"God has no plans for mankind [as a creation and race] outside of Jesus Christ, for it is He ‘who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption’ (1 Corinthians 1:30)." (Briscoe, The Fullness of Christ).
There is a lot of talk lately on social networking and in the media about "privilege." The idea of "privilege" (whether it be white privilege, male privilege, or another kind of privilege) is the idea that one group of people have beneficial experiences and advantages that another group of people rarely or never experience. The Lord Jesus, as God, prior to His human birth on earth, experienced God-privilege. While He had created people and knew them inside and out, what He didn’t experientially know was what it was like to live inside a human body that would experience pain, temptation, and suffering. One of the reasons that Jesus chose to become a human man, beginning with the "creation" of that man’s life as an embryo, fetus, and baby was so that He could experience exactly what it was like to live inside flesh on this earth. Thus, Jesus didn’t have to "learn" anything in the sense that there were things He didn’t know, but rather, He learned experientially about obeying God as a human being even when that obedience meant suffering and death. He went through the experience so that He could be both fully human and fully God.
That experience—of living on this earth and dying for our sins—was what made Him "perfect." Not perfect in the sense of being without fault or sin because He never sinned. But He was made the fully accomplished and completed Savior through His obedience, His willingness to die for us. His willingness to come to earth, first as a baby and later as a fully grown man, to suffer the kinds of things we suffer, and then to obey the Father’s will even to the point of dying and being rejected (temporarily) by the Father was what made Him the perfect Savior.
It is what sets Jesus apart from every other religious figure in human history. Yes, it is true that Jesus was a wise teacher and that other wise teachers have emerged from time to time. Yes, it is true that Jesus was a prophet and other prophets have emerged from time to time. But why Jesus stands apart from all other religious figures through history is that, because of His obedience to the Father to become fully human and remain fully God, He is the only perfect Savior. He can rightly say that "I am the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6) because, through His life on earth, He became that perfect Savior.
© 2017 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.
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