Blog Post 6 – The Saving Life of Christ

John, who was closest to Jesus and the last to write his gospel, describes his own identity as “the one whom Jesus loved”. He started his walk with Jesus as one of the “sons of thunder” and ended up “the apostle of love”. His gospel reveals the intimacy between Jesus and His father like no other writer. By the time he wrote, he was writing from a place hidden with Christ in God. He was enjoying the fellowship of the Trinity where He was convinced that God is love. He knew that perfect love casts out fear. He knew that fear has to do with punishment, and nothing was farther from the mind of God toward us. He knew that Genesis was not our genesis. He traced our origin past the Garden of Eden to the eternal Word of God who was made flesh. He experienced first-hand the full humanity of Jesus. He watched Him transfigured on the mountaintop and crucified before his eyes. He observed His love for the Father, His tender teaching about Holy Spirit, His love for the twelve, including Judas, and His forgiving words from the cross. He appreciated the incarnation more than today’s western minds. He made more of Jesus than we do, as a first-hand witness and a Post Pentecost believer. Jesus did not simply come to earth and pick up a body so he would have one to die in, when the moment to save us arrived. Salvation was not the event of the cross, it was the person of Jesus Christ. Our modern theological concepts are so shallow and rationally constructed to concretize everything. The Western mind struggles with mystery and tries too hard to get everything into neat doctrinal boxes. Every moment the Godman lived was crammed with eternal significance for mankind. Every breath He took was advancing our salvation. In modern thinking we tend to believe we are saved by His death, but we are also saved by His life. He began saving us long before he trekked up the hill of Golgotha. He assumed our humanity from His earthly beginning in the womb. He was forging the new humanity with every step He took. He willed and lived humanity back into its original form. It was not the events of passion week alone that saved us. He was saving us with His entire 33 ½ year life. He did not just die for us, He lived for us. He fulfilled the law for us and as us. He overcame temptations for us and as us. He won back dominion of the earth for us and as us. The Last Adam died for all, therefore all died. Then He was raised for us and as us and ascended to the right hand of the Father with reconciled humanity. To the early church fathers, the incarnation was more stressed than in current evangelical circles today. Modern Western Evangelical thought has overemphasized the event of the cross and underemphasized the person of Christ. We have a transactional salvation system rather than a relational one. Reconciliation between man and God is found in the one person who is forever 100% God and 100% man.