Eternal Jesus lived in time so we could live in eternity

 

Eternity is a difficult concept for the finite human mind. We live in time and cannot imagine the idea of how God perceives everything as NOW, rather than past, present, and future. When I read the Bible, I must remember that God presents things to us in ways we can understand, mostly in terms of time. However, some of what He says is eternally true.

One example is my salvation. He revealed Himself to me one afternoon and I became a Christian. Yet He says He chose me in Christ “before the foundation of the world, that I should be holy and blameless before him.” (Ephesians 1:4) Revelation also indicates that He has written the names of those who are His in His book of life “from the foundation of the world” so in the mind of God, I have been His always, not just the fifty plus years of time.

When it comes to the person of Jesus Christ, today’s devotional said that He did not become a Son until He was born in time on this earth. Before that, He was the Word of God — who became flesh and lived here. Yet this is about time, not about eternity. God refers to Him as His Son in Psalm 2 and the NT says He is eternal:

And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son . . . And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. (1 John 5:11; 20)

He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you (1 Peter 1:20)

To further this complicated topic, Jesus is also a child, a son, mighty God, and everlasting Father:

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)

So how can I understand all this? By reasoning? By human debate? The whole truth about God is not available to even the most rational mind because sin makes even the best thinkers blind to the true nature of God. We cannot see all of Him.

By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. (Hebrews 11:3)

At the same time, if we could see Him, the OT says we would die, yet Job declared, “After my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God” (Job 19:26) and Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matthew 5:8) And John did see this God when He became a man:

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. (1 John 1:1–3)

In human understanding and in time, the Word of God became flesh and visible, yet He was there in the beginning when God spoke all things into creation. As the Bible says, This mystery was “hidden for ages in God, who created all things” by His Word who became flesh but who always existed.

Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory. (1 Timothy 3:16)

I cannot say Jesus became the Son when He was born. That is a time thing — and He is eternal. But I cannot think eternal very well, only to realize that His taking on human flesh happened in time but was planned before the foundation of the world. God is eternal yet stepped into time — because He loves us and wants us to step into eternity and be with Him. I am there in the mind of God, yet not yet there according to time!

PRAY: Jesus, the explanations of You are not for me to rationalize but to put me on my knees in worship. You are Almighty yet made Yourself vulnerable so I could have Your eternal life — and while that life seems to begin in time, You planned it in eternity. All I can do is shake my head in total wonder at the amazement of You.

PONDER: the wonder of God becoming a man and that I will eventually see Jesus and be like Him!

 

 

Even when we are not sure . . .

 

We heard yesterday of a man who screamed for God to reveal Himself, but when nothing happened, that man ran about as far from God and the things of God as he could go. Why didn’t God MANIFEST Himself to this man? Only God knows. Scripture says He can and that He already has.

In the OT, Ezekiel speaks His promise to His people, “to bring them out of the countries where they were scattered” and to “manifest His holiness among them” so they would “know that He is the Lord” when He brings them into their land. He would manifest Himself to their enemies by sending judgments against them and manifest His holiness by blessing His people in safety and security so “they will know that I am the Lord their God.”

In the NT, Jesus is God made known. 1 John 4:9–10 says:

“In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

John wrote how Jesus “manifested His glory” by turning water into wine. When asked how He would manifest himself to the disciple and not to the rest of the world, Jesus replied:

“If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.” John 14:21–24.

His prayer in John 17 revealed that seeing who He is must be revealed in a relationship of faith and by an act of God the Father: “I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.”

The identity of Jesus Christ is not all that God makes manifest. He also reveals that His righteousness is not about our ability to keep His law, but a gift through faith in His Son. This is true for all people for “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

After faith, the identity of God is made manifest as He empowers His people with spiritual gifts that He uses “for the common good” and to “build up the church.” He also manifests Himself in the lives of His people as we die to the power of sin so that “the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.”

As marvelous as that is, the greater marvel is Jesus Christ. 1 Timothy 3:16 says, “Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness: He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the nations, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.”

God also “saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel” saving us “with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.”

For that reason, I GAZE INTO HIS GLORY, seeing with spiritual eyes “that which was from the beginning, which I have heard . . . the Word of life, the life made manifest . . . and proclaim that eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to me” so that I can have fellowship together with Him, the God who reveals Himself, not because I demand it, or earn it, or deserve it, but because He loves me and died for my sin.