The Christ.

To finish our month-long series, I wanted to spend some time talking about the simplest and most basic part of Christianity, and also the very most important part.

Who is Jesus Christ?

Well, Jesus is the Son of God.

That’s the easy answer. But since we talked about the Trinity on Wednesday, we also know that He’s the human person of the Almighty God. He is reason Christianity as we know it even exists at all. Before Jesus, Christianity wouldn’t have been possible. Jews did not share their faith, because they didn’t really have faith. In those days, you were either Jewish or you weren’t. Most people weren’t. But Jesus came to change that, and to give the rest of us the possibility of freedom.

See, Jesus is the person of the Trinity who came down to Earth. He was born of the virgin, Mary, a Jew. He was without sin, in the whole of his life. His ministry began when he was in his thirties, and lasted only about three years before he was beaten and hung upon the cross. But the cross was not the end. In fact, it was more like the beginning, for us.

When Jesus died on the cross, no one took His life from Him. He gave up His life for us. As a sinless man, death had not touched Him. It couldn’t touch Him. Death is part of the curse that came upon humanity when Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, so that anyone who sins falls short and must therefore perish. But Jesus didn’t fall short. He wasn’t born of a man, he was born of God, and so he was not subject to the terms of that curse. He was subject only to humanness, by the fact of being born from the womb of a woman.

So when He died, He died a perfect and holy sacrifice unto God. He gave up His life, His perfect life, so that the rest of us could live.

But maybe that doesn’t make sense.

I’m not going to pretend to understand Jewish customs even in the slightest, but what I understand is that the priests would frequently sacrifice pure and spotless lambs to God, to cover the sins of the people. But they had to keep killing lambs, over and over, because a lamb could never take the place of a person.

Jesus, on the other hand, was human.

So when He died, He took our place. We no longer have to die. Not like He did. Because of what He did, we now have the ability to go to heaven when we leave this Earth. Before Jesus, that wasn’t possible.

He is the one who brought salvation.

Because He was lashed, we are healed.

Because He was bruised, He has taken our iniquities.

Because He is perfect, unblemished, without spot, He gave us the ability to be free.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved (Acts 16:31).

That’s from the Bible. And you know what we’ve been saying? The Bible is the Word of God, and because God is God and cannot lie, the Bible must be true. Therefore, if you do not believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you will not be saved. That’s what it says. The Bible is very black and white, despite those who try to make it grey.

That’s who Jesus is. He’s our namesake, our freedom, our salvation. We live because of Him. We live for Him. We live in Him and through Him. 

We live, because He lived. 

We love, because He loved.

[love]

{Rani Divine}