Christ the Redeemer (#KnowMore Part 3)

Hey, hey! Welcome back, guys! Hoping you had an amazing weekend. Here’s to a brand-new week! And, apparently, a brand-new month. I swear September was like 2 hours; just whizzed past like Roadrunner. Still, we thank God for His goodness throughout the month, and it is my prayer that He will safely guide us through October.

I gave a week’s pause on this series to organise some other things going on outside of the blog, and now that it’s all good, I pray it will be consistent as promised. Every Monday and Thursday will have a new part posted.

If this is your first read on this blog, feel right at home. We have been doing a series called Know More, which seeks to help us understand more about God, His plan for us, and our role in all this. It is my hope that through all this, we will (definitely) know more, be guided more by the Word, and effectively reach out more by sharing this wonderful story of the God who is there.

In past weeks, we have been looking at God’s attributes; that which He has revealed to be true about Himself in Scripture. We saw his holiness as His primary attribute, which is, all His other attributes are set apart (distinct only to Himself) and infinitely perfect. We looked at His righteousness, how all He does is good, and His justice in having to punish that which is wrong. Lastly, we saw His mercy, in that He punished sin as His justice demanded, but we who were the offenders did not receive the punishment meted out.

Today, we take a closer look at the Person of God who took our place. On Thursday, we will delve deeper into how the substitution was carried out, hoping God will enable me to do so clearly.

Let’s begin!

We all have to agree that the person who has had most influence on culture and worldview is none other than Jesus of Nazareth. Books have been written about Him, countless forums held to discuss who He is and what He was, and many other forms of media, including plays and films, which have all tried to answer the question; who is this man who, in a span of three years, was able to completely shake up the world, have a third of the current global population follow His teachings, and literally be the central figure who splits time into two eras (BC and AD)?

It would be good to note, as we have been doing, that any of our attempts to try and explain Him as we know (or think we know) would ultimately fall short of what He has been revealed to be in the Bible. Let’s look at His life story as outlined in the first four books of the New Testament, known as the Gospels, with an emphasis on that written by Luke.

A young lady, a virgin called Mary, lived in a quaint little town in Judea called Nazareth. She was engaged to a carpenter named Joseph of the lineage of the great King David, and I bet she, just like any other young woman awaiting marriage, was looking forward to finally settling down and having a family of her own. She, being a Jew and brought up in their ways and culture, was hopeful of a day when the one promised by God to deliver them would appear. Judea at the time was under Roman occupation, and many of the people clung to the promise of this conquering King given in Isaiah 9:6-7;

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.

Isaiah 9:6-7 ESV

One day, as Mary was probably going about her own business, she received a visitor who greeted her in a very strange manner;

And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!”

Luke 1:28 ESV

Favoured one, she must have wondered. The visitor, who was an angel sent by God, then went on to assure her not to be afraid, for she had been chosen by God to be the one who would give birth to the foretold Promised One that she and her people had been hoping for; this son she would bear was to be called Jesus.

Well, Mary must have been quite disturbed to hear all this, and wondered how she would bear a child and yet was still a virgin. The angel told her that she would be overshadowed by the Spirit of God – the same Spirit that was present at creation and formed the world out of nothing. No human intervention was present, and thus the child born would be sinless, without the genome of Adam’s sinfulness transferred to Him.

The same power of God that would make this seemingly impossible thing come to pass had already done the same thing to Mary’s cousin, Elizabeth, who, though advanced in age and considered barren, was already six months pregnant with a son who would later become the man to prepare the way for Mary’s own son.

It all might sound like a plot worthy of a bestseller, but it did happen as foretold, and God Himself came into the world as prophesied, not as a mighty King the Jews were expecting, but as a baby, helpless and crying, born in a stable because there was no room to stay in at the city of Bethlehem, where His parents had gone to be present for a census. A very humble way to enter the world He had created, and even more humbling to have to grow up as one of the people He had created.

What was the purpose of all this? Remember, we saw the Israelites had to constantly give sacrifices for their sin, or choose to follow each and every one of the 613 laws prescribed by God, with obedience from the heart, in order to be considered right before Him. Evidently, we couldn’t, and still can’t.

Only a lawgiver can spell out what they can attain.

God requires holiness in order to approach Him because He himself is holy. God therefore came down and took up our form and body to show us that it is possible to live a sinless, holy life of complete obedience to Him as He intended at the beginning.

So, His work as promised was not to lead Israel into a glorious triumph over the Romans and their oppressors. It was to redeem them and all of mankind from an even greater oppressor; sin and their own wicked desires and ways.

On Thursday, we will look at how exactly He carried out His redeeming work, and of equal importance get into a clearer understanding of what this word ‘sin’ is. Keep praying that this will impact us in our walk with God as we strive to know Him more.

Have an amazing week ahead.