In the Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis one of Satan’s apprentices states that God has an abominable advantage for having become human. This is because God knows us fully and completely, an advantage that Satan cannot possess. All the holiness of God has been aligned to the lowliness of humankind, in Jesus.
“And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”
John 1:14
Stuck in Sin
Before Jesus, humankind was stuck in sin. From the fall in the garden of Eden, sin had separated man from God. What was once a perfect union, full communion with God in the garden, had now turned into brokenness and longing for the garden once again. God was not content with this. He desired to be close to us: the original design of His creation. While humankind had spent years wandering from God, falling away, some staying faithful, God promised that a Savior would come. He would send His only son to stand in the gap of the Sin that separated humankind from God. He would make a way for man to be with God again. Jesus says in John 14:6, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Jesus showed us what life with God is, fully united to Him, what the truth is, in His words and deeds, and what the way to the Father is: through Him.
Made Righteous
Paul states that “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). In Jesus, we have become righteous because He took on all the sin of the world and defeated the powers of death and the grave. This means that there is no striving. Our righteousness, or right standing before God has nothing to do with what we do or how good we can be, but rather it is only about Jesus. We needed a Savior and Jesus was sent by God to take away the barrier between us and God. Eric Gilmour stated, “By faith you stand before God as Christ because Christ stood before God as you” (To His Bride).
The Incarnation
Oftentimes, believers can overlook and forget the craziness of the incarnation of God. God became man. He is God so He knows no sin, yet He took on all the sin of the world on the cross. We cannot overlook how much God loves us. Instead of leaving us to our wayward tendencies, He chose to save us. The God of the universe took on the form of a baby so that He could truly know and redeem us. Jesus says that He is the light of the world (John 8:12). He is the hope for humanity and creation. By uniting Himself to all aspects of humanity, God has bridged the gap that once separated us from Him. “Jesus made a way” means that God made a way for us to be in direct relationship with Him—the veil of the temple has been torn.
Full Communion
The tabernacle was the portable dwelling place for God used by the Israelites on their travels through the wilderness. The ark of the covenant, where the presence of God was housed, was in the most exclusive section of the tabernacle, the Holies of Holies. The high priest was only able to enter once a year on the day of atonement.
When Jesus died, the veil was torn top to bottom (Matthew 27:51). The veil separated the Holies of Holies from the rest of the temple. It symbolized the boundary between Heaven and Earth. The wall that once separated us from the presence of God is torn. Now we can enter full communion with the maker of heaven and earth, the maker of our very being. We can know God personally and without terror because of Jesus. Jesus says, “I am the true vine” (John 15:1), meaning that He is our source of life, we grow when we abide in Him.
The Rupture
Jesus changed everything. The Apostle Paul spent his life trying to explain this to the early Church. Not only did Jesus change Paul’s own personal life, changing the heart of Paul from persecuting Christians to starting churches, but Paul showed that Jesus caused a rupture in human history that could not be overlooked. The Jewish people had been waiting for the Messiah. When Jesus came, He was not what they expected. They were expecting a warrior king who would free them from Roman political oppression, but rather Jesus came, lived, and died to free them from sin, the true enemy. He payed the ultimate cost for freedom. Jesus called Himself the “good shepherd” in John 10:11, one who lays His life down for his sheep: instead of a warrior, we received a Shepherd. What was even more radical about what Jesus did was that He did so for everyone. It was not only for the Jew, but also for the Gentile.
“There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus”
Galatians 3:28
Our confidence rests in the fact that God becoming man fully unites Him to us. There is no part of our lives that is separate from Him. He walks with us in the wilderness because He experienced it Himself. He walks with us in our friendships because He Himself had friends. And so much more.
We rest in the promise that we will join hands one day with Jesus. Whose hands still bear the scars of a broken world. The lowly servant and highly exalted King sits on the throne, holding the keys of death and the grave, and interceding for the world He loves. He made a way so that you could be his closest friend. So that you could have a relationship with Him. Jesus says to his disciples, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35). Jesus satisfies your every desire and provides for your needs.
To learn more about who Jesus is and how He changed everything, join one of our FREE courses! Identity: Finding Christ In You, dives into who Jesus is through the 7 “I Am” statements of the gospels.
