From shredding our mail to using security software, we try to protect our personal information, but how would I prove who I am if someone stole my identity? If another person got their hands on my birth certificate, Social Insurance Number, address and so on, how could I show that I am the real me?
It is easier to prove my nature. That is, I am a human being, a woman, and most could guess my age within a few years. In the New Testament, when Jesus asked His disciples who He was, they knew He was talking about that. Even though they replied with His name or title, the identity beyond the name is what makes Jesus unique.
He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:15–16)A son of a beaver is a beaver with characteristics of its father. It would act like a beaver and do the things beavers do. The son of a human being is human with human characteristics. He would act like a human (at least most of them do) and do the things that humans do.
Peter said that Jesus is the Son of the living God. That means Peter knew that this person who asked the question was not mere human. He wore the body of a human, was born of a woman like a human, but His Father was God. This Jesus demonstrated the qualities and characteristics of God. He did things that only God can do.
I’m well aware that this is difficult to understand. To put the incarnation into its simplest terms, God who cannot be restricted to time, space, or form, put on human flesh like a man might put on a pair of pants and stepped into our world. God is spirit and not visible, but He became visible that we might see Him and know what He is like. He also became a man that He could take our punishment for sin.
Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. (Philippians 2:5–8)I’m not sure which part of this passage is the most amazing; that Jesus Christ who is God became a man and died for me, or that He tells me to be like Him in attitude, to have the same mind. I know that God created me, but I also know that I was not created a child of God in the same way that Jesus is the Son of God.
When God created human beings, we are made in His image in some way, but we were made of earth, not the same essence as God. We sin; He does not. We are finite; He is infinite. We have limits to our knowledge, power, and presence is space and time; He does not.
But we see Jesus — who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone. (Hebrews 2:9)I am a child of God, but I could not have done that. My sinful nature makes any sacrifice of mine tainted and unacceptable to God. Only the sinless One could be a perfect sacrifice. Even though Jesus wore flesh, there the resemblance to humanity ends. It is as Paul said when he wrote to Timothy:
Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up in glory. (1 Timothy 3:16)Great indeed is this mystery. I know who He is, and I know what the Bible says about Him is true, yet when I think of it and try to wrap my mind around it, the identity of Jesus Christ is more amazing than my brain can process. People call themselves by His name, and argue about who He is, but one thing is certain — no one can steal the identity of the Son of God.
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