| The Apostles' Creed, Part 5: "...and in Jesus Christ..." |
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| Written by David Lawrence |
| Monday, November 14 2011 00:00 |
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The Apostles’ Creed affirms the basic realities of each person of the Trinity. God, the first person of the Trinity, is Father Almighty and the Maker of heaven and earth. The second person of the Trinity is Jesus Christ. The name Jesus is the same as Joshua in the older Testament, and it refers to salvation. Jesus is Savior. Joshua was the savior of Israel in the sense that he saved Israel from their enemies in leading the conquest of the Promised Land. Jesus is our Savior in that he has rescued us from our great enemy: our own sin. Israel could not have saved itself, as they lacked the military leadership of a man like Joshua. We cannot save ourselves from our own sin, for we lack the resources to pay the price for our sin and to achieve perfect righteousness through obedience to every commandment of the law. We need a savior. Perhaps we should comment that although many Christians today would appear to agree fully with the remarks above, but tacitly deny it in their personal beliefs. To explain, it is contradictory to assert that we need a Savior and cannot save ourselves, while at the same time stating boldly that we have to do ‘the best we can” or obey certain commandments in order to be saved. If our eternal salvation is contingent on something that we do, works of obedience, then we do not actually need a Savior. Ultimately, the reason for our salvation lies with us: with our free-will decision and with our compliant actions. To understand what is implicit in the word Savior is to understand that we can do absolutely nothing to save ourselves. The word Christ means anointed and is the same in meaning as the Hebrew word Messiah. In the older Testament, God indicated his choice of a person for a certain office by having that person anointed with oil. Three offices were “anointed offices:” prophet, priest, and king. Prophets spoke for God and brought God thus to the people; priests represented the people before God, especially by offering sacrifice, and thus brought the people to God; and kings guided the people by administering the laws of God which were given for their benefit. Jesus is Christ in that He executes all three offices in His one person: the only one ever to do so. He speaks and reveals God’s Word to His people (prophet) and brings His people to God by his perfect life of obedience and complete atonement (priest), the benefits of which are imputed to His people through faith, and He guides and administers God’s will as the only Head of His Church (king). Thus by asserting belief in Jesus Christ, early Christians were affirming the underlying realities of these two words. |
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