The purpose of the last few articles is to establish from apologetical and Biblical considerations the case for the uniqueness of Christ. As has been made out a number of times in this series of articles and in a whole range of recent Christian writings, the constant emphasis of the Bible is to make the point that what one is determines what one does. On the other hand, the humanist pressures of our day force us to activity which is supposed to be a commentary on what we are. The danger for the Christian is to substitute doing for being. When this substitution is brought over to the subject of understanding Christ, much is made out of what He did but what He claimed to be is downplayed. Thus, in the eyes of the average non-Christian, Christ is a good moral teacher who went about doing a lot good things to a lot of people but cannot be God as Christians claim. As those to whom the task of upholding the uniqueness of Christ is committed, we need to remind ourselves and others that what Christ did and said received their sanction and authority from what He was (and not the other way round).
But after having said that, I would go on to say that we Christians are privileged through God’s revelation to see that there were certain things which He did which also contributed to the right understanding of the uniqueness of His being. The fact of His being conceived by a virgin was not only a fulfillment of the prophecy in Isaiah (7:14) but also an indicator that the One Who was thus born was the Divine being entering human race. On the mountain of transfiguration, Peter, James and John saw something of the splendour of His Being and reported it as part of the perception of their unique Master (Jn.1:14; II Pet.1:16). We have a glimpse at the authority and wisdom of the Second Person of the Trinity in the Boy of 12 at the Jerusalem temple (Lk.2:45-50). Jesus challenged His disciples (Jn.14:11) as well as His Jewish detractors (Jn.10:38) that His miraculous works bore testimony to His Deity. The main thrust of this article, however, is the whole range of Christ’s work which has salvific implications. When Joseph was contemplating divorcing Mary, the angel set his heart at rest by giving him an insight into the conception of the Child and then went on to suggest the name Jesus for Him. For a Jew like Joseph, the name Jesus (which was the Greek form of the Hebrew Joshua - ‘Jehovah saves’) had only military connotations. Joshua, the servant of Moses, was the one who had militarily conquered a good part of Canaan. But the angel tells Joseph that this name was to have a different meaning as far as this Child was concerned - He was to be Israel’s moral Saviour - ‘from their sins’. Thus the work of Christ that our godless world is loath to recognise as unique has to do with our eternal salvation from the consequences - past, present and future - of our sins. It is thus that the Cross of Christ which sums up all that Christ came to do stands at the heart of the Gospel message.

1. The unparalleled aspect of Christ’s work is His death. It is as if the shadow of the cross fell across the manger in Bethlehem. When the Baby Jesus is brought to the Jewish temple on the eighth day after His birth, the godly Simeon tells Mary, “This Child is....to be a sign that will be spoken against......And a sword will pierce your own soul too.” (Lk.2:34,35). It was a reference that His identity and message will be resisted by His people (as well as the rest of the world) and she (Mary) would have to see the suffering and death of her Son - a rather inauspicious way to welcome a baby into the world! In our own country, when philosophers like Swami Vivekananda (- “it is sinful to call man a sinner”-) said that he did not need anyone to die for his sin, they were fulfilling this prophecy of Simeon. When Jesus hears the theologically correct confession of Peter as to His identity, He expresses His immense joy but goes on to explain His mission which primarily comprised His suffering and death (Matt.16:21). Peter’s reaction that that should not be the case brings forth the most thunderous denunciation from Jesus Who points out to Peter that such a mindset was Satanic in origin and a total misunderstanding of what God wanted His Christ (‘Anointed One’) to fulfil. Here indeed was a Man Who was born, not to live but to die!
It will be a tragic misrepresentation to think that the death of Christ was for a good cause - something similar to that of a martyr. The cross was not an unfortunate and accidental end to a good life - it was meticulously preplanned and precisely executed. The stark fact that Isaiah 53, written some 700 years before Christ, predicts in graphic detail, the suffering of Christ and a mode of punishment unknown at the time, cannot be sidestepped. There were 2 aspects to Christ’s death - substitutionary and representative. The implications are of eternal consequences.
Because He died for us (Rom.5:8), He has become our substitute. The Greek preposition anti (over against) is employed by Matthew in recording the statement of Jesus in his gospel (20:28) - ‘..a ransom for many’. Paul, on the other hand, uses the preposition, huper (on behalf of) in I Tim.2:6 (‘..a ransom for all men’) and II Cor. 5:21 (‘..to be sin for us..’). Peter, in I Pet.3:18 employs the same word - ‘..the righteous for the unrighteous..’ This unique facet of Christ’s death is unknown in any of the world’s religions, although interestingly, all ancient human societies practised substitutionary animal sacrifices - the meaning of such sacrifices however was rarely spelt out with any degree of clarity. It is only against the Old Testament backdrop of an all-holy God that it becomes reasonably clear that any violation of any part of the absolute law of this God would require violation of the life of the offender as a recompense. Because of His grace available even in the OT, He was willing to accept the life of an animal in lieu of that of the culprit. But these sacrifices pointed towards the one coming Sacrifice, perfect, complete and once for all, as it was obvious that ‘it [was] impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins’ (Heb.10:4). It must also be remembered that the sacrificial blood had to be shed, emphasising the necessity for an act of violence by which the blood had to be spilt. To a world far removed from the reality of a moral God, this idea of the atonement appears to be a gory and bloody requirement and aesthetically unacceptable. But to the believer in Christ who is at once conscious of his/her own sinfulness and the unutterable holiness of God, it is this sacrificial death which alone secures confidence to enter His awesome Presence (Heb.10:19).
But that is not all. Christ has also died as us (and therefore we died with Him - Gal.2:20a) thereby becoming our representative, taking our sinful disposition to the Cross. If His substitutionary death ensures our freedom from the penalty of sin (as He has borne it and has been punished for it), His representative death provides for victory over the power of sin. My disposition working as a law as it were in the members of my body (Rom.7:23) has been done away with, making it possible for Christ’s life to be lived out in me (Gal.2:20b). The same thought is expressed by Paul in Rom. 6:2,3 and Col.3:3a. This approach to the reality of the sin-disposition is again unique to the Christian faith. All religions expect us to behave well and the assumption is that we have what it takes to live upright moral lives. This gross underestimation of our inborn ‘nature’ makes the whole exercise of a holy life hopelessly futile. But now that Christ has taken this disposition with Him to the cross, the possibility of an acceptable moral life immediately opens up to us. Also each of the passages quoted above contains the complementary thought that consequent to our co-crucifixion with Christ, the life of Christ is available to be lived out in us.
There are 4 word-pictures in the New Testament to describe what has been achieved through the death of Christ. The first is that we have been redeemed. The Greek word agorazo used in I Cor. 6:20; 7:23 and Rev. 5:9 indicates a purchase made by payment of a certain price. The context often is that of the slave-market where these unfortunate human specimens were bought and sold. Through the sacrificial death of Christ, we however have been bought for freedom! - to be (and become) sons and daughters of the living God. The second is that of propitiation. The Greek words hilasmos or hilasterion (I Jn.2:2) would indicate an act of appeasement. In our context, the righteous and rightful anger of God at the moral disorder of the world through human rebellion has been assuaged by the perfect life poured out as an offering by the Perfect Human Being, Jesus Christ. The third word which is often the more popular concept associated with salvation is forgiveness. Two words in the original language are employed here - charizomai (Col.2:13) which has the same root as ‘grace’ would mean that forgiveness is a ‘freely given’ entity and is not deserved. The other word aphiemi (I Jn.1:9) refers to ‘sending away’ denoting the fact that we are not held guilty. Both words imply that humankind is really guilty before God, having broken His laws - forgiveness is what ensures real freedom from that guilt. In today’s context, when secular psychology has tried to explain away guilt more as a complex than a reality, we will do well to stand reminded of the great inner release procured for us by the precious death of Christ. The fourth picture refers to justification, represented by the word dikaioo (Rom.5:1) which portrays the sinner now being viewed as sinless - a legal status by which he/she is deemed to have never sinned! All these words picture for us the moral requirements of a just God, now adequately met by the death of His Son Jesus Christ.
2. The death of Christ is naturally followed by His burial. To be sure, this is not strictly viewed as an aspect of the work of Christ but its apologetic and theological implications are so important that it cannot be ignored. The fact that the death of Christ was real stands attested by His burial. He could not have swooned (as some would have us believe) only to be revived and thereafter walk out of the grave! The ridiculous nature of this claim is beneath comment. Suffice it to say that the Roman centurion who saw Him die, the governor who sanctioned the burial and the two famous friends of Jesus who undertook to bury Him were all certain that death had really supervened. Paul, in his eloquent defense of the resurrection in I Cor.15, makes a specific mention of His burial (v.4) in order to drive home the same point. The importance of Jesus’ burial becomes clear when we read Rom.6:4. Sanctification for the Christian believer is possible only because the old self has been buried with Christ. One does not have to walk around with a dead body strapped to the back (Rom.7:24), a form of punishment where the decaying cadaver begins to infect the living and the prisoner eventually dies a miserable death. In the same way, we who have been imparted the new nature of Christ need not have that nature coexisting with the dead sinful disposition, the latter constantly affecting and infecting the former. In living out the reality of the death and burial of Christ as they apply our sanctified lives, we are to consider ourselves dead and buried with Christ so that His life can now be lived out unhindered.
3. The fact of the resurrection has already been discussed in the context of the uniqueness of the Person of Christ (TFT 11). The relevance of the resurrection to the Christian life should command our attention now. Firstly, it is the resurrection that ratifies all that was accomplished through the death of Christ. The substitutionary death of Christ can not have its desired result if Christ were not raised (I Cor.15:17) - we would still be in our sins. The Deity of Christ which stands established by the resurrection (Ps.16:10) ensures that His life was of infinite worth and thus able to substitute for all of humanity. Secondly, our justification is also dependent on the resurrection (Rom.4:25). The resurrection was the vindication that Jesus had indeed lived out His life through the ‘Spirit of holiness’ (Rom.1:4) and that righteousness could now be imputed to His followers. We could now be looked upon by an all-holy God as clothed with the life of Christ. Thirdly, it is the actual life of Christ which now is available to all His followers - the sanctified life is now a possibility in real terms (Rom.6:4b; Gal.2:20b). The righteousness of Christ is now imparted to us as we walk in daily obedience.
4. The ascension of Christ is normally not given the attention that it deserves. In his account of the event (Acts 1:9), Luke says that ‘a cloud hid Him from their sight’. If Jesus had travelled upwards in a 3-dimensional sense, He would have grown smaller and smaller in the sight of the onlookers and would have finally disappeared. But that was not the case. Luke clearly implies that Jesus was transferred by the ‘cloud’ to another dimension to which His glorified body rightly belonged. The reference to ‘clouds’ in the context of His transfiguration (Matt.17:2), ascension (Acts 1:9) and second coming (I Thess. 4:17; Rev.1:7) could itself constitute an interesting study! The importance of the ascension cannot be underemphasised. It was a historical statement that God, the Father had accepted the sacrifice of His Son. In Jn.7:39 we read that the Spirit’s coming was contingent upon the glorification of the Son. Peter at Pentecost says much the same in defense of the occurrences of the day (Acts 2:33). Any vestige of doubt about the efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ stands erased by the ascension.
5. Paul tells the Ephesian Church about the session of Christ at the right hand of God (Eph.1:20). This continues naturally from the ascension. The glorified Human-Divine Person is seated in the place of all authority over all powers and dominions (Eph.1:21.22) and His Human Name, Jesus is now vested with Divine authority (Phil.2:9-11). The Man Christ Jesus is now the one Mediator between God and us (I Tim.2:5) and He is the one who carries on the work of authoritative and afficacious intercession on our behalf (Heb.6:19; 7:25). He has delegated that authority to us because we are deemed to be seated with Him in the heavenly realms (Eph.2:6). The basis for all prevailing prayer is the presence of the glorified Jesus at the right hand of the Father. In Jn. 17:9, Jesus had specifically stated that He was not praying for the world but only for those whom the Father had given to Him, namely His disciples. The conclusion, however, is that we who are now seated with Him in the heavenlies have both the means and the motivation to pray for the world.
6. Cosmic history comes to a grand conclusion with the coming again of Jesus Christ. This is the only aspect of His work which, from our stand point, is yet to be completed. Hopefully, we would devote an entire issue of TFT to the subject considering its importance. This is the subject Jesus spoke most often and has been the hope of the Church since His ascension. Every chapter in I Thessalonians has a reference to it. The promise of Christ’s coming always is described in terms of its suddenness (Rev. 22:20) and it would catch people unawares (I Thess.5:2; II Pet.3:10). The coming of Christ is the final, visible and the most empirical vindication of the faith of the suffering Church (Rev.1:7). The message which the world had disregarded for so long will be the basis of the heavenly kingdom. But we are not to consider the coming of Christ as simply a matter of proving ourselves right. God will bring all things to their rightful culmination in His Son (Eph.1:10) and the Church could look forward to an end to the presence of sin and sorrows. She can anticipate being Christ’s heavenly bride (Rev.21:2-4) and a blessing for the whole creation (Rev.22:1-5).
As we conclude this study of the glorious work of our Saviour Jesus Christ and as we are at the threshold of the third millennium, we would do well to heed the words of Peter - “The Lord is not slow in keeping His promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” (II Pet.3:9). May we by the grace of God hasten the coming of Christ by completing the work which He has given us to do (II Pet.3:12)!