In my previous two posts I wrote on the beauty and magnificence, the dignity and significance with which God created mankind, male and female, for His glory (Isaiah 43:7); so that the infinite perfections of His being would be seen, known, praised, enjoyed and rejoiced in within man’s relationship with God and one another, with God entrusting mankind with dominion over all the earth and nature.
In my last post, I also looked at how that relationship and trust was lost, and the image of God in man corrupted because of Adam’s initial rebellion, and our continued rebellion against God’s rule over our lives. As such, we are no longer able to glorify God as we were created to, nor do we desire to do so. Thus we live under God’s just condemnation (Romans 5:18); helpless to do anything about it in our sin corrupted condition (Ephesians 2:1-3).
In today’s post we come to the Gospel, the Good News, of what God has done and is doing in the ultimate expression of His mercy, grace and love, to save rebellious, sin corrupted, condemned men and women from His judgement (Romans 1:16-17), and to restore the beauty and glory of God’s image in man. (2 Corinthians 3:18)
He does this through the person and work of Jesus Christ, God the Son, the ultimate image bearer of God’s glory (Hebrews 1:1-4). The promise of and need for Jesus’ coming to this world is the overriding theme of the Old Testament, and the fulfillment of that promise the overriding theme of the New Testament (Matthew 1:18-24).
We are told in Philippians 2:5-9 and John 17:5 that Jesus temporarily divests Himself of the honor, beauty, majesty and dominion over all creation that is inherently and eternally His, and assumes a full and real humanity. As a man, He fully identifies Himself with the life of His fallen and corrupted image bearers; taking on the nature and form of frail, mortal man; identifying Himself with our misery and shame, our pain, sorrow and suffering which is the consequence of our sin. Yet, in His sinless life, sacrificial death and miraculous resurrection, we finally see a man living as one created in the image and likeness of God as man was made to live.
Jesus lives His life in this world in intimate fellowship with God the Father – striving to please, honor and glorify Him through His life of perfect obedience to the law of God (John 17:4)); perfectly loving God with all of His heart and soul and mind and strength, and His neighbor as Himself (Matthew 22:34-40). Though Jesus was tempted to sin, He never did (Hebrews 4:15), living the perfectly righteous life necessary for man to live in the presence of God (Psalm 24:3-6) and accrediting that life to all who put their faith in Him (Romans 3:21-22).
As a man enabled by the Holy Spirit of God (Acts 10:36-38), Jesus perfectly exercises the dominion – the rule man was given over the creation in the beginning. In the four gospels, we see storms immediately obey Jesus’ commands to cease; fallen angels (demons) fearfully obey His command to end their torment of men they have possessed; fish answer His call to jump into the fisherman’s net. We see sickness, disease and ultimately death itself all submit to His dominion and respond to His commands; commands given not as God, but as man – the Son of Man who was prophesied in Daniel 7:13-14.
In everything, Jesus joyfully submits to the will of God (Psalm 40:7-8) (Hebrews 10:9). His submission is most clearly displayed in His sacrificial death on the cross (Philippians 2:8) for the sins of those who would entrust their lives to Him as Savior and gladly submit to Him as Lord, the ultimate authority over their lives (Romans 10:8-13) (Philippians 2:9-11).
On the cross He reveals Himself to be the “Lamb of God”, who through His sacrificial death on the cross “propitiates” (satisfies) God’s wrath, His divine justice (Isaiah 53:4-10) (Romans 3:21-26). Jesus, on behalf of all He would save, takes upon Himself in His body and soul the punishment they would deserve throughout eternity (Revelation 14:9-11).
In His miraculous resurrection from the dead (Luke 24:6-7), Jesus becomes the first born (Revelation 1:5-6) (Romans 8:29) of the new creation of mankind (2 Corinthians 5:17), a creation that will be made up of men and women who, through their submission to and identification with Jesus while in this world (Galatians 2:20), will be restored fully to the glorious image of God as it is revealed in the resurrected Christ (1 John 3:1-3) (Philippians 3:20-21). They will be men and women adopted by God as His beloved children, who will with Jesus inherit all things to be found in the new universe and earth that Jesus will establish at His second coming (Romans 8:14-17). More on this new man in my next post.
Grace and Truth ×
Thanks Jim !
And much more
on this new man
when HE comes back.