Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
A frequently asked question about Jesus is: Who was He, and who is He?
His own family and fellow townspeople didn't know who He was (is); they thought He was an enemy. Recognizing His identity still splits churches almost everywhere. We're all agreed on His divinity: He is the divine Son of the Father, the Creator of the universe, utterly sinless. The problem: Who is Jesus in regard to His incarnation?
We are generally united in seeing Him as the descendant of Adam; but which Adam? The sinless one before he and Eve sinned? Or is He the descendant of the fallen, sinful Adam?
The issue is not whether Jesus was perfectly sinless in His incarnation: none of us have misgivings regarding the perfect sinlessness of Jesus in His nature as a human. The issue is: Did Jesus have to contend with and condemn sin in His human nature? This is the struggle all of us have. Or was Jesus "exempt" from this struggle, so that He had no battle with sin to "overcome"? What does He mean when He says to us, "To him who overcomes I will grant to sit with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne" (Rev. 3:21)?
Romans has the answer, clear as sunlight: "God [sent] His own Son in the likeness of sinfulflesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh" (8:3). Evidently Jesus had the same battle we all have; He has come very close to us; where we have failed in letting sin overcome us, He succeeded in overcoming sin--perfectly.
But that's not all the Good News: He will have a people who receive His faith and they will overcome "as [He] also overcame" (Rev. 3:21). Romans continues, "that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the [Holy] Spirit" (8:4). They will be those translated at Jesus' second coming (cf. Rev. 14:1-5; 1 Thess. 4:16, 17).
On the happiest page of the entire Bible (the last one), you and I are invited: "The [Holy] Spirit and the bride say, 'Come!' And let him who hears say, 'Come!' And let him who thirsts come. And whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely" (Rev. 22:17).
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: April 5, 2008.
Copyright © 2014 by "Dial Daily Bread."
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