We believe that Jesus Christ is a completely unique (one of a kind) human being.
Why?
He is the only man who was ever born of a virgin (Matt. 1:18; Luke
1:35). God put a perfect seed in the womb of Mary so that Jesus would be
born without the sin nature that every other human being inherited from
the First Adam. Therefore, Jesus is the only-begotten Son of God (John
3:16) and the Son of Man (John 5:27).
He is the only man who is called “the Last Adam” (1 Cor. 15:45). As the
only-begotten Son of God, Jesus was the genetic equivalent to the first
“Son of God,” Adam (Luke 3:38). As the only man born without inherent
sin, Jesus was thus the only man equipped to be the Savior and Redeemer
of mankind. Romans 5:12-21 is the classic comparison of these two Adams
and the respective impact each had on mankind.
He is the only
man who had perfect faith in God, and who, by his free will choices to
trust God, lived a sinless life, always doing the will of his Father
(John 8:29). Jesus was not a robot, programmed to obey God. If so, he
could not have been genuinely tempted to sin, just like all men he came
to save (Heb. 4:15). The absence of a sin nature was not the reason why
Jesus did not sin. We know that because the First Adam also had no sin
nature, and he sinned royally.
He is the only man who died as
the perfect sacrifice for our sins (Heb. 10:12-14; 1 John 4:10). By his
virgin birth and his lifelong obedience to God, all the way to his dying
breath on the Cross, he became the perfect sacrifice for the sin and
sins of mankind (Heb. 2:17). Thus, he was the complete propitiation for
fallen men to be redeemed.
He is the only man God ever raised
from the dead unto everlasting life in order to confirm that he was who
he had said he was—the Son of God (Acts 17:31; Rom. 1:4). The
resurrection of Jesus Christ was God keeping His promise to His Son, and
also His affirmation to all men that Jesus is “the way, the truth, and
the life” (John 14:6).
He is the only man whom God highly
exalted as “Lord” and “Head of the Church,” and to whom God has given
all authority in heaven and on earth (Dan. 7:13-14; Phil. 2:9; Acts
2:36; Eph. 1:22; Matt. 28:18). As Pharaoh exalted Joseph to his right
hand and gave him all authority in Egypt (Gen. 41:37-46), so God has
given Jesus functional equality with Himself. Jesus Christ is now God’s
“right hand man” (Eph. 1:20), carrying out the work that will eventually
restore this fallen world.
He is the only man who is now the
Mediator between God and mankind (1 Tim. 2:5). It is Jesus Christ to
whom God has given the power to “save to the uttermost” all who call
upon his name, because he ever lives to make intercession for us (Heb.
7:25).
He is the only man who will gather together all
Christians to meet him “in the air” (1 Thess. 4:17) and give each one a
new body like his own (Phil. 3:21). As the promised “seed” of the woman
(Gen. 3:15), Jesus Christ will produce fruit after his kind, a race of
people living forever.
He is the only man who will one day
return to the earth, destroy all evil men (and eventually destroy Satan
and his evil spirit cohorts), and rule the earth as King for 1000 years
(Rev. 19:11-20:7). At his first coming to the earth to Israel, Jesus was
the sacrificial Lamb of God, but he will come again as the Lion of
Judah to save his people, Israel, and destroy all God’s enemies.
He is the only man who will raise from the dead every human being who
has ever lived (John 5:21, 25). As God has given Jesus “life in
himself,” so he will raise up all people.
He is the only man
who will judge all men and women of all time (John 5:22, 27). Jesus will
righteously judge all people, granting everlasting life to those who
deserve it, and annihilating all the wicked (Acts 17:31; John 5:28, 29).
He is the only man who will restore on a new earth the Paradise that
the First Adam lost (1 Cor. 15:24-28). As “the Last Adam,” Jesus was
God’s Contingency Plan to salvage His original plan that Adam’s
disobedience thwarted, that is, a perfect race of people living forever
on a perfect earth. Amen.
He is the only man who is our Savior,
our Redeemer, our Mediator, our Lord, our constant Companion, our Best
Friend, our Big Brother, the Light of our lives, our Peace, our Joy, and
our Mentor in the art of faith.
He is the Lover of our souls, and that is why we love him and confess him as Lord (Rom. 10:9).
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