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God’s Purpose In The Beginning

We have seen that God planned in the very beginning, in Eden, to provide a Saviour - one who would overcome the power of sin. The one who would bring such blessing upon the human race would be from the line of Abraham. Mary recognised that her son was the one promised and in her Song of Rejoicing she sang:

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior ... He has helped His servant Israel, in remembrance of His mercy, as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever. (Luke 1:46-47, 54-5)

Moses was inspired to prophesy about him:

Moses truly said to the fathers, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things, whatever He says to you.’ (Acts 3:22)

Prophecies About the Birth of Jesus

The facts concerning the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ were foretold in Bible prophecy:

All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.” (Matthew 1:22)

Matthew is quoting from the prophet Isaiah.

Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)

Matthew records the visit of the Wise Men to Jerusalem, who asked King Herod:

“Where is He who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the East and have come to worship Him.”

When Herod enquired of the chief priests and scribes, they were able to answer him from Bible prophecy:

They said to him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet: ‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are not the least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you shall come a Ruler who will shepherd My people Israel.’ ”

They were quoting from the prophet Micah. (Micah 5:2)

So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.” (Matthew 1:22)

Another well-known prophecy, often quoted at Christmas time, confirms that Jesus was born to become a king:

For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end, upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. (Isaiah 9:6-7)

Searching for the Messiah

At the time of the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Jews were suffering at the hands of their Roman conquerors. The above quotation was one which prompted them to look for their messiah — the one they expected to deliver His people and establish His kingdom. In Jewish thought, the Messiah would be the king of the Jews, a political leader who would defeat their enemies and bring in a golden era of peace and prosperity. Well did they know God’s promise to David:

When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers, I will set up your seed after you, who will come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. I will be his Father, and he shall be My son. …your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you. Your throne shall be established forever. (2 Samuel 7:12)

At this difficult time in their history many were looking for their Messiah, to destroy their Roman enemies and usher in that golden age:

Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against His Anointed … He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision. Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure: “Yet I have set My King on My holy hill of Zion.” “I will declare the decree: The Lord has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, And the ends of the earth for Your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; you shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.’ ” (Psalm 2:1-9)

They had totally missed the point that their Messiah would have to come as a suffering saviour before he could return in triumph to destroy his enemies and usher in that everlasting golden age of the Kingdom of God. The prophet Isaiah paints a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ as God’s suffering servant, of which the following is an example:

He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth.

… For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked—But with the rich at His death, because He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, for He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. (Isaiah 53:3-12)

It was God’s purpose from the beginning to send Jesus and, when the right time came, God’s purpose was put into effect. John wrote:

The Word (Jesus) was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth. (John 1:14).

Why Did Jesus Come?

A well-known verse quoted before in these studies says:

God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)

God gave Jesus to the world in a very real sense. The angel Gabriel had appeared to Mary to tell her she was to have a son. Mary asked how this was possible, as she was a virgin. The angel replied:

The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. (Luke 1:35)

Sacrifice

You may know that in Old Testament times, animals were sacrificed as a continual reminder of the consequence of sin and of a way of deliverance. The man who offered, recognised that death was the result of sin, and sometimes he had to associate himself with the death of the animal as a sign that he recognised this principle:

If his offering is a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish; he shall offer it of his own free will at the door of the tabernacle of meeting before the Lord. Then he shall put his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him. (Leviticus 1:3-4)

Paul wrote:

The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23)

In the Letter to the Hebrews, three points about sacrifices are made very clearly:

(a) A reminder: sin brings death

The sacrifices in Old Testament times provided a reminder of the principle that sin brings death - a principle established in the beginning:

In those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. (Hebrews 10:3)

(b) As the animals had done no wrong, they only represented the teaching:

For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. (Hebrews 10:1)

(c) The sacrifice of animals could never take away sin:

For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins. (Hebrews 10:4)

The Bible makes it clear that what the sacrifice of animals could never do, Jesus was able to by giving his life as a perfect sacrifice:

But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God (Hebrews 10:12)

A New Beginning In Adam all die

The Bible shows that as Adam brought sin and, therefore, death into the world by his disobedience, so Jesus by his perfect life, ‘brought life and immortality to light’ (2 Timothy 1:10).

Because Jesus lived a perfect life, when he died it was ‘not possible’ that he should remain dead God raised him from the dead.

God raised up (Jesus), having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it. (Acts 2:24)

The contrast between the effect of Adam’s disobedience and the effect of the obedience of Jesus is referred to many times:

Just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned ... For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous ... that as sin reigned in death, even so grace might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 5:12, 19, 21)

As we follow the pattern set by Adam, so we can be related to the pattern set by Jesus. We can be related to the life he came to bring:

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. (1 Corinthians 15:22)

Salvation Is Conditional Upon Belief

Study 2 explained that man naturally is mortal and dies and that faith is needed to relate him to the life that God has offered. That study pointed out that this has only been made possible by the work of Jesus:

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 6:23)

So the salvation that God offers is conditional:

God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish ... (John 3:16)

This is why the Son of God was called Jesus:

He shall save his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21).

The Work Of Jesus Now

After his resurrection Jesus ascended to heaven and two angels declared he would return again:

Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven. (Acts 1:11)

Peter said that Jesus would remain in heaven until the ‘restoration of all things’

Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began. (Acts 3:19-21)

The Work of Jesus Now

Jesus will return to fulfil the rest of God’s purpose in him. Meanwhile, He is a mediator - one who is in between God and man. He is described as a High Priest who can intercede for us to the Almighty:

There is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5)

The Letter to the Hebrews explains that because Jesus lived his life on earth and was made in every way ‘like unto his brethren’ He can understand how we feel and can be sympathetic to our needs:

In all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. (Hebrews 2:17)

For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:15-16)