Monday, April 23
Sin separated the human race from God; a yawning chasm opened between them, and unless that chasm closed, humanity was doomed to eternal destruction. The gulf was deep and dangerous. It took something utterly incredible to solve the problem of sin and to reunite sinful humanity with a righteous and holy God. It took One eternal with God Himself, One as divine as God Himself, to become a human being and, in that humanity, offer Himself as a sacrifice for our sins.
Christ was eternal and not dependent upon anyone or anything for His existence. He was God — not the mere outward appearance of God but God Himself. His essential nature was divine and eternal. Jesus retained that divinity but became a human being in order to keep the law in human flesh and to die as a Substitute for all those who have broken the law, which is all of us (Romans 3:23) .
Christ became human, without any advantage over other humans. He kept God’s law, not through His internal divine power but by relying upon the same external divine power available to any other human.
Jesus was fully God and fully human. This means that the One who upholds “all things by the word of his power” (Hebrews 1:3) was the same One who was found as a “babe lying in a manger” (Luke 2:16). This means that the One who “is before all things, and in Him all things consist” (Colossians 1:17, NKJV) is the same One who, as a human child, “increased in wisdom and stature” (Luke 2:52). This means that the One without whom “nothing was made that was made” (John 1:3, NKJV) was the same One who was “murdered by hanging on a tree” (Acts 5:30, NKJV).
If all this reveals to us Christ’s love for us, and Christ’s love for us is but a manifestation of the Father’s love for us, then no wonder we have so many reasons to rejoice and be thankful!
Read Romans 8:38, 39. How does what we read in the study today give us powerful reasons to trust in what Paul says to us here?
