Our Confession: Who is Jesus?
Tomorrow is Christmas – when we celebrate the incarnation of Jesus coming to earth as a baby so that he could die in our place and bring salvation. He came to die. That was his purpose. But what made him fit to die in our place? How could he absorb the full weight of the wrath of God for sin? Surely, he was no ordinary man. As the soldier exclaimed when he beheld the death of Jesus, “Truly this man was the Son of God!” (Matthew 27:54).
The only reason Jesus could fully atone for our sins was because he came to earth being both fully God and fully man. This is a foundational belief for those who confess Christianity. Our eternal destiny is based on what we believe about Jesus. Whether he is truly God (as he claimed to be) or whether he was just a good teacher.
The Confession of Christ as the God-Man
“The Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance and equal with the Father, did, when the fullness of time was come, take upon Him man’s nature, with all the essential properties, and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin; being conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost, in the womb of the virgin Mary, of her substance. So that two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion. Which person is very God, and very man, yet one Christ, the only Mediator between God and Man” (WCF 8.2).
This is a profound theological statement of the identity of Christ. That, although Christ was both God and man, those natures were inseparably joined together in Christ without conversion, composition, or confusion. There was no blending of the two natures of Christ, yet they are one and find their expression in the God-man, Jesus Christ. This mystery is profound and I would argue that even in eternity, we will not be able to grasp this mystery. This is truly something only God could accomplish.
Who Will We Believe?
“If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that he has born concerning his Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has born concerning his Son.” (1 John 5:9-10).
In this passage, John is making an argument from the lesser to the greater. In a courtroom situation, we readily receive the testimony of two or three witnesses as truth. This is also what God requires in the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 19:15).
If we eagerly and readily receive these testimonies as true from mere humans, shouldn’t we receive the witness of the all-knowing Creator of the universe as being sufficient for telling us the truth about Jesus?
John even says that if you disbelieve God’s testimony of Christ, you are calling God a liar. This is an extremely serious matter and should cause us to pause and think about what we truly believe about Jesus. Was he just a moral man or a good teacher? Or is he who God says he is? The incarnate Son of God?
Who Do You Say That I Am?
Jesus poses this question to the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:16). Peter responds, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Who do you say Jesus is?
What you believe about him and his deity is literally everything because there is no life outside of him. We must be found in Christ.
“And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
Brittany Proffitt lives in Dallas and is a writer and content manager for So We Speak.
