The Purpose of Jesus Christ
By William R. Cunningham
February 17, 2000
Introduction
We tend to be very familiar with things pertaining to the
church that we attend regularly. We are told to go to church every Sunday, pay
our tithes, and support your ministry/pastor. We are very familiar with the
codes of conduct handed down to us by our church leaders. Many live their whole
life practicing Churchianity instead of Christianity. We think that the
adherence to rules and regulations will somehow win us favor with God and
reserve us a place in heaven for all times. The Christian life has been degraded
to legalism. Why is this so?
The main reason that Churchianity is replacing Christianity
in the minds of many people is because people do not understand what
Christianity is. In order to understand Christianity, we must understand the
works and purpose of Jesus Christ. The head and founder of the Christian faith
is Jesus Christ. He has made it possible for us to be saved and to call
ourselves Christian. The salvation that Jesus Christ brought us transcends our
church, our laws, and our ways.
What did Jesus Christ really do? The answer to that question
is plainly seen when we examine Jesus Christ's purpose. What was the purpose
of Jesus Christ being born of a virgin, preaching the Kingdom of God, being
betrayed, dying on the cross, and ascending to the Father? Why did Jesus have to
come? What was the purpose of Jesus Christ?
I believe that understanding the purpose of Jesus Christ will
help to liberate us from all of the legalistic chains that bind us. These chains
are put on us by church, ministers, elders, sometimes family, and sometimes
ourselves. Religious bondage does not come from God; rather it comes from the
forces of evil that will oppose the liberation that can be found in Christ.
Understanding the purpose of Christ will also enable us to grasp the true
meaning of the Christian faith and again, this will liberate us as well. How can
you be bound when you have baptized yourself with the truth? How can you
continue to live a life of bondage after you have come face to face with Jesus
Christ, the Son of God and the anointed one of God?
Now let's get started and examine the purpose of Jesus
Christ as it pertains to the Christian faith and ultimately our lives
Jesus Identified
The name Jesus Christ well describes his predestined purpose.
The name Jesus is the Greek form of the name Joshua, which means "Yahweh
is salvation." Yahweh is the national name of God to the Hebrew people.
The word Christ is the Greek form of the word Messiah, which means the
anointed one. Jesus Christ is the salvation of the LORD and he is anointed
by God to save those who are lost. Consider the following scripture.
Matthew 1:20 through Matthew 1:21 (NKJV) 20But while he thought
about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream,
saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your
wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. 21And
she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will
save His people from their sins."
Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit (the virgin birth) and
was destined to save His people from their sins. This is very important because
it is the basis of the doctrine of salvation. We will talk more about this
aspect later in this study. Not only does Jesus save (provides salvation to all
those who believe), he also is the best picture that we have of God (See Matthew
1:23). Consider what the writer of Hebrews says of Jesus Christ.
Hebrews 1:1 through Hebrews 1:3 (NCV) 1In the past God spoke to
our ancestors through the prophets many times and in many different ways. 2But
now in these last days God has spoken to us through his Son. God has chosen
his Son to own all things, and through him he made the world. 3The
Son reflects the glory of God and shows exactly what God is like. He holds
everything together with his powerful word. When the Son made people clean
from their sins, he sat down at the right side of God, the Great One in
heaven.
Knowing what Jesus is like will enable us to know what God is
like. This is why Jesus could say, "If you have seen me then you have seen
the Father" and "I and the Father are one." See John 14:7,9.
So we see that Jesus is our salvation, the anointed one of God, and the image of
God on earth. How do these fit in with his purpose? Let's examine these
individually, starting with Jesus being the image of God.
The Image of God
How would you know what God is like? Perhaps you heard
stories told to you by your pastor, mother, father, deacon, etc. How would they
know? Somewhere in the past there must be a standard by which all of our
knowledge of God originates. It just so happens that this standard is Jesus
Christ. We could say that a purpose of Jesus Christ is to reveal God to humans
(while humans are in their sinful state I might add). When we listen to Jesus
speak we can say that God would say the same thing, and he is through Jesus
Christ.
Examining the life of Jesus Christ will enable us to
comprehend what God is like and what he desires of us. Learning from Jesus
Christ is therefore the same as learning from God.
Since Jesus Christ is the image of God then it becomes
imperative that we heed his teachings because they are from the Father. When
Jesus describes the Kingdom of God then he is revealing to us God's kingdom,
which is His system of operation. When Jesus reveals codes of conduct, for
example in Matthew 5 and 6, then we should reckon those as coming from on the
Father.
The fact that Jesus Christ is the image of God means that we
have a direct link to what God is like and therefore what God desires of us. We
have a standard for who God is and what he is like. Our lives can therefore be
governed by the one standard, the revelation of God to humans through Jesus. The
source of this revelation is recorded in the Holy Scriptures of the Bible.
The Anointed One
The word anointed means to endue with power. It literally
describes the procedure of rubbing or smearing a person or thing, usually with
oil, for the purpose of healing, setting apart, or embalming. Jesus was anointed
in that he was set apart for the ultimate task of providing salvation for the
world and that God's power and authority resided with Him. Consider the
following scripture.
Matthew 3:16 (NKJV) 16When He had been baptized, Jesus came up
immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and
He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting upon
Him.
After this, Jesus began his ministry on earth by preaching
the kingdom of God.
Jesus was empowered by God to do a task. That task was to die
on the cross so that we might live. His task was to preach the kingdom of God
and reveal God to all people. The Holy Spirit of God abided in Jesus so that he
could carry out his mission on the earth, which included healing all types of
sicknesses and diseases.
Jesus' anointing set him apart from mere humans. The Spirit
of God dwelled in him. That same Spirit can dwell in us as well via the Holy
Ghost. So Jesus was set apart to do the ultimate of dying for our sins and he
was empowered by God to carry out his task.
Salvation
What is salvation? Salvation is the act of being snatched
from harm or delivered from impending danger. When we think of salvation we must
consider the entire scope of our life and existence. A full coverage of this is
found in my study A Study on Salvation. However, I will briefly cover the
topic here because understanding salvation is crucial to understanding the
purpose of Jesus Christ.
Why Is It Necessary?
Salvation is necessary because all people are headed to
destruction regardless of how good we think we are. There are important
implications of this that we will discuss later. Consider what the Apostle Paul
said.
Romans 6:20 through Romans 6:23 (KJV) 20For when ye were the
servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. 21What fruit had
ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those
things is death. 22But now being made free from sin, and
become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end
everlasting life. 23For the wages of sin is death; but the
gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Sin leads to death and we all come into this world with the
sin nature that was passed down to us since the original sin.
Romans 5:12 (KJV) 12Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into
the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all
have sinned:
What is the consequence of this sin? As pointed out
previously, sin produces death. What is death? Death means a separation from
something. We normally think of physical death, which is really the separation
of the spirit from the body. Another type of death is the separation of the
human spirit form the Spirit of God (See Revelation 20:14, 21:8). This is
the main reason that salvation is necessary, namely to join (reconcile) us to
God (See 2 Corinthians 5:18-20).
In the Old Testament the sins of the people were atoned by
animal sacrifices. However, this would not cover the sins of the world. These
rituals were only a premonition until Christ came. The inadequacy of these
sacrifices is evident when you consider that they were repeatedly done. Now God
sacrificed Jesus Christ for the sins of the world. Consider the following
scripture.
Hebrews 10:3 through Hebrews 10:4 (NKJV) 3But in those sacrifices
there is a reminder of sins every year. 4For it is not
possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins.
The Sacrifice
Humans had to pay for their own sins. My sin nature destined
me to the 'second death' or destruction. Therefore, only a human being could
atone for a human being. However, a mere human could not die for the sins of all
humans. We could only "pay" for our own sins. After all the wages of
sin is death. There needed to be something that transcended the limited human
nature so that the one sacrifice would atone for the sins of all people.
The one sacrifice that would accomplish this is the sacrifice
of Emanuel or God with us, namely Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ was human in the
sense that he was a human being and not a mere phantom of a man, as some
believe. He had a body and all of the temptations that went along with humans
(See Hebrews 4:15).
So because of Jesus' humanity he could die for humans and
because of his deity his sacrifice could account for all humans and not just his
own.
God's Desire
God simply wanted his children/people back. He created the
human race in his image and in his likeness. However, we became not like God but
like the evil one because of our sin nature. The nature of God was replaced with
the nature to sin, which is in opposition with God. How could God acquire the
hearts of his children and bring them back into agreement with him? Replacing
the sinful nature of humans with the Holy Spirit could do it. The reason we sin
and oppose God is because of the sin nature that we have. Consequently, Jesus
Christ did not sin because he did not have the sin nature that we are all born
with. Remember, he was born of the Holy. We would be born from death to life via
the Holy Spirit of God. That is, we would be born again as we are rejoined with
our heavenly Father, the one that created us and everything else in the first
place.
Jesus Christ was the agent of that salvation. We all were on
our way to total separation from God, i.e., death. We were all destined to the
bottomless pit that was meant for Satan and the fallen angels. God delivered us
from that by offering Jesus Christ as the atonement sacrifice for our sins. The
only requirement is that we believe in Jesus Christ that he is the son of the
living God, that he died for our sins and was raised from the dead on the third
day (See 1 Corinthians 5:1-4).
Our salvation is possible because of what Jesus Christ did,
namely die as a sacrifice for our sins. Jesus Christ paid the ransom for our
salvation and therefore life. All we have to do is accept the payment that he
made on our behalf and avoid having to pay for our own sins. If we do not
believe in Jesus Christ then we are still destined to die for our own sins.
The Purpose of Jesus Christ
Ultimately, the purpose of Jesus Christ was to save us from
our sins. Consider the scripture that we discussed earlier.
Matthew 1:21 (NKJV) And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His
name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins."
We have to realize that salvation is more than the "I'm
going to go to heaven when I die" mentality in order to understand the full
context of this purpose. We were originally created in the image of God but sin
separated us from God. Consider the following scripture.
Romans 5:19 (KJV) 19For as by one man's disobedience many were
made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.
So by the obedient act of Jesus Christ suffering and dying on
the cross, many can be made righteous (in right standing with God, i.e.,
justified). Jesus provided a way for us to be reconciled to God.
Reconciliation
Consider the following verse.
2 Corinthians 5:18 through 2 Corinthians 5:19 (NKJV) 18Now all
things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus
Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, 19that is,
that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their
trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
The word reconciliation here is a concept that has existed
since the Old Testament. First let's define the word reconciliation as given
in the Holman Bible Dictionary.
RECONCILIATION: The establishment of friendly
relations between parties who are at variance with each other, making peace
after an engagement in war, or readmission to the presence and favor of a person
after rebellion against the person.
Sin has caused a chasm to exist between humanity and God. Our
sin separates us from God and our original purpose of fellowship with the
Father. God, in his great mercy, took it upon himself to extend grace to us by
offering a way for us to come back to him instead of him simply destroying all
humans on the earth. God still loved humanity even though we turned our backs on
him. This is why the Apostle John could say,
John 3:16 (NKJV) 16For God so loved the world that He gave His
only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have
everlasting life.
God demonstrated his love for us by sending his son to die so
that we can be reconciled with him. The result of this fellowship of spirits is
that we inherit eternal life, that is the life of the Father. This means that we
will always be in fellowship with God and the chasm between us would be
eliminated. All this was accomplished and made possible by Jesus Christ.
Basically our heavenly Father wanted us back and so he sent Jesus to accomplish
this.
The Consequences of The Union
Reconciliation is not the end. Reconciliation means that we
have been born again from death to life and therefore joined with God (at peace
with Him). We have become members of the family of God again (returned to the
fold). Now what? Christians must BE Christians. There is a lifestyle associated
with those who are born again because God is a certain WAY and we now have his
nature via the Holy Spirit. Those who are in fellowship with God should govern
their lives and act in a manner that is consistent with God's WAY. The New
Testament is full of teachings on how to live the Christian life. That subject
is beyond the scope of this study, however see my study "Living a
Life in Christ" for more information.
Jesus Christ came so that we might have life. His purpose was
to provide an avenue for us to get to God. He said,
John 14:6 (NKJV) 6Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the
truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
Jesus is the way to God and therefore life (the life of God).
Now Jesus didn't come down on earth, die, ascend to heaven and then tell us to
believe Him. He also taught us the Kingdom of God. He taught us how God's
Kingdom operates and therefore we have a guide to use in governing our lives.
See my family fellowship study guide on The Kingdom of God.
So we must believe in Jesus Christ to acquire eternal life
and we must heed his teachings to live according to that life (God's WAY). So
the consequence of being reconciled to God is that we have to live according to
God's WAY, which is revealed in the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Christianity, ETHICS, and Religion
I think it expedient to distinguish between the fundamental
teachings of Christianity and the ethics that derive from Christianity. I also
believe that there is a need to distinguish between the fundamental teachings of
Christianity and the religious teachings that we find in many churches.
Christianity deals with Jesus Christ and his life-giving act. It deals with the
Kingdom of God and how we should govern our lives according to that Kingdom. We
can take the basic teachings of Christianity and apply them to our lives and
therefore govern our lives according to God's WAY.
Ethical teachings are primarily the application of the
teachings that are in the Bible (Christian fundamentals and God's WAY). The
Apostle Paul, for example, applied the basic teachings of Jesus Christ to church
conduct and general Christian conduct. This is a very important distinction
because we may mistake an ethical teaching for "raw data." Remember
that raw data is the fundamental teaching of the New Testament and in general
the Bible as a whole as it applies to the New Testament Christian.
In addition to ethical teachings, there are teachings that
are tied to religion. For example, every church has a particular way of doing
things and a certain belief, which is the application of a concept found in the
Bible (not in all cases). These beliefs may not be fundamental to the Christian
faith but they are still considered important. Sometimes these ethical or
religious teachings are taught as though they are a requirement for salvation or
acceptance by God. The Epistle to the Galatians is an example of this situation.
We see that it is very important that you distinguish the
fundamental Christian belief as revealed in the New Testament and the
applications of those teachings. The point is that the purpose of Jesus Christ
has very little to do with religion and religious teachings. Religion is
basically the acts of righteousness and in some cases just acts. For example,
consider the following scripture.
James 1:27 (NKJV) 27Pure and undefiled religion before God
and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and
to keep oneself unspotted from the world.
The word religion in this scripture means pious acts. Review
Matthew Chapter six as an example of pious acts such as prayer to be seen and
giving to the poor. So don't confuse religious teachings with the teachings of
Jesus Christ and therefore true Christianity. Jesus Christ came to save and not
to bind you will an abundance of rules and regulations.
Conclusion
The purpose of Jesus Christ can be summarized as follows; 1)
To save us from our sins, 2) To reveal the Father to us and lead us to Him,
3) To reveal the Kingdom of God so that we can live according to God's WAY.
Overall, Jesus came to reconcile us to God so that we can have eternal life.
Jesus came to free us not bind us. Jesus is the express image of God so that
when we see Jesus we see God the Father. We are free from the bondage and penalty
of sin when we believe in Jesus Christ. This is far removed and transcends any
church religion or any particular church doctrine. Again, the purpose of Jesus
Christ is to provide a way for us to be at peace with the Father. Jesus came
so that we might have life and not death.
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