The Redeemer had to be both God and Man. Here’s how we know.
There’s one thing we know for sure. In order for the savior of sinners to take upon Himself the infinite punishment they deserve, survive that suffering, and save them through His sacrifice, He had to be truly man and He had to be truly God–One person with two natures.
First, Jesus had to be truly man to deserve the punishment and to receive it. For Him to be a suitable sacrifice, acceptable to God, He had to be sinless Himself so His death would not be for His own sin, and He had to be willing to be treated by God the Father as if He had committed the sins of everyone who would ever believe in Him as their worthy substitute.
Secondly, He had to be God in order to take upon Himself the infinite wrath of God toward sinners, survive that unimaginable suffering, and satisfy God’s wrath toward those who would ever believe in His anointed Redeemer to save them from their deserved damnation.
Jesus redeems as the God-man
So, Christ suffered as man because God cannot suffer. God is the infinitely, unchangeable, happy and blessed God. If Christ suffered, He didn’t suffer in his deity; He had to suffer as man. But as man, Christ would never have triumphed. If He were only a man, He would never have risen from the grave in triumph. Therefore, Christ triumphed as God, He suffered as man, and He redeems as the God-Man.
In His suffering, He was “despised and rejected by men”. (Isaiah 53:3) On the cross, the people stood watching as the rulers sneered at Him, the soldiers mocked Him, and one of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at Him. They couldn’t believe that the One who was supposed to save Israel, couldn’t even save Himself. But not only that, God the Father turned away from Him and forsook His Son as Jesus was enduring divine punishment for our sins. Just before He died, He cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46b)
Jesus proved He was God by living
Jesus Christ proved He was God by living, and He proved He was a man by dying. The reason He proved He was God by living was because He had lived a perfectly righteous life. Nobody could charge Him with sin, other than the supposed sin of blasphemy because He had claimed to be God’s Son, which was in fact true and therefore not a sin.
The Bible tells us that the first Adam1Go to the post, We are Dead in Adam or Made Alive in Christ, to learn about our spiritual identity was created in the image of God and was without sin, although he had free will to sin. He lived in an ideal, garden environment. He was in regular fellowship with God, and he had everything He needed.
God tested Adam by giving Him a single restriction–he was commanded not to “eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” Although He had every possible advantage and motivation to obey, He disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit. The fall consequently affected Him and the entire human race that descended from him.
On the other hand, Christ, who is also called in Scripture the Second Adam2Ibid, We are Dead in Adam or Made Alive in Christ, had to withstand His opposition from all sides and prove his righteousness in every way throughout His entire life. Though He was a man, He was able to remain sinless because as God, He was in perfect union with the heavenly Father. This would seem to render Him incapable of sin. How could God become such a man? We don’t know exactly how to answer that. But He did it. It’s a sublime mystery.
Jesus proved he was truly man by dying
Jesus Christ also proved to be truly man by dying. God has never suffered and never will suffer. But as a man, Jesus bled and died to suffer on our behalf. We are saved by both Christ’s bloody death as a man and by His perfect righteousness that He lived out as deity. Throughout Christian history, there’s been a tendency to either underscore Jesus’ deity by denying His humanity or underscore Jesus’ humanity by denying His Deity.
According to the universally-accepted church doctrine established at the church Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD, Christians should know and believe that Jesus is one Person with two distinguishable natures, a truly human nature and a truly God nature. Although the natures are distinct, they shouldn’t be confused or mixed together as one nor should they be totally separated from one another.
Faith is a gift from God
The news of Jesus Christ is just too good not to true. We might think that the sacrifice for sin we need would have to come from a person like this, but as soon as we think about it, we would immediately dismiss the idea because we would know that God would never do such a thing as this. Yet, we have to believe this to be saved.
What we may not understand is that faith is a gift of God. It’s only when He changes our hearts that we’re able to believe. That’s why this gospel is too good not to be true. Only God could think of it, entertain it, and execute it. Man wouldn’t think of it, and even if he did, he couldn’t imagine it. The devil would dismiss it from our mind immediately. He would deny it from the start and oppose anybody that would preach it as the way of redemption of his slaves from his dominion.
Jesus Christ is God in human flesh
The only way we can account for Jesus Christ, the God-man, is that He is indeed God incarnate. This is a built-in apologetic. The idea that He has to be God, yet is truly man, and He continues to be man even when He dies, and He actually dies as sinner, though He committed no transgression whatsoever, and that is the basis on which multitudes of sinners are cleansed of their guilt and clothed with everlasting righteousness, that itself has to be true. It couldn’t exist if it weren’t a fact.
Jesus came down from heaven to give you life
How can you pass up such a great salvation as the one God has arranged? God’s Son is the the precious treasure you should be searching to find. Have you believed in Him? It’s time to find out.
Ask yourself two very important questions. First, are you sure that you’ll go to heaven when you die? Secondly, are you certain why God should let you into heaven? If you don’t know for sure, you can settle that matter today. Visit my post, How to Begin Your Life Over Again and you’ll know where and how you’ll spend eternity.
And for crystal clear YouTube presentations of the gospel message from several trusted sources, click here.
References
- 1Go to the post, We are Dead in Adam or Made Alive in Christ, to learn about our spiritual identity
- 2Ibid, We are Dead in Adam or Made Alive in Christ
