Taken Up
The Bible calls
Jesus Christ "God with us." Jesus is "God in the flesh," the eternal Son, sent
to us by the Father to be one of us.
What many people
don’t realize is that Jesus is still one of us. He didn’t become human
just for the duration of his physical life on earth; he continues as one of us
in his glorified state at the right hand of the Father.
In 1 Timothy 2:5-6,
Paul wrote, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the
man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men…”
Paul calls the
resurrected and ascended Jesus the “man” Christ Jesus. Jesus is still God in the
flesh, still one of us, fully God and fully human – but now he is
glorified.
As one of us, but
still God, Jesus presented all of humanity to the Father as a new creation,
redeemed in his perfect life of obedience to the Father, on our behalf
and in our place.
Of course, this is
something we didn’t earn or deserve. But Jesus did it so he could share with
us the life he has shared eternally with the Father and the Spirit. It was
God’s purpose for humanity from the beginning.
That’s what
salvation is all about – being made clean from our sins and being adopted into
God’s family – and learning how to live in God’s family.
The Father loves us
so much – in spite of our sins – that he sent the Son to do everything that was
necessary to bring us home. The Father and the Son then sent the Holy Spirit to
live in us and teach us how to live in God’s family so that we can
enjoy it – just as we were created to.
Paul wrote in
Romans 5:8: "…while we were yet sinners Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).
God didn’t wait for
us to get good enough to bring us into his household. If he waited for us to be
good enough, he would be waiting forever. No, it was simply out of his great
love for us that he acted on our behalf to save us from our sins and bring us
into his family. It was not because of anything we earned or deserved.
In verse 10 of
Romans 5, Paul wrote: "For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to
him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall
we be saved through his life!"
Did you notice that
Paul didn’t say, “will be reconciled”? Instead, he said, “having been
reconciled…”
Jesus reconciled us
to the Father—past tense. Our sins have already been paid for.
Our job is to
accept that, to believe it. Because Jesus has already done everything necessary
for our salvation, we simply need to repent, believe the good news, and follow
Jesus.
That is just
another way of saying turn to God and trust the Holy Spirit to teach us how to
enjoy life in God’s new creation in Christ.
I’m Joseph Tkach,
speaking of LIFE.
Copyright 2009 Grace Communion International
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