Spirituality Column #812

June 7, 2022

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Person to Person

By Bob Walters

“Had Jesus only been entirely God he could not have died for us.  It is the very fact that Jesus was fully human and fully God that makes Jesus our savior.” – Titus 2:13-14

Let’s talk about the “personhood” of Jesus and discus whether it is His person or His cross that saves us.  Good question, huh?  I bet you didn’t see that one coming.

It is by default that most of Christianity looks at the Cross, looks at Jesus, and says, “the Cross saved me.”  Yet just like the Bible never specifically uses the phrase “the person of Christ,” it also never says the Cross saves us.  The Bible says Jesus saves us.

Jesus bestows personal salvation often in the Gospels before His death on the Cross.  He tells the sinful woman who anoints his feet (Luke 7:50), “Your faith has saved you.”  In His healing miracles, it was a person’s faith in Jesus that healed them.  To the woman who touched the “fringe of his garment,” Jesus says, “Your faith has made you well.” (Matthew 9:21-22). To the centurion whose servant was near death, Jesus says, “Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.”  Examples abound.

On the Cross, to the Good Thief next to Him, Jesus cites the thief’s belief and assures, “today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43). It is our recognition of Jesus as the Son of God that saves us.  How do I know?  Because in John 14-16, at the end, it is recognizing His identity as the Son of God that Jesus hammers home to the disciples; not their behavior, and not specifically His death on the Cross.  They must know Who He is.

If one does not believe Jesus was fully God and fully man, a discussion of His saving personhood is superfluous. But the point I’m making is that it was the coming of Christ among mankind that was God’s move to save us.  Our sin brought death; our belief in Jesus, acceptance of forgiveness, and repentance brings eternal life. 

The Cross is a powerful symbol that proved Jesus’s love and obedience, and the Cross is the perfect picture of the perfect sacrifice we all must make in a world that not only disbelieves but hates Jesus.  In His empty tomb and resurrection, we see the proof of what Jesus had been claiming all along; the proof that He was indeed God.

But what exactly saves us?  What gives us God’s life?  I believe Christianity looks – and is lived out – very differently depending on how we answer that question.

The Cross of Christ is a horrible symbol of pain and suffering; we may feel that pain personally, especially every Good Friday, when we consider the enormity of what Jesus went through to prove His love for us and His obedience to God.  To His suffering and pain, we tend to respond with guilt, focus on sin, fear punishment, and remain tied to our sins, perpetually apologizing for that for which Jesus died and God has forgiven.

It is a clever, earthly powerplay if you can make people feel guilty instead of free.

And free is what I feel in the love of Jesus Christ.  Not free to sin, but free to love Jesus for His grace and compassion, and for His image of perfect sacrifice that I must live up to in the spirit of love for God and for mankind.  It is the person of Jesus I love.

One can view God – through Jesus on the Cross – as the “punisher of sin.”  But punishment is not ever how the Bible presents the Cross: atonement, obedience, love, and healing, yes, but not punishment or payment.  We say that; but God doesn’t.

By our faith we are saved: faith in the God and powerful person of Jesus Christ.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) believes joy comes from the love, not fear, of God.