanded his people to “be holy because [he is] holy” (Leviticus 19:2 again). Jesus echoed this command in the Sermon on the Mount, instructing his hearers to “be perfect… as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). And of course Jesus’ hearers in the New Testament, like the Israelites in the Old Testament, could not and did not live up to this command. As sinful human beings, they were unable to keep God’s law. In contrast, Jesus practised what he preached. His life was the perfect example of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). He experienced the world much as we experience it. He knew temptation (cf. e.g. Matthew 4:1-11, Hebrews 2:18). And as we shall see shortly, he knew extreme suffering. But in everything he thought, said and did, the man who is God “was without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). Whereas we consistently fall short of God’s standards, Jesus always kept to them. He is the embodiment of absolute moral perfection and purity. And because he is free from sin, he can forgive sins.
The perfect image of God
In Jesus Christ we see the embodiment of the faithful God whose works are perfect and who does no wrong. Jesus Christ is the holy God in human form. As we have seen, the image of God in human beings is marred by sin. But in Jesus Christ we have the perfect image of God. He alone loved God with all his heart and all his soul and all his mind. He alone loved his neighbour as himself. He lived a perfect life. And yet he came to die...
7C. The resurrection and the life
The cross
Jesus Christ repeatedly taught his followers that he “must be killed” (e.g. Mark 8:31, cf. Luke 20:9-19). This is remarkable in itself. It is a rare and peculiar thing for someone to say that they have to die. But Jesus knew that his death was necessary. He knew better than anyone else that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. He knew that the solution to the problem of sin had to involve his own death.
It would have been no surprise to Jesus when, after around three years of public ministry, he was brought before the Roman governor Pontius Pilate on trumped-up blasphemy charges (Matthew 26:59-66, Mark 14:56-59, cf. John 10:33). Neither Pilate nor King Herod could find any basis for these false accusations (Luke 23:4,13-15). It was only at the insistence of the crowd (Luke 23:23-25, cf. Acts 13:28) that Jesus was sentenced to be crucified.
After being flogged – a barbaric punishment in itself – Jesus was taken away by soldiers. He was stripped and dressed as a mock-king, with a crown of thorns on his head. He was ridiculed and beaten with repeated blows to the head. And then he was led away to his death (Matthew 27:27-31). Jesus Christ died on a Roman cross, a means of execution among the most savage and cruel ever invented. It was designed to maximise pain and suffering, and to be a particularly shameful and disgraceful way to die.
In the modern Western world we do not necessarily appreciate the horrendous nature of crucifixion. The crucifix is now much more commonly fashioned from precious metals than from roughly hewn timber. In churches, Christians sometimes sing jaunty, upbeat songs about the cross. Consider for a moment though what we would think of someone wearing an ornamental electric chair or a silver hangman’s noose or a golden gas chamber around their neck. Or how we might regard jaunty, upbeat songs about such instruments of torture. Crucifixion was a punishment so terrible that Roman criminals were generally exempted from it. The cross was reserved for the worst criminals from the underclasses such as slaves and foreigners.
Unlike modern methods of capital punishment, the torturous agony of crucifixion can last days rather than a matter of minutes or even seconds. As it happens, Jesus died relatively quickly. There was no need to break his legs to accelerate his death. “Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water” (John 19:31-34). There was no doubt that he was dead.
All human death is terrible, but the death of Jesus Christ was exceptionally so, not so much because crucifixion is a particularly nasty way to die, but because of what death entailed for the Son of God. When Jesus died, he endured not only the extreme physical suffering of the cross but the agony of being forsaken by his eternal Father, an abandonment deeper than we can know. The closest relationship between a father and his son that we can imagine is but a shadow of that between God the Father and God the Son.
The nature of the death of Jesus Christ is graphically reflected in the manner in which he approached it. In the garden of Gethsemane shortly before he died, Jesus was “sorrowful and troubled”, his “soul... overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death… He fell with his face to the ground and prayed, ‘My Father, if it is possible, may this cup [of suffering] be taken from me” (Matthew 26:37-39, cf. Isaiah 51:17-23). Jesus was “in anguish… his sweat like drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:44), probably as a result of hematidrosis, a rare medical condition that can occur under extreme stress. Jesus Christ knew then much better than we can understand now the depths of what he was about to experience. Even he could not face this sort of death with calmness or confidence.
And yet despite the terrible nature of the death he knew he would face, Jesus chose to die. His death was voluntary. As he himself put it, “No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord” (John 10:18, cf. 1 Timothy 2:5-6, Hebrews 9:14). Even at the point of death, having begged his Father to take the cup of suffering from him, Jesus said, “Yet not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39, cf. Luke 23:46). In stark contrast to the rebellion of sinful human beings, Jesus Christ submitted wholly to the will of God. Jesus knew that his death was necessary, and so he “[became] obedient to death – even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). Biblical texts such as these dispel any notion of Jesus being coerced into dying on the cross against his will. The reality is quite different. Jesus’ death was in accordance with both his own will and that of his Father.
We see on the cross the voluntary death of the man who is God. There is, it would seem, a sense in which Jesus’ death was God’s death. We must tread carefully here, for we do not read in the New Testament that God the Father dies. As we have already noted, he is by his very nature immortal. Only God the Son can die. But if, as we have discussed, Jesus was both fully man and fully God, we can perhaps in some sense speak tentatively of the death of God. God the Son knew that his death was necessary, and he knew that it would be exceptionally terrible. And yet he took the initiative to come down to earth to die.
The resurrection
It was remarkable enough that Jesus taught his followers that he had to die. What was even more remarkable was that, according to the Bible, he spoke of his rising again. Jesus taught his disciples not just that “the Son of Man must suffer… and… be killed,” but also that “after three days [he must] rise again” (Mark 8:31, cf. Matthew 27:62-64, Luke 18:31-33, John 2:19-22). On at least one occasion he claimed that he was himself “the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). As with his other teaching, Jesus backed up his words with actions, in this case bringing a dead man back to life (John 11:1-44). And this was not the only time that he had raised the dead (cf. e.g. Luke 7:11-15, Luke 8:40-56).
It is one thing to speak of resurrection though, and quite another for it actually to happen. What was most remarkable of all was that, according to the Bible, God did indeed raise Jesus Christ to life (e.g. Luke 24:1ff). This was no mere resuscitation, or a restoration of previous life; it was resurrection, so that he will never die again. As Paul puts it, “since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him” (Romans 6:9, cf. Romans 14:9).
In many respects Jesus’ resurrection was of course surprising. His disciples were certainly surprised. At first they did not believe the women who had discovered Jesus’ empty tomb (Luke 24:9-11). And who can blame them? After all, it is an understatement to say that dead men do not ordinarily rise again.
But in some respects the resurrection of Jesus is not at all surprising. It is one thing to say that dead men do not rise again, and quite another to say that no dead man can ever rise again. In any case, Jesus Christ is no ordinary man. He is the man who is God. He teaches with extraordinary authority and he performs miraculous signs and wonders. Explicitly and implicitly, Jesus identifies himself with God. He claims to be the promised Messiah, and he says specifically and repeatedly that he will rise again. For these and many other reasons, Jesus’ resurrection has a uniquely complex context. There is thus a case to be made that, when carefully considered, Jesus’ resurrection is not so much surprising as inevitable. Ordinarily it is unsurprising that people die, and it is particularly unsurprising when people stay dead. With Jesus Christ it is the other way round. Because he is one with the immortal God, it is surprising that he dies at all, and it would have been particularly surprising if he had stayed dead. As Peter puts it in Acts 2:24, “it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.”
Jesus’ resurrection vindicates everything he said and did. Without it, many of his words and actions make little sense. As Paul puts it in a letter to early Christians, “if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith… your faith is futile; you are still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:14,17 again). Jesus’ death on the cross does not make sense without the resurrection that follows it. If Jesus Christ was not raised from the dead, he cannot be God, and he does not provide a solution to the problem of sin. The cross and the resurrection that Christians celebrate at Easter are thus inextricably linked, as is evident from numerous New Testament passages (e.g. Matthew 16:21, Matthew 27:51-53, Acts 4:10, Acts 17:3) and from the logic of God’s remedy for sin.
Next chapter (Chapter 8)
Outline of whole book for reference
Part (i): Background
Part (ii): Problem
Part (iii): Solution
Main index with additional outline structure
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