Welcome to the Summer 2006 study for the Koinonia Class of Calvary Baptist Church, Denver, Colorado. We’re looking at the issue of Jesus and Salvation, using the book “Is Jesus The Only Savior” [James R. Edwards, Is Jesus The Only Savior? (Grand Rapids/Cambridge: 2005)]. We encourage each person to buy a copy and follow along.How Jesus Became “Savior of the World”
The New Testament, read in its entirety, appears designed to convey two seemingly incompatible ideas—that Jesus was divine and that in Jesus God became a human being. Those two ideas later were married into a surprising new concept.
It’s not just that Jesus did things and said things that one would only expect of God. The “great surprise” of the gospel is also the “great scandal”. It is summed up in one word, incarnation. “God chooses in Jesus Christ to be rejected and to suffer and die. It is not in heavenly splendor, but in one like us that we see the saving heart of God.” (Edwards, page 115)
In the gospels, and especially in John, Jesus is spoken of with language reserved for God: Lord, Light, Life, Savior. But it’s not because the early church elevated Jesus to divine status. “…God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ." (Acts 2:36)
Again, it’s not the elevation of Jesus to divinity that is the great surprise (although that too is a wonder since these were all monotheistic Jews). Rather, it is the condescension of God to human form, His incarnation, that makes Jesus uniquely the savior of the world.
That is why the dual emphases in the classic creeds are essential. Only Jesus, fully God and fully man, could be worshipped as Lord and Savior and followed as our Master Teacher.
For the Jews, God was transcendent and allowed no one but the High Priest to come into His presence in the holy of holies. For Greeks, the gods were super-human. For pagans the gods were everywhere, but inimical to a peaceful life or in need of being placated lest they wreak havoc. For Muslims, God did not become human, he dictated a book to a human.
For Christians, though, God took the initiative to reach out in person and reconcile us to Himself, even though we were hostile to Him. It is because God humbled Himself and came down to save us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth that Jesus is lifted up.
In that great hymn Paul quotes in Philippians 2:6-11, the reason “every tongue (shall) confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” is that Christ Jesus emptied Himself of His divine glory and became a man.
The reason we worship Jesus Christ as Lord and accept Him as our savior is not apotheosis (“The idea of ‘equating Jesus with God’ is called apotheosis: ‘to make someone godlike. See the blog post for Chapter 4 on July 1, 2006 and Edwards, page 52), but incarnation. We did not raise Jesus up, God did after He came to be one of us. “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him (Jesus), and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” (Colossians 1:19,20)
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