01/16/2008
John 17:1 - 5 (HCSB)
1Jesus spoke these things, looked up to heaven, and said:
Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son so that the Son may glorify You, 2 for You gave Him authority over all flesh; so He may give eternal life to all You have given Him. 3 This is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and the One You have sent—Jesus Christ. 4 I have glorified You on the earth by completing the work You gave Me to do. 5 Now, Father, glorify Me in Your presence with that glory I had with You before the world existed.
In my studies, I have come across many New Age religions that want to claim that Christ-hood is something that can be attained or earned. Many of these may acknowledge Jesus as a Christ but not necessarily the Christ. They claim that he was such a spiritual person that he became a Christ.
This type of argument serves two purposes. First, it downplays who Jesus is. If Jesus were one of perhaps many Christs, then his significance is diminished. Further, if there are many Christs, then we are not obligated to honor any one in particular. Secondly, it emphasizes that we, individually, can attain Christ-hood. This means that we, if we are spiritual enough, can become equal with Jesus.
Of course, all of these schemes are wrong. We must also remember that “Christ” is merely the Greek word for “Messiah.” The idea of a Messiah is purely Judaic in origin. As Christians, we see ourselves as extensions of Judaism, not adversaries with it. Therefore, when those outside of Judaism or Christianity speak of a “Christ,” they are not using the word in its proper context.
Nevertheless, Jesus said of himself that he was in God’s presence “before the world existed.” If this is true, then Jesus is more than human. Indeed, as Christians, we see Jesus as the second person of the trinity of the Godhead.
Have you ever tried to imagine eternity? I recall President Reagan describing the national debt as a stack of dollar bills that would reach the distance from the earth to the moon. Yet eternity would make that seem a mere speck. The point is, we struggle to understand the vastness and immensity of God, yet, He came to be with us in the form of man. God came to relate to us in terms and a form that we could mentally comprehend – yet He remained God.
We should never fall into the temptation of thinking that Jesus was nothing more than you or I; that He somehow attained the rank of Christ. He was conceived and born as Christ. He lived and died as Christ. There was no other, and will be no other equal to Him. Let us honor Jesus as the one and only Christ, Messiah, Anointed One, sent to us from God.
Jeff Justus
Cleff Publishing
www.cleffpublishing.com
©2008 Cleff Publishing, all rights reserved.
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