Jesus?

Jesus Christ has a spe­cial place in the unfold­ing of his­tory. His­tory has a spe­cial place for Jesus. In fact, all of his­tory is for Him (Colos­sians 1:16). He is not just a man nor is He just another reli­gious leader.

The his­tory of the Bible unfolds a great mys­tery that is revealed in the life of Christ. The Bible starts with cre­ation and then goes on to tell how God’s rela­tion­ship with man devel­oped. The story is one of God’s pur­suit despite man’s dis­obe­di­ence. It wasn’t until Abra­ham that God’s plan of redemp­tion was to occur. God tells (then Abram): “…in you all the fam­i­lies of the earth shall be blessed” (Gen­e­sis 12:3). God affirms His covenant with Abraham’s son Isaac and Isaac’s son Jacob. God renamed Jacob as “Israel,” and his sons would be the twelve tribes of Israel (Gen­e­sis 32:28).

We see God give His holy Law to Moses at Mt. Sinai (Exo­dus, Deuteron­omy). The Law gave strin­gent require­ments on what it meant to fol­low in God’s statutes, and man is unable to ful­fill the require­ments of God’s holy law. We all fall short (Romans 3:23). Great sto­ries such as David, Solomon, Ruth, and Esther give us his­tor­i­cal back­ground into the devel­op­ment of Israel with God, but the con­tin­u­ing theme is that man is unable to rec­on­cile him­self to God. Every­thing in the Old Tes­ta­ment points for­ward to the One who would be for­saken for us.

My God, my God, why have You for­saken me? Far from my deliv­er­ance are the words of my groan­ing. (Psa 22:1)

The major prophets such as Isa­iah also told the story of one who was to save Israel, not just from phys­i­cal bondage, but from the bondage of sin.

But He was pierced through for our trans­gres­sions, He was crushed for our iniq­ui­ties; The chas­ten­ing for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourg­ing we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniq­uity of us all To fall on Him. (Isa 53:5–6)

And so the Old Tes­ta­ment ends with Israel eagerly await­ing a Sav­ior. After sev­eral hun­dred years a man by the name of John the Bap­tist, the last Old Tes­ta­ment prophet, spoke of the One to come.

John answered them say­ing, “I bap­tize in water, but among you stands One whom you do not know. It is He who comes after me, the thong of whose san­dal I am not wor­thy to untie.” (John 1:26–27)

Then, it was prophe­cied that John would point the peo­ple to the Messiah.

The next day he saw Jesus com­ing to him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29)

Jesus then started His min­istry which lasted 3.5 years. He healed the sick, taught, and spoke of the King­dom of Heaven. He con­tin­ued ful­fill­ing Old Tes­ta­ment prophe­cies of the Mes­siah, but His work was not com­plete until He died for sins (the atone­ment). Jesus was tried and con­victed by His own peo­ple, the Jews, of heresy. He was sen­tenced to cru­ci­fix­ion by the gov­erner Pon­tius Pilate, and it was on the cross that Jesus com­pleted His work.

Now from the sixth hour dark­ness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, say­ing, “ELI, ELI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?” that is, “MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?” (Mat 27:45–46)

But it was not enough for Jesus to just die for sin–He had to rise again and defeat death (Matthew 16:21). It is in the res­ur­rec­tion that human kind can now have hope. We need only to believe that Christ is the Mes­siah, the Anointed One, God incar­nate (in the flesh), who came to die for sin and rise again on the third day. When we believe on the promises of God through Christ, we pass from death into life (John 5:24).

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who accord­ing to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a liv­ing hope through the res­ur­rec­tion of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inher­i­tance which is imper­ish­able and unde­filed and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are pro­tected by the power of God through faith for a sal­va­tion ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Pet 1:3–5)