Christian Theology in a Thumbnail: Jesus (3)

          Jesus is God-with-Us, Immanuel, because he acts toward us and does for us what only God can do (e.g. forgive sins).  He is fully and truly God.

          Jesus is humanity-with-God, all that Adam should have been, because in the power of the Spirit he lived human life as God intended.  He is fully and truly human.

          What we see in the gospel accounts of him is at one and the same time God’s action to and for us and our proper human response to God.

          In the same way that we have to understand light to be both a wave and a particle (with the wave-ness making possible the particle-ness) in quantum physics, so we must understand Jesus as both divine and human (with the divinity – his life lived in obedience to the Spirit – making possible the genuine humanity he displayed.)

Jesus Messiah is God’s gracious intent for his World.  (Christ is the ground of creation)

Jesus Messiah is God’s life lived among us (Christ is “the” Image of God)

Jesus Messiah is God’s broken heart over his rebellious world.  (“He descended into Hell”)

Jesus Messiah is God’s atonement for all creation. (Christ’s death is the great act of reconciliation of all things, new creation)

Jesus Messiah is the goal or “point” of God’s creational purposes (God intendes to “sum all things up” in Christ)