Who is Jesus Christ?
Reading time: 9 minutes.
Our starting point!
There is a God who made everything. He has always existed. He has always existed as one God, but in three Persons. Does that sound strange or different? Well, perhaps it is. We don’t have a way of thinking about God as He really is, but here is a way of thinking about Him that we call the Trinity. There is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. One God in three Persons. All of Them is God!
But don’t get too hung up on trying to understand this right now. It is a difficult idea.
The important thing is that, since God made everything, He is the One who tells us what is right and what is wrong. He makes the rules. He made all the physical laws like gravity and thermodynamics, and He made all the spiritual and moral laws like love your enemies and do not commit adultery.
Some of what we know about God can be found by looking at everything He created. The universe tells us some things about Him. Things like: He is creative; He makes rules; He loves variety; He sets consequences for actions; and He loves life.
Our source of info?
But most of what we know about Him—the really essential things—come from a book called the Bible. The Bible is a collection of 66 books that were written by over 40 authors over the course of about 1500 years. God, who made everything, inspired the authors; that is, He helped the authors know what to write. Don’t get too caught up in the “how”. Some things are hard to understand, but that’s okay.
Our (meaning humans) place in the story.
Now, this collection of books tells us Who God is and who we are. It does this in several ways, but one way is through historical stories. The first book of the Bible is called Genesis. In Genesis, which means Beginning, God tells us how everything started. He created a man and a woman in a perfect environment, along with plants, animals, insects, birds, and all other living things.
He gave the man and the woman jobs to do and a few rules. One specific rule recorded in the second chapter of Genesis it that they, were not to eat from a certain tree called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We’re not sure what kind of tree this was or what its fruit was, but we know that God told them a rule, and they broke the rule. Both the man and the woman ate from this tree.
Eating from this tree caused the very natures of the man and the woman to change. It also caused the entire universe—everything that God created—to change. We call this the Fall, and everything went from being good and perfect to being difficult, brutal, and challenging. Is this hard to accept? Is it hard to understand? I agree with you. It is hard to understand and accept, but the God who made everything tells us that is how things happened. That it is true.
Our problem?
Because of this Fall, because man and woman chose to disobey God, their natures were changed. They were separated from God. They had been made in the spiritual image of God, but now they were no longer good. And this changed, fallen nature has been passed on to every single person that has ever been born. We all have this fallen nature, and we need help. Because God designed us to be in a relationship with Him for all eternity, we long for this relationship. But because of our fallen natures, we can no longer have this relationship with God. We are in a fix. We have a problem that we cannot solve. It is the most significant problem we will ever face.
Our only solution?
This is where Jesus comes in. It took awhile to get to Him, but I hope it helped you understand some background on why Jesus is important.
Remember when I said that every single person who has ever been born has a fallen nature? Well, that is not entirely true. One Person was born who never did anything wrong. His name is Jesus.
Let me try to make this clear. God knew that all humans needed a relationship with Him and that all humans would never be able to have that relationship with Him. Because of the bad things they did, they were forever separated from a relationship with God. This eternal separation would come in the form of death. Not just physical death but, more importantly, spiritual death.
God made a group of people His special people. They were called Israelites because they were descended from a man named Israel, also known as Jacob God gave a way for the Israelites to be made right with Him and to be able to be in a relationship with Him. That way was through animal sacrifice. Does that sound odd or primitive to you? Well, it is primitive in the sense that it is something that developed very early in human history. A person or group would take an animal that didn’t have anything wrong with it and have a priest sacrifice it on an altar. This was a blood sacrifice. The animal was killed. This sacrifice, along with a repentant heart—a heart that was sorry for what the person or group had done—would make the people acceptable to God. The sacrifice cost the people something and also had to be made over and over because the people kept doing wrong things over and over.
God gave this way of helping the Israelites to be in a right relationship with Him, but only for a time. He had plans to make a way where the animal sacrifice could be stopped and people could be made right with Him through a sacrifice that would be made one time. This sacrifice would take away the sins of the world.
How is Jesus Christ our solution?
Now we pick back up with Jesus. Jesus is God the Son. He was born to a virgin. He was completely a man and completely God. He lived a sinless life. He never did anything wrong and always did what was right. Hard to believe? Perhaps, but it is true.
He lived on earth about 2000 years ago for about 33 years. He taught people, healed people, made friends, and enemies. He was eventually tried by the Roman government as a result of accusations that he was claiming to be a king , and he was sentenced to hang on a cross until dead. Hanging on a cross until dead is exactly what happened to him. He was beaten, mocked, and made to carry the crossbar to the crucifixion site, where he was nailed to the wooden beam and hung from the post until through blood loss and asphyxiation, He died.
His death – that is, the death of a person who had never sinned – was what was required to pay the once-for-all-time penalty for our sins, the wrong things we do. The just punishment for the wrong things we do, for disobeying the God who made us, is physical death and separation from God forever. But because Jesus is God and had no need to pay a penalty like that, His death on the cross was a substitution for our deaths. He took on all the punishment that should have been placed on us, and He died in our place.
If you are like me, you may find this hard to accept and understand. I am not sure why it had to happen this way, but I know that it is what the Bible tells us had to happen and did happen.
The death of Jesus was accepted by God the Father as a once-for-all-time sacrifice for the wrong things people have done. Jesus was buried. All of that may be hard to understand. Perhaps even more unbelievable, He came back to life. We call this the Resurrection. He came back to life and then spent time with his friends. He stayed with them for 40 days, teaching them, answering some of their questions, and telling them what He expected them to do. He even ate with them. He did all this to show that He had come back to life both physically and spiritually. He wanted them to know He was not a ghost.
After the 40 days, He went back to heaven to be with God the Father. His followers saw Him go to Heaven. He told them He would send a Comforter for them. That Comforter is God the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit would come to live in the people who believed in and followed Jesus.
What does this means for us?
If you are still with me, then you must be interested enough to be asking some questions. You may be asking, so what does that mean to me, or what do I need to do about this?
Those are good questions. I will try to help you. First, all of what I have told you is something you have to believe. It is something that, even though you will not necessarily understand all of it, you need to have faith that it is true. Faith is intellectually agreeing with something and also trusting in that thing.
People have used the example of a chair. In order to have faith that a particular chair will hold your weight, you need to intellectually acknowledge that what you are looking at is a chair. You need to say you know that chair will hold you up if you sit down in it, but faith also requires you to trust in that chair’s ability to hold your weight. You need to sit down in the chair. Once you sit down in the chair, you have shown that you have faith in its ability to hold you.
In the same way you need to agree in your mind that all the things I talked about above are true, and you need to trust that they are true. You need to "sit in the chair." This means you need to know that you are a fallen person and that you do bad things. These bad things are called sins. You need to be sorry for doing those things. You need to believe that Jesus paid the penalty for your sins, and that His dying in your place has made you right with God.
If you have faith in these things and agree with the previous paragraph, you can ask Jesus to save you from your sins and make you right with God so you can have a relationship with Him.
Your response.
If you just did this, or still aren't sure and have some questions, please CLICK ON THIS LINK. Someone will get in touch with you very soon. I hope this helps you better understand who Jesus is. Thank you so much for letting us share with you.
There is a God who made everything. He has always existed. He has always existed as one God, but in three Persons. Does that sound strange or different? Well, perhaps it is. We don’t have a way of thinking about God as He really is, but here is a way of thinking about Him that we call the Trinity. There is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. One God in three Persons. All of Them is God!
But don’t get too hung up on trying to understand this right now. It is a difficult idea.
The important thing is that, since God made everything, He is the One who tells us what is right and what is wrong. He makes the rules. He made all the physical laws like gravity and thermodynamics, and He made all the spiritual and moral laws like love your enemies and do not commit adultery.
Some of what we know about God can be found by looking at everything He created. The universe tells us some things about Him. Things like: He is creative; He makes rules; He loves variety; He sets consequences for actions; and He loves life.
Our source of info?
But most of what we know about Him—the really essential things—come from a book called the Bible. The Bible is a collection of 66 books that were written by over 40 authors over the course of about 1500 years. God, who made everything, inspired the authors; that is, He helped the authors know what to write. Don’t get too caught up in the “how”. Some things are hard to understand, but that’s okay.
Our (meaning humans) place in the story.
Now, this collection of books tells us Who God is and who we are. It does this in several ways, but one way is through historical stories. The first book of the Bible is called Genesis. In Genesis, which means Beginning, God tells us how everything started. He created a man and a woman in a perfect environment, along with plants, animals, insects, birds, and all other living things.
He gave the man and the woman jobs to do and a few rules. One specific rule recorded in the second chapter of Genesis it that they, were not to eat from a certain tree called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We’re not sure what kind of tree this was or what its fruit was, but we know that God told them a rule, and they broke the rule. Both the man and the woman ate from this tree.
Eating from this tree caused the very natures of the man and the woman to change. It also caused the entire universe—everything that God created—to change. We call this the Fall, and everything went from being good and perfect to being difficult, brutal, and challenging. Is this hard to accept? Is it hard to understand? I agree with you. It is hard to understand and accept, but the God who made everything tells us that is how things happened. That it is true.
Our problem?
Because of this Fall, because man and woman chose to disobey God, their natures were changed. They were separated from God. They had been made in the spiritual image of God, but now they were no longer good. And this changed, fallen nature has been passed on to every single person that has ever been born. We all have this fallen nature, and we need help. Because God designed us to be in a relationship with Him for all eternity, we long for this relationship. But because of our fallen natures, we can no longer have this relationship with God. We are in a fix. We have a problem that we cannot solve. It is the most significant problem we will ever face.
Our only solution?
This is where Jesus comes in. It took awhile to get to Him, but I hope it helped you understand some background on why Jesus is important.
Remember when I said that every single person who has ever been born has a fallen nature? Well, that is not entirely true. One Person was born who never did anything wrong. His name is Jesus.
Let me try to make this clear. God knew that all humans needed a relationship with Him and that all humans would never be able to have that relationship with Him. Because of the bad things they did, they were forever separated from a relationship with God. This eternal separation would come in the form of death. Not just physical death but, more importantly, spiritual death.
God made a group of people His special people. They were called Israelites because they were descended from a man named Israel, also known as Jacob God gave a way for the Israelites to be made right with Him and to be able to be in a relationship with Him. That way was through animal sacrifice. Does that sound odd or primitive to you? Well, it is primitive in the sense that it is something that developed very early in human history. A person or group would take an animal that didn’t have anything wrong with it and have a priest sacrifice it on an altar. This was a blood sacrifice. The animal was killed. This sacrifice, along with a repentant heart—a heart that was sorry for what the person or group had done—would make the people acceptable to God. The sacrifice cost the people something and also had to be made over and over because the people kept doing wrong things over and over.
God gave this way of helping the Israelites to be in a right relationship with Him, but only for a time. He had plans to make a way where the animal sacrifice could be stopped and people could be made right with Him through a sacrifice that would be made one time. This sacrifice would take away the sins of the world.
How is Jesus Christ our solution?
Now we pick back up with Jesus. Jesus is God the Son. He was born to a virgin. He was completely a man and completely God. He lived a sinless life. He never did anything wrong and always did what was right. Hard to believe? Perhaps, but it is true.
He lived on earth about 2000 years ago for about 33 years. He taught people, healed people, made friends, and enemies. He was eventually tried by the Roman government as a result of accusations that he was claiming to be a king , and he was sentenced to hang on a cross until dead. Hanging on a cross until dead is exactly what happened to him. He was beaten, mocked, and made to carry the crossbar to the crucifixion site, where he was nailed to the wooden beam and hung from the post until through blood loss and asphyxiation, He died.
His death – that is, the death of a person who had never sinned – was what was required to pay the once-for-all-time penalty for our sins, the wrong things we do. The just punishment for the wrong things we do, for disobeying the God who made us, is physical death and separation from God forever. But because Jesus is God and had no need to pay a penalty like that, His death on the cross was a substitution for our deaths. He took on all the punishment that should have been placed on us, and He died in our place.
If you are like me, you may find this hard to accept and understand. I am not sure why it had to happen this way, but I know that it is what the Bible tells us had to happen and did happen.
The death of Jesus was accepted by God the Father as a once-for-all-time sacrifice for the wrong things people have done. Jesus was buried. All of that may be hard to understand. Perhaps even more unbelievable, He came back to life. We call this the Resurrection. He came back to life and then spent time with his friends. He stayed with them for 40 days, teaching them, answering some of their questions, and telling them what He expected them to do. He even ate with them. He did all this to show that He had come back to life both physically and spiritually. He wanted them to know He was not a ghost.
After the 40 days, He went back to heaven to be with God the Father. His followers saw Him go to Heaven. He told them He would send a Comforter for them. That Comforter is God the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit would come to live in the people who believed in and followed Jesus.
What does this means for us?
If you are still with me, then you must be interested enough to be asking some questions. You may be asking, so what does that mean to me, or what do I need to do about this?
Those are good questions. I will try to help you. First, all of what I have told you is something you have to believe. It is something that, even though you will not necessarily understand all of it, you need to have faith that it is true. Faith is intellectually agreeing with something and also trusting in that thing.
People have used the example of a chair. In order to have faith that a particular chair will hold your weight, you need to intellectually acknowledge that what you are looking at is a chair. You need to say you know that chair will hold you up if you sit down in it, but faith also requires you to trust in that chair’s ability to hold your weight. You need to sit down in the chair. Once you sit down in the chair, you have shown that you have faith in its ability to hold you.
In the same way you need to agree in your mind that all the things I talked about above are true, and you need to trust that they are true. You need to "sit in the chair." This means you need to know that you are a fallen person and that you do bad things. These bad things are called sins. You need to be sorry for doing those things. You need to believe that Jesus paid the penalty for your sins, and that His dying in your place has made you right with God.
If you have faith in these things and agree with the previous paragraph, you can ask Jesus to save you from your sins and make you right with God so you can have a relationship with Him.
Your response.
If you just did this, or still aren't sure and have some questions, please CLICK ON THIS LINK. Someone will get in touch with you very soon. I hope this helps you better understand who Jesus is. Thank you so much for letting us share with you.