I have never been able to make coherent sense of the standard explanations for the nature of Jesus Christ.
This, of course, does not matter when it comes to being a Christian - we simply need to acknowledge that Jesus was who he said he was (eternal Son of God, Son of Man), and to love him, have faith in him...
Christians, as such, don't need to assert the exclusive validity of any specific theory of why-and-how that situation arose.
Nonetheless, it is natural enough to seek an answer to questions about how and why Jesus got to be what he was, what was the 'mechanism' by which his unique status came-about: how it was that Jesus lived, died - like other men - but also, uniquely, brought us resurrection and life everlasting.
Anyway, an answer to this came to me yesterday that Jesus Just Was. That there is no causal expanation for why Jesus was who he was; but that he Just Was who he was.
The background is that all Men are unique, and various; so we become God's children as already-unique and we are incarnated as already-unique; and we end-up as unique resurrected Beings. And that Jesus was able to be our Saviour simply because he is, was, always had-been just that.
Not as 'part of a plan' from eternity; but an an unique person who enabled this unique possibility; which would otherwise have been impossible.
Somehow this insight seemed to quell the doubts, answer the nagging questions... Jesus Just Was. He was uniquely capable.
Of course, Jesus then had-to choose to, agree to become our Saviour - and he did, for which our gratutude and love are due.
I think that it is important to recognize that each of us, and particularly each self considering the question, also just is. It's true that we (like Jesus) face various situations which bring out our choices, it is not at all fruitless to contemplate that the particular circumstances of our own life have drawn out and developed our knowledge of the choices which lay dormant in our volition even from before the foundation of the world, to be expressed only on some specific occasion arising after gaining a spirit, and a pre-mortal existence and councils with God, and the creation of the world followed by millennia of history.
ReplyDeleteBut to advance morally, we must take ultimate responsibility and recognize that it was not the circumstances that forced us to do it, it was our own will. If we do so, then it may be that some deeper and more profound expression of our will may allow us to learn from our choices and choose to follow God.
We also need to recognize that Jesus also simply willingly chose to offer Himself to make salvation possible for us. And that choice ultimately came from nowhere other than His own perfect volition.