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THE
BIBLE
THE LORD JESUS
AND YOU
by
John Roberts
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The
Lord Jesus
Chapter 18
SOME years ago I had the privilege of flying over the Canadian
Rockies. The plane took off from Calgary in cloud. Soon, however,
the sky cleared. The weather was beautiful and our journey
westwards was breathtaking.
I still look at the slides of that memorable flight. The mountains
were a picture of beauty. There were long ridges and folds
capped with snow. They looked like so many pointed cakes with
icing sugar spilling down the sides. Lower peaks were dark
and barren, knife edges of rock looking uninviting and dangerous.
Between them were inky black pools. Ribbons of dark turquoise
joined them together.
No sign of life could be seen from the height we were. The
whole area might well have been the domain of the brown bear
alone. It was beautiful, but stark, bare and unwelcoming.
A few days later we were making the journey from West to East.
This time, however, we travelled by train through the mountains.
The picture was quite different. True, the snow-capped peaks
still peeped out at the top, but everywhere was so green.
Mile after mile of thick forests lined the track. There were
thousands upon thousands of trees. The sun lit up the rivers
and made the water sparkle as it splashed over rocks. Sometimes
it was clear as crystal. At other times it was milky white
as it came from the melting glaciers.
The landscape was punctuated with life. There were stations,
villages, timber houses, road construction vehicles. The lakes
were no longer black, but blue. Often they were littered with
debris from floating logs. It was the same place, but it looked
so different. It was pleasant, warm and inviting. We were
seeing it from a different perspective. Neither view of the
area would have been quite true on its own. Each was incomplete.
Our two journeys together gave us an accurate picture.
A Question of Perspective
People hold different views about Jesus Christ. Some believe
that he was just a man. They would agree that he was a very
good man, but nothing more. They would attribute his miracles
to exaggeration by people who loved him.
Others in an attempt to honour Christ claim that he was God.
No doubt their motives are good, but they go beyond what the
Bible itself says. Neither of these views gives us a true
picture. The Bible view of Jesus lies somewhere between them.
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page
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First,
it shows that Jesus is born of God. God is his Father. He was not
born in any ordinary way. We have already seen that no man was involved
in his conception. Mary was a pure virgin when Jesus was conceived.
The seed was placed in her womb by the power of God.
The Bible is most careful to describe Mary as the mother of Jesus.
It is equally careful not to describe Joseph as his father. It uses
phrases like, "his mother and Joseph", or "as was
supposed, the son of". Joseph was merely a foster father.
Jesus was uniquely the son of God. He was not the son of God in
the way that Adam was. He was not the son of God because God made
him. He was the "only begotten of the Father".
Tempted Just Like Us
This does not make Jesus and God the same person. Jesus was not
God. Jesus had one human parent, Mary. Because of that he inherited
certain human traits. He had tendencies that were inherited from
men going back to Adam. He had inclinations that God could not experience.
God cannot be associated with sin in any way. Jesus was tested by
sin. Human nature urged him to do the wrong things. Jesus resisted.
He did not sin. He was sinless.
"For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathise with
our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without
sin."
(Hebrews 4:15)
These temptations were real. They would have had no point if Jesus
had been unable to sin. The Bible shows he had to fight to overcome
them. It was a struggle, but Jesus was victorious.
Some have suggested that Jesus simply took on a human form. Inside
he was God. He merely looked like us in order to be able to die
and help us. This idea is foreign to the Bible.
The Bible says that Jesus was born. It was the birth of a new child,
just like each of us once experienced. Then Jesus grew up, just
as we do. He "increased in wisdom and stature". It does
not say that Jesus changed his form. It does not speak of a different
sort of existence. That would have been a metamorphosis as when
a chrysalis becomes a butterfly.
Jesus did not exist before his birth as a real person. There are
some Bible verses which some think suggest he did. They can be read
in two ways. This is because Jesus existed in the mind of God. He
was always part of God's plan. He was the centre of God's purpose,
the most important part of it. God always intended to create and
send Jesus. This is what those hard verses mean. If we understand
them in this way, they become consistent with the other things the
Bible tells us.
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THE LORD JESUS
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