JESUS CHRIST: GOD-MAN - Vital Christianity

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For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ
died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that
He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures" (1 Co 15:1-4).
Notice that the Gospel that is to be believed is the gospel "according to the Scriptures"
(v. 4). Also notice the centrality of the Person and Work of Jesus. It was His death,
burial and resurrection that saves. But it saves only as we respond to this message in faith. When
we believe the witness of Scripture to the saving act of Christ (not only that He died and rose
again, but that He died for our sins and rose again victorious over sin, death, and Satan) then
Christ comes to indwell us.
THE WRITTEN AND THE LIVING WORD
This is so because in Jesus there is the marriage or joining of His Person and His Word.
One cannot logically accept His person and reject His Word. This is so because it is in the
preaching of the inspired witness of Holy Scripture about Jesus that He comes to the believing
heart. This is true because the written witness of the life of Christ (Lk 1:1-4) is the extension
of the spoken word. Christ offered Himself in the words which He spoke:
"I tell you the truth, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me
has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death
to life" (Jn 5:24).
Just as Christ offered Himself in the words He spoke, so Christ is now offered by the
written word of special revelation—the record of His spoken word—Holy Scripture. The only
Lord we can believe in is the Lord who is shown in the pages of the Bible. All one knows of the
Living Word is what the written Word has revealed. The Living Savior comes to people only
in the garments of Scripture. The greatest miracle of God is that when the Christ of the Bible is
faithfully preached the living Lord truly comes to believing hearts.
It is told of Leonardo de Vinci, that when he was ready to depict the face of Christ in his
masterpiece, "The Last Supper," he prepared himself by prayer and meditation. Yet when he
raised his brush to give expression to his religious devotion, his hand trembled.
Only such an attitude and reaction is proper and right when one tries to paint a
theological picture of Jesus of Nazareth. The attempt to understand, proclaim, and teach who He
is, His Person—His nature and character, His perfections and sufferings, His mission and
ministry—will always fall short of what is worthy of Him. Yet it is a noble and needful
undertaking in these last days when false prophets and false teachers are zealously and fervently
disseminating their "Jesus" and their "Gospel."