Earlier I wrote on Jesus Christ as the Son of God and that has been a thought that has been bothering me for the last few days and here’s why.
By bothers me, I don’t mean it troubles me as to whether it’s true or not. It bothers me because its implications are a lot bigger that I often give it credit for. The amount of trouble Jesus gets into for the claim, the amount of evidence that could not be refuted by His accusers is not just something that makes me sit back and take notice.
Often the claim is to get to talking about Jesus being God and all about the trinity argument and the deity of Christ. Yet even without touching that, considering the claim He makes to be the Son of God. The claim that God is His Father is contentious enough. As it is true in itself is truly amazing and it gives me hope for some crucial reasons.
As the Son of God Jesus is like the First Adam. When you read the genealogy according to Luke the final stop is not Moses or Abraham, or even Adam – the final stop is God Himself and He is the Father of Adam. Everything Adam is meant to be is summed up in Jesus. Where Adam fails, Jesus picks it up to show everyone what it is to be a Son of God. Not only that, but there is something in whatever Jesus shows that should remind us that we are created to be sons of God. Yet something desperately wrong happens and that which should connect us to God appears irrevocably broken.
Sure we can do good things and be nice people. Sure we can have concerts and campaigns to end poverty. Sure we can look at sorting the problems of major diseases and have special days where we wear tags and give money. We can do all of that, and the problem still remains – we are disconnected from the source. Our identity is distorted.
You see that in the argument that the scribes wish to have with Jesus and the response Jesus gives is cutting – that they the super religious people of the day actually follow their father the devil. This is something we can see based on behaviour. This begs the question, who can say that their behaviour reflects that of Father God? That is not a question of who has a slip every now and then, or gets a bad day as well as a good day. This a question of nature and the reality of the answer is as long as we are born in the flesh we could never claim that family tie.
Yet in Jesus Christ the Son of God crucial connections are made. He is not just a man, but His manhood provides the route back to becoming sons of God – where we belong. No one else provides that connection. Nothing else could provide that connection. His status as the Son means those who follow in His way likewise can be called Son. That is something rejoiced over in the First Letter of John’s that is in the New Testament. That is something heavily indicated in Hebrews. That is something that is the very essence of life and death. Disconnection from the source of life is death itself. Reconnection to that source from the very pit of death itself is the very celebration of life. That only happens through Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Now I know how to be truly a man, because the example has been set by the ultimate man.
There is also that crucial relational family element as well. We all start in the context of family and yet the roles in it are unclear. There is the distant father and rebellious son; the traumatised son and abused father; even the closest father-son relationships have flaws in them because we don’t get who we are and where we’re coming from. God in His infinite wisdom as He has never done previously outlines it to us in the relationship with His Son. All that Abraham and Isaac hinted at is fully realised in God and His Son Jesus.
That means being a son – being a child – being connected to the source of my being in the relational manner is shown for me to follow. I know how to be a child, because I see how Jesus was a child to His Father and showed that unity and bond. The love between the Father and Son is not first expressed in the earthly context, but because it is I get to see it and by faith am shown how to express it first in my relationship with the heavenly Father and then in ongoing earthly relations with elders and others. That does not take place without the example of Jesus Christ the Son of God.
It matters because the fullness of life is found in loving relationships and a man doesn’t know how to love until he is shown and where better to find that love than the source of real love and where better to see that relationship and know you can live that out than in the example of Jesus Christ.
That’s why I’m grateful to God for Jesus Christ His Son. That’s why it matters so much to me.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
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