1. JESUS IS THE HOLY ONE WHO SAVES

Jesus Christ is distinct, unique, and separate in all his attributes; he is the one invisible God, who is the Creator of the universe. Although the Son of God owns the exclusive title to all supreme attributes and is fiercely discreet from all creation, Jesus acts as the tender redeemer of all creation. His work is an exclusive work that brings salvation to mankind. Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth and the light. No one comes to [God] the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

2. JESUS IS THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD (Colossians 1:15)

Although Jesus is, of himself, invisible—for he has naturally blinded man to the full radiance of his attributes—he has revealed himself through tangible demonstrations so that humans can worship him in his presence. Jesus has delivered the captives from slavery, established an active covenant in order that he would dwell with his people, and raised up prophetic voices out of the ruin who would speak the words of God. At the appointed time, Jesus laid aside his glory to assume humanity! He was born of a woman and raised under God’s covenant law to be the quintessential example of human worship to God. However, the religious authorities did not accept Jesus’s worship. As a result, they publicly humiliated him as a condemned criminal, putting him to death on a cross. But God accepted Jesus’s worship and raised him from the dead, appearing to women and men. These were the eyewitnesses of his resurrection who would worship him in his presence. Yet they moreover worshipped him after he ascended through the sky and became invisible once again because God sent his Holy Spirit to demonstrate the dwelling of Christ amongst his people. The Holy Spirit gives the church a visible witness by the Scripture’s rule, through the sacraments of Baptism and the consuming of Bread and Wine, and through the Preaching of Christ. These marks of the church are tangible representations of a spiritual (invisible) reality that will, at the appointed time, be seen in its true fullness. In the meantime, guided through the visible representations of the church, God’s people gather to worship Jesus “in Spirit and in Truth” (John 4:23-24).

3. JESUS IS THE RENOWNED NAME OF VICTORY

While people were divergent to what they believed Jesus to be when he ministered on earth, the demons did not debate the identity of Jesus. The demons knew that he was the “Holy One of God” who had absolute authority over their legion.[1] The demons overtook men, but they knew they could not overtake Jesus. Jesus is known by name to the kingdom of darkness as the one who has the power to defeat their leader—Satan. Satan took every opportunity that was given him against Jesus, and the devil actually thought he won when Jesus was crucified. Then Jesus was raised from the dead. Jesus already had power over Satan before his death; but, by being crucified and raised in his body, he separated Satan from creation because he redeemed mankind from sin and death. Now, together with Satan’s kingdom, sin and death have also been defeated. Jesus needed to die in order to dramatically rip Satan away from his perceived inheritance. Christ embodied the sins of man through his death. All men have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23); God declared that the wages of sin is death.[2] Jesus (who was sinless) united our sin to his death so that we would die to sin and live to God through Jesus Christ. For the Bible says, “for our sake [God] made [Jesus] to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Therefore, in bearing the name of Christ, we bear the name of victory over death, and we no longer bear the name of sin, because our sin is defeated through the death and resurrection of Jesus. We confess God’s truth through repenting of our sins and believing in the Holy One of God, living as a new creation by the life of Christ.

4. JESUS HAS WORKED HIS VICTORY TO GIVE US REST

Jesus says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). We have made presumptions against God. We have not thanked God for air we breathe, for the food we eat, and for the parental care of those who have nurtured us out of infancy. We have judged God for not giving us more than we have already received from him. Yet God has every right to take all of these things away. We are rightly under a deathly curse because of the chasm we have created through our words, thoughts, and deeds against God. Sin is unbelief of God, and we are drenched in sin. We have no way to pay God our debt. Yet we have presumptuously expected sustenance from him without praising him! It would be rational to characterize God, at the very least, as a heavy taskmaster for the debt that we owe him. However, God commanded his people Israel to rest on the seventh day. In the fullness of time, God gave the rest he commanded through putting his only begotten Son to death. Jesus Christ accomplished the perfect work that was required as a payment to God for the sins of his people. When Jesus said, “It is finished,”[3] he knew that he had gained the victory for our salvation so that we would not be burdened to work off the debt that we owe God. Jesus paid it all, that we may receive him—whose burden is easy, and whose yoke is light.[4]

5. JESUS GIVES SONSHIP TO THE SLAVE

Before the death and resurrection of Christ, the people of God were seemingly enslaved to the law of Moses. Yet, through the law, God also promised his people an inheritance, as they were a beloved child. Paul writes, “The heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything, but he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. […] When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:1-2,4). If God’s people were under guardians until the appointed date, how much more enslaved were those who were not given God’s promise. Yet now the Gentiles are, through Christ Jesus, also given the promises of God. The Jews who were under the law who reject the promised One, Jesus Christ, prove themselves to be slaves, as the Gentiles were, to the elementary principles of the world. Now, all who die with the Son through repentance are raised with the Son unto life, being adopted as sons into the household of the Father.

6. JESUS’S RESURRECTION IS GOOD NEWS FOR THE BELIEVER AND TERRIBLE NEWS FOR THE UNBELIEVER

The resurrection that we receive will not be the void of our bodily senses. As Christ was given an immortal body, so we will be given an immortal body. Even unbelievers will have their bodily senses renewed to them. Heaven is the fullness of Christ for those who have worshipped him in word and deed. While our senses on this side of death have known emptiness and weeping, as our faith is tested through not seeing Christ, we will know nothing but fullness in the resurrection—the fullness of seeing the resurrected Christ himself. Yet the fullness of Christ will be emptiness to those who are judged apart from Christ. Unbelievers will experience every sensation of outer darkness, the weeping and gnashing of teeth,[5] and the eternal burning of the body in the lake of fire.[6] Christ’s resurrection is exceedingly good news to those who are in Christ, and terrible news for the unbeliever. Thus, it is of vital importance for the unbeliever to believe in Christ, because Christ has made forgiveness available to those who repent.

7. JESUS HAS KNOWN US THAT WE MAY KNOW GOD

Jesus came as a human. The eternal Son of God assumed humanity. God knew humanity in a peculiar way, through himself becoming an actual human being. Jesus did not come to be served, but to serve.[7] “He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.”[8] He knew what it is to be tempted.[9] God forgives the sins of humanity through triumphing over sin in his humanity. We are united to his sinlessness because he was sinless in being united to sinful humanity. Jesus experienced weakness, hunger, affliction; he knew betrayal and he tasted death—for us! Believers therefore know God through knowing Christ. We are his beloved bride.[10] God has loved us through knowing us intimately; we know and love God because we were first known and loved by him.

8. JESUS HAS GIVEN HIS CHURCH ALL THAT IS HIS

Because Jesus ascended (in body) to the right hand of the Father, he has the title to all things. The church is never truly without, because she is united to Christ as his bride. She is indeed called to share in the sufferings of Christ. In sickness and in health, she will never lose her title as belonging to Christ. The resurrection will apportion all things to fit Christ’s glory, and the glory of Christ is his bride—the church.

9. JESUS HAS FULFILLED THE PROPHETIC VOICE OF THE SCRIPTURE

What is spoken from the beginning is fulfilled. In the book of Genesis, after the first woman sinned, God said to the serpent, who is Satan the deceiver, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15). Jesus embodied the promised offspring who was born of a woman to cast down the headship of Satan. Satan, in turn, would not touch Christ’s crowned head, but only proceed to bruise his heel. To the woman, God said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children” (v. 16). Besides the fact that God actually gave the woman added birth-pains, God spoke moreover of the treachery that would surround the birth of the Holy One. The book of Revelation tells us of a woman who “was pregnant and was crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth.” And in the presence of a dragon who was prepared to devour the child, “she gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne, and the woman fled into the wilderness, where she has a place prepared by God, in which she is to be nourished for 1,260 days” (Revelation 12:2-6). Jesus, the child of the woman, who has gained dominion, has been caught up to the throne of God; and the woman, who is now the church, has fled into the wilderness, a place prepared by God, where she is nourished. God has been faithful to his church, guarding the Scripture, providing the nourishment of bread and wine, which represents the body and the blood of Christ, and raising up the preached word of prophecy, even in the midst of this wilderness, which is temporarily prepared for us by God. This is simply one example of a multitude of prophecies predicting both the arrival of Jesus Christ and the last days of the church, all of which have been fulfilled and are being fulfilled by God.

10. JESUS HAS GLORIFIED HIMSELF THROUGH MAKING US FREE

A noble woman may glorify herself with emblazoned hair, dress, jewelry and cosmetics. A rich man may glorify himself with elaborate dwellings and possessions. Jesus “had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him” (Isaiah 53:2). He glorified himself by being lifted up on a cross—naked, wounded, and condemned. By his death, Jesus has made us free. By his resurrection, we are free indeed. Jesus indeed laid aside his glory; and Jesus glorified himself in making us—the naked, wounded, and condemned—free. Because we have sinned, we have mutilated the image of God given to us in creation. Yet the image of God is restored in us through Christ bearing the image of sinful man. This is the way Christ sought his own glory. What is finished cannot be revoked. Thus, we are free to do the will of God without having to pay the infinite debt that is owed. We are free to do the will of God, as his presence—the Holy Spirit—is in us, through the blood of Christ. We are free to do the will of God because God seeks his own glory by glorifying Jesus Christ; and we are in Christ—glorified with him.

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[1] See Mark 5:1-15

[2] Romans 6:23

[3] John 19:30

[4] Matthew 11:30

[5] See Matthew 8:12, 22:13, 25:13 in context

[6] See Revelation 20:15 in context

[7] Matthew 20:28

[8] Isaiah 53:4

[9] See Hebrews 4:15

[10] See Ephesians 5:22-33