God became a man with the intention that man might receive Him, that He might become man’s life, and that man might be one to express Him. This is the message of the Gospel of John.
I hope you do not have the shallow concept of the gospel that is so prevalent today. The common teaching is that we were pitiful sinners on the way to hell but that God loved us and sent His Son to be our Redeemer. The Son died on the cross, was resurrected from the dead, and is now in heaven. We must believe in Him in order to be saved. Then some day we shall go to heaven and have a good time for eternity. If this is your view of the gospel, you are missing the mark.
The word gospel means good news or glad tidings. The New Testament gospel is that God one day became man, the man Jesus. He lived on this earth for thirty-three and a half years. Consider what a restriction it was to the infinite God to be confined in man for so many years. He lived in a poor carpenter’s home in a despised town. After thirty years He came out to minister, not in a vast country but in the Holy Land, a narrow tract of land only three hundred by one hundred miles in size. God lived in a small country, in a small town, and in a small home.
When He was thirty-three, He went to the cross. There He terminated the old generation, the old creation, and the old man. He abolished death. He took away all natural differences. When He entered into death, He conquered and subdued it. In other words, He conquered the power of darkness, the despot Satan. He entered into death and then emerged from it in resurrection.
It was at this point that He became the life-giving Spirit. The Bible uses the word became twice in reference to this wonderful Person who actually was God. He “became flesh” (John 1:14) and walked here on earth. Then He became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45, Gk.). As God He became flesh; as flesh He became the life-giving Spirit. The interval of time between the two “becames” was about thirty-four years.
In eternity past, before Genesis 1, there was only God Himself. Then He created the universe, bringing it into being out of nothing. When He spoke, “Let there be...,” there was. How long the time was between creation and incarnation the Bible does not tell us. But we do need to be aware that God firstly accomplished creation out of nothing and then passed through incarnation, through which He became one with His creature man.
The human life Jesus lived on this earth is beyond our understanding. He set up a model of the life that God wants. God does not want moral, ethical, or religious living. The four Gospels display a life of God mingled with man, a life expressing God. This model life is called the truth (John 1:17; Eph. 4:21). It is the reality of God manifested in humanity.
Home | First | Prev | Next