The Means: God’s Son

KEY VERSE: “When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” —Romans 5:6

SELECTED SCRIPTURE: Romans 3:21-26; 5:6-11; Colossians 1:13,14

WE HAVE seen in the previous lessons of this series that Jesus was the promised seed who was to bruise the serpent’s head and that in God’s arrangements it was first necessary that he die to take Adam’s place in death. When he died on Calvary’s cross, he died forever as a man; his only hope for life was that the Heavenly Father would raise him from the dead. In John 6:51, Jesus said, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” When the time came for him to yield his life as the ransom-price for Adam, he prayed to the Father, “Glorify [or honor] thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.”—John 17:5

The Scriptures tell us that Jesus, in his pre-human existence, was a great spirit being known as the Logos. “In a beginning was the Word [Logos], and the Word was with the God, and a god was the Word. This was in a beginning with the God.” (John 1:1,2, Diaglott interlinear) “All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made.” (John 1:3) In Revelation 3:14 we are told that the Logos was the beginning of the creation of God. The apostle confirms this in Colossians 1:16,17, “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by him, and for him. And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.” See also Proverbs 8:22-31.

We believe that God in his foreknowledge knew that Adam would fail in his test and that it would be for the ultimate benefit of the world. But to redeem him and his offspring would require a corresponding price—a perfect man for a perfect man—so he designed to send his only-begotten son to be that ransom. (John 1:14; I Pet. 1:18-20) The Apostle Paul states in Galatians 4:4,5, “When the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the Law, to redeem them that were under the Law [and the rest of the world of mankind also].”

The account in the first chapter of Luke tells us how the life-principle of the Logos was transferred to Mary and the babe Jesus was born. The father of John the Baptist, Zacharias the priest, was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people, and hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David; as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began: that we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us; to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant; the oath which he swore to our father Abraham, that he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life.” (Luke 1:68-75) This was the promise to the nation of Israel, but it is also extended to the whole world.

Jesus was born of a woman and was flesh. He was not part spirit and part flesh, but he was a human being. And at the age of thirty when he presented himself to the Father in consecration at the river Jordan, he was the exact corresponding price for Adam. He was not under adamic condemnation because Adam was not his father—God was his father, and therefore he could be, and was, perfect and met the necessary requirements to be the ransom.

The Apostle Peter tells of the time when the resurrected Jesus will return to earth to establish his kingdom which will be the means of blessing all the families of the earth, “He shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: whom the heavens must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. For Moses truly said unto the fathers, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. Mid it shall come to pass, that every soul, which will not hear that prophet, shall be destroyed from among the people.”—Acts 3:20-23

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