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Last month, in our initial meditation, we began to answer the first of the two most important questions human beings can ever ask: “What must I do to be saved?”
I asserted that the words of 1 Timothy 1:15 contain one of the most succinct yet comprehensive answers to that question in all of Scripture. That text informs us that central to the salvation of sinners is the fact that “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.”
Those words inform us that in providing a salvation that is “done” and not “do,” the person of Jesus is foundational. In other words, Jesus is able to do what He does because He is who He is. Or, to state it yet another way, it is the uniqueness of the person of Jesus that secures the validity and efficacy of the work of Jesus.
It cannot be said of any mere human being that “he came into the world.” Such language clearly implies preexistence in another realm prior to existence in this world. When we seek to gather together the biblical witness to understand the identity of Jesus, we can do no better than to read, digest, memorize, and believe with all our hearts the answer to the question concerning the identity of Jesus as found in the Westminster Shorter Catechism (A. 21). In that very condensed yet biblically grounded answer, we are informed that “the only Redeemer of God’s elect is the Lord Jesus Christ, who, being the eternal son of God, became man, and so was, and continues to be, God and man in two distinct natures, and one person, forever.”
These truths concerning the identity of Jesus are made clear at the very beginning of the gospel records. Matthew 1 records Joseph’s perplexity upon discovering that his bride-to-be was pregnant. As he prayerfully wrestled through what action to take, God sent an angel to inform him that Mary was pregnant, not by an immoral act with a man, but by her submission to the supernatural activity of the Holy Spirit. The angel further informed Joseph that Mary would give birth to a son who would be named Jesus, which means “the Lord is salvation.”
Further on in the same chapter, we are told that the one to be born of Mary was also to be called “Immanuel,” meaning “God with us.” Therefore, the one conceived by the Holy Spirit who was to be born as a man, is none other than the God-man Christ Jesus. He is God Himself, with all the attributes and characteristics of true “God-ness.” He is also man, with all the faculties and capacities of true “man-ness.”
God’s “done” salvation from sin and its consequences is accomplished by this unique person. If you are ever to know the blessedness of that “done” salvation, it will be as you become savingly related to Him who alone has been appointed by God to be our Savior (John 14:6; Acts 4:12).