JESUS CHRIST: GOD-MAN - Vital Christianity

158
Jesus' humanity made it possible to become a sacrifice for humanity. By assuming a body
Jesus could offer up that body as the perfect sacrifice for man's sin. Thus it is not just His deity
but also His humanity which makes His sacrificial death possible:
"Since the children have flesh and blood, He [Christ] too shared in their humanity
so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is,
the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of
death" (2:14-15).
One of the purposes of Jesus' death is also given: "to destroy him who holds the power of
death--that is, the devil."
By this destruction believers can be freed from their fear of death. Jesus has not only
dealt with our fear of the past but also our fear of the future. Freedom from the fear of death is
guaranteed for those who put their trust in the man Jesus.
J. B. Phillips, while working on his paraphrase of the New Testament, shares how
impressed he was with the deeply human nature of Christ's sufferings as he was translating the
accounts in the gospels:
"The record of the behavior of Jesus on the way to the cross and of the crucifixion
itself is almost unbelievable, chiefly because it is so intensely human. If, as I believe,
this was indeed God focused in a human being, we can see for ourselves that here is
no play acting; this is the real thing. There are no supernatural advantages for this
man. No celestial rescue party delivered Him from the power of evil men, and His
agony was not mitigated by any superhuman anaesthetic. We can only guess what
frightful anguish of mind and spirit wrung from him the terrible words 'My God,
my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' But the cry 'It is finished!' cannot be one of
despair. It does not even mean 'It is all over.' It means 'It has been completed'—
and the terrifying task of doing God's will to the bitter end had been fully and finally
accomplished.'"5
It is this suffering and death that helps us to know that Jesus experienced what we
experience. And this was possible only because He is one of us!
The Bodily Resurrection of Jesus
Most cults deny the "bodily" resurrection of Jesus Christ. Like Greek philosophy they
affirm a spiritual resurrection. For instance, the Watchtower of the Jehovah's Witnesses states: