Why the Christ? I believe the
answer is couched firmly in the character of God Himself. The Scriptures teach many truths about the
character of God: God is all-powerful, God is all-knowing, God is all-transcendent
and all-immanent, God is immutable, God is eternal (forwards and backwards),
God is all-sufficient, and also too many other superlatives than we can truly
grapple with! Bearing all this in mind,
however, I believe the most standout feature of God’s character – the highest
and best side of Him if you like – is His holiness. It is interesting: the angels in heaven see
God all of the time and the Scriptures show us that what they note first and
foremost about Him is His holiness rather than His beauty, power, etc. The
angels note again and again that God is “holy, holy, holy”! God is never “loving, loving, loving” or “merciful,
merciful, merciful” – but He is thrice Holy!
I believe the answer of the question “why the Christ?” is to be found in
God’s holiness.
The simplest way to
comprehend “holiness” is to think of it as all-encompassing, total, and
absolute purity and perfection in every way, shape, and form. Due to the impurity and imperfection of our
own existence I would posit that it is impossible for us to accurately say, “I
get it!” when it comes to the idea of what it truly means that God is “Holy,
Holy, Holy”. I realize this is an
arguable statement, however, I would declare that God’s holiness is the engine
which drives all of His other standout characteristics. The absoluteness of God’s holiness require Jesus.
Absolute perfection and
purity CANNOT abide ANY imperfection or impurity. It is fully impossible: if purity abides
impurity it becomes impure itself. This
truth is why the Bible states that a loving God judges and will judge. Judgment must come from the pure against the
impure. It absolutely has to take
place. The Old Testament gives us a clear
picture of this truth in the eleventh chapter of the book of Hosea:
11:1 When Israel was
a young man, I loved him like a son,
and
I summoned my son out of Egypt.
11:2 But the more I
summoned them,
the
farther they departed from me.
They
sacrificed to the Baal idols
and
burned incense to images.
11:3 Yet it was I who
led Ephraim,
I
took them by the arm;
but
they did not acknowledge
that
I had healed them.
11:4 I led them with
leather cords,
with
leather ropes;
I
lifted the yoke from their neck,
and
gently fed them.
11:5 They will return
to Egypt!
Assyria
will rule over them
because
they refuse to repent!
11:6 A sword will
flash in their cities,
it
will destroy the bars of their city gates,
and
will devour them in their fortresses.
11:7 My people are
obsessed with turning away from me;
they
call to Baal, but he will never exalt them!
The
Divine Dilemma: Judgment or Mercy?
11:8 How can I give
you up, O Ephraim?
How
can I surrender you, O Israel?
How
can I treat you like Admah?
How
can I make you like Zeboiim?
I
have had a change of heart!
All
my tender compassions are aroused!
11:9 I cannot carry
out my fierce anger!
I
cannot totally destroy Ephraim!
Because
I am God, and not man—the Holy One among you—
I
will not come in wrath![1]
I love this passage! It is an incredibly clear picture of the
reason for Jesus. We clearly see the
fullness of God’s loving compassion; here it is specifically referenced to His
people Israel. However, we also are
clearly confronted with the wrath of God which must flash out against God’s
people in their rebellion against Him.
Yet the passage ends with the statement by God, “I cannot carry out my
fierce anger . . . I will not come in wrath.”
So how does this work? Is God a
schizophrenic? The answer can be simply
stated in one word: JESUS! The Apostle
Paul answers the above dilemma in the following manner when he writes, “But
when the appropriate time had come, God sent out his Son, born of a woman, born
under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we may be
adopted as sons with full rights.”[2] In these thoughts we
close in on the answer to our original question, “Why the Christ?”.
God’s
absolute moral perfection – His holiness – demands a negative response to any
form of moral imperfection. God is
absolute love, but He cannot simply forgive without redemption taking place. Moral imperfection must be redeemed, or
covered, by perfection in order for the restoration of fellowship. God sent Jesus to pay the price required to
return that which is imperfect into harmony with the perfect. God can make the seemingly contradictory
statements He makes in Hosea because of Jesus.
The act of Jesus taking on humanity and dying as a human – yet a human
who did no wrong nor ever became impure – satisfied the demands of God’s
holiness. The author C.S. Lewis wrote
this thought in this manner: “the Witch knew the Deep Magic, [but] there is a
magic deeper still which she did not know.
If she could have looked further back . . . she would have known that
when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s
stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward” (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,
163).
The Bible
teaches us that we are the ultimate traitors against a Thrice-Holy God and that
Jesus was a willing victim – like us in every way except for our moral
imperfection – who paid the penalty in our stead. The rebellion against God by the first Adam
brought the penalty of death and the necessity for God’s wrath. However, the substitutionary death of Jesus
made possible, as we saw the Apostle Paul write above, not simply a balancing
of the scales but “more better!” the possibility of our adoption as God’s Sons
and Daughters.
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