The Apostles' Creed (part six)

The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life--only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father (John 10:17-18).

The Apostles’ Creed expresses the faith by which the Church lives. Because of that, all three articles of the Creed are of utmost importance. But if one had to choose which section of the Creed was most important, it would have to be the Second Article—because this is the paragraph that speaks about Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us that He is the only foundation for anyone who wants to build a successful life; He is the chief cornerstone that makes the construction of the Church possible.

If you have studied the Bible, you know that in all of creation Jesus is totally unique. No one else is like Him. Our Father in heaven is God, and His nature is exclusively divine. We who are male and female, young and old, all have the nature of Man, and that is all we are. But Jesus alone is simultaneously God and man; He has the natures of both. And it is due to His uniqueness that people have always had difficulty accepting Jesus as He truly is. Some want to deny that He is God, others cannot accept that He is human.

In the years following Jesus’ return to heaven, many people who had seen His miracles were fully convinced that He was God’s Son, but they could not accept that He was at the same time also a man. They claimed that Jesus just looked like a man, the way that angels sometimes did. By the time that St. John was an old man, this false teaching had become such a problem that he had this to say in one of his letters: If a person claiming to be a prophet acknowledges that Jesus Christ came in a real body, that person has the Spirit of God. But if someone claims to be a prophet and does not acknowledge the truth about Jesus, that person is not from God. Such a person has the spirit of the Antichrist (1 John 4:2-3).

In our modern times, I’m not aware of anyone who doubts that Christ was a human being. What we have today are people who claim that Jesus never existed at all, that He is a myth invented by the church to separate gullible people from their money. Sadly, there are even people with religious training who are preaching in churches who doubt that Jesus is real. But most people in the world do believe that a man named Jesus lived in Palestine two thousand years ago, and that the Christian Church honors His memory.

Most often, what people have a hard time believing is that Jesus is divine. Rabbi Morris Kertzer wrote, "Jews do not accept the divinity of Jesus as the ‘only begotten son’ of God. We recognize him as a child of God only in the same way that we are all God’s children." We would naturally expect a rabbi who rejects Jesus as Savior to also reject His claim to godhood. What should shock us is that more and more ministers in Christian churches promote this same false teaching. For example, Bishop John Robinson, writing for the Anglican Church, said: "Jesus never claimed to be God. We cannot be sure what title Jesus claimed, and we would be wise…not to rest our faith on them." In Jesus’ day, most of the religious leaders refused to believe that He was the Son of God; today, Muslims have joined Jews and liberal Christian scholars in rejecting Christ as divine.

But thanks to the Spirit of God, we are confident in saying that Jesus is both God and Man united in one Person. We confess in the Creed that "I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary." Through the perspective of Luther’s Small Catechism, we get a better idea of what these words entail: "I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the virgin Mary, is my Lord."

There are many who claim that Jesus is a straw man invented by the Church. But our Creed points to the fact that Jesus is rooted not in myth but in history. He was born; He entered our world in a particular place at a certain time. In the familiar Christmas story, St. Luke gives us both historical events and physical locations that set Jesus’ birth in the realm of fact. Caesar Augustus, emperor of the Roman Empire, was a real historical figure. He commanded that a census be taken of all the people in the Empire for the purpose of recalculating his tax base. This event required each citizen to register in his ancestral town, forcing Joseph to take his pregnant fiancée on a difficult road trip through the mountains of Judea to the village of Bethlehem. The influx of travelers forced Mary and Joseph to sleep with the animals, and it was here that Jesus was born. Our humdrum reality was shattered by a miracle—the eternal Son of God became a man of flesh and bone and blood, filled with human needs and feelings, a man completely ordinary and like us except in one very important detail—He had no sinful impulses darkening His soul. Scripture tells us, he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin (Hebrews 4:15).

This was no fantasy, no fairy tale. God’s Son came into our world to join us. When He grew old enough to be respected as a teacher, hundreds of people saw him, listened to Him preach, touched Him, ate with him, watched Him sleep, even saw Him cry. When the religious leaders grew jealous of His wisdom and popularity, they dragged Him before the Roman governor where He was whipped and made to bleed. He was forced to carry His cross until He collapsed under its weight. He cried in agony as He was nailed to that cross and lifted high above the ground to die as a public spectacle. When the spear was driven through His side to puncture His heart, both blood and water flowed out, mingled together. He was born, He lived, He suffered, He died, He was buried—Jesus was truly a human being.

Why was it necessary that Jesus become a man? Angels have no parents to honor and obey, nor do they have neighbors who need to be loved. The Ten Commandments do not apply to them, just as they do not apply to God. Jesus became a man so that He could submit to the Law which we have broken; He needed to be a man so that He could step in and shoulder our responsibilities. This why Paul writes in Galatians chapter four, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law.

Why was it necessary that Jesus become a man? By God’s decree, the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23). Scripture warns us that Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law (Galatians 3:10). If we were to be rescued from death and the curse that comes from breaking God’s Law, then someone had to accept that curse and die for us. Since neither God nor the angels can die, Jesus willingly became a man so that He could do it. Jesus exchanged the glory of heaven for suffering on earth, prompting Paul to write: you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich (2 Corinthians 8:9).

Why do we believe that Jesus is God? There are three reasons:

In the first place, the Bible says that Jesus is God. There were people who had known Jesus as a child and watched him grow into a man; when Jesus revealed Himself as Savior of the world, they asked, Isn't this the carpenter's son? (Matthew 13:55) But God the Father set the record straight at the Mount of Transfiguration: Jesus took with him Peter, James and John…and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light…a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!" (Matthew 17:1-2, 5)

Secondly, we believe that Jesus is God because He has the qualities of God. You and I change throughout our lives, but the Bible says Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). We are limited by the reach of our hands and the speed of our feet, but Jesus can be everywhere; He promised, I am with you always (Matthew 28:20). We might be able to guess how a person is feeling, but Jesus can look into our hearts: Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, "Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts?" (Matthew 9:4) According to the Bible, Jesus is much more than we are; He is God, because only God is unchangeable, only God can be everywhere at once, only God can know everything.

The third reason that we believe Jesus is God is because He did things only God can do. Scripture tells us that Jesus made the world according to His Father’s command. Jesus has the ability to forgive sins, and it is He who will judge the living and the dead on the Last Day. These are things that only God can do. But the most magnificent demonstration of His godly power occurred when Jesus rose alive from the grave. He told His disciples, The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life--only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father. Jesus raised Himself from the dead—only God could do such a wondrous thing.

It is for these reasons that we believe Jesus is indeed the Son of God. This is why the angels worship Him. But some people remain unimpressed. They ask, "So what? Why is it important to believe that Jesus is truly divine?"

Why was it necessary for our Savior to be God? He had to be, because no mere human being could pay the price for our sins. Psalm 49 says, no one can redeem the life of another by paying a ransom to God. Redemption does not come so easily, for no one can ever pay enough to live forever and never see the grave. Suppose a young man is convicted of multiple crimes. His father, a prominent member of the community, goes to the judge seeking leniency. He says, "You know that I’ve never broken any law." But the judge, if he is honest, will reply: "Sir, your obedience to the law does not make up for the crimes committed by your son." So it is in our relationship with God. Even if a human being could keep God’s Law perfectly, that obedience could not reach out and save someone else.

But by being God, Jesus could do that which is otherwise impossible. By being God, Jesus was able to overcome sin, death, and the devil. By being the infinite God, the perfect life He lived has unlimited value, value enough to make up for all our failed attempts at keeping God’s Law. By being the infinite God, Jesus was able to accept the hellish punishment every one of us had coming, and to suffer it all during the brief but terrible hours of Good Friday. By being the almighty God, Jesus was able to end the curse of sin and break the bonds of death, thus taking away the devil’s power. Show me any human being who can live a perfect life, fight and overcome the devil by his own power, and raise himself from the dead. Because Jesus is God, He could and did accomplish all three!

Because Jesus is God and man in one, we can be confident in saying: "I believe that Jesus Christ, true God, begotten of the Father from eternity, and also true man, born of the virgin Mary, is my Lord, who has redeemed me, a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sins, from death, and from the power of the devil." This is what sets Christianity apart from all other religions. Only we acknowledge the humanity of Christ, a human nature that feels our sorrows and loves us as brothers and sisters. Only we acknowledge the deity of Christ, a divine nature that gives His love infinite value and power. Only we acknowledge that it is Christ’s work alone which frees us from guilt and promises us a place in heaven. He is man. He is God. And He calls us "friends."