The revelation of Jesus Christ.

The revelation of Jesus Christ.

What Jesus accomplished and revealed through His life, death and resurrection, can never be exaggerated or exhausted. Eph 2:7 - He did this to demonstrate for all time to come the extraordinary greatness of his grace in the love he showed us in Christ Jesus.
God sees the work and revelation of Christ as being so rich that He plans to use all time to come, to demonstrate and further reveal its true meaning. This is not just another doctrinal subject, to be neatly categorized and added to all the other subjects. This is The Revelation that gives meaning and perspective to all other revelations. Without this revelation, all other knowledge remains in the class of human speculation and philosophical guessing.

Because this thought is so broad, I want us to focus on just one part of it in this writing, namely: What Christ revealed concerning man. The most essential ingredient of what Christ revealed is the true nature and identity of God and man. It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living… Eph 1:11 (MESSAGE)

The word ’Christ’ simply means anointed one and his anointing. Anointing is the act of pouring oil over and rubbing it into a person or object. This act signified that the person (or object) was appointed by God for a specific task. So Jesus Christ had a specific task and purpose. He was THE ANOINTED One that came as God’s final word to mankind (Heb 1:1). A major part of that purpose was to demonstrate who and what man really is.

God became man…. the most awesome part of it, is not that He could lower Himself to the level of man, but that He could elevate man to His own class and nature. He declared through this act that man had the capacity to be partakers of His divine nature. Eph 4:13 “until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” Christ became the measure of man. To become a fully developed man, means nothing less than becoming exactly who Christ is.

A child has all the bones, muscles and ligament of an adult. They just need to develop. Man, created in the image and likeness of God, was given a wake-up call in Christ to become all that God intended us to be. By an open display of what it meant to be a man in fellowship with God, he appealed to every man’s conscience. We recognise in him, what we inherently know about ourselves.

When people stood in amazement at what he did, He immediately pointed to them and told them they could do it too. He never allowed people to put him on a pedestal to be adored as a unique individual, far removed from what mere men could ever become. He always included others, lifting them to His own level and explaining that what He did and who He was, was equally available to them. Listen to His words, catch His attitude: “The works I do, you will do also, and greater works than these”, “Just as the Father sent me, I send you.", “ that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You, that they also may be one in Us”. His words are inclusive, not exclusive. His vision was to duplicate Himself, to be the first-born among many brethren, the first-fruits of a great harvest of men and woman just like Him! He was not only an example for us, but of us. Jesus Christ – the anointed one – the one who fulfilled the task that He was anointed for - to restore relationship between God and man, He is the revelation of your true identity. “And then take on an entirely new way of life--a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you.” (Eph 4:22-24 Message)

As he is, even so are we in this world! Whenever Christ is revealed we are co-revealed with Him in glory (1Jo 4:17, Col 3:4) He never reveals Himself in isolation. When you see Him, you see yourself; your true self. If your experience does not line up with this revelation, it’s because you forgot who you really are. But if you continue to look intensely and do not forget your true identity, your life and actions will align themselves to what you see. No contradiction can continue when you refuse to agree with what it suggests. No lie can continue when you purposely look at truth.

Your life, who you really are, is preserved in Christ (Col 3:3). As you set your focus and determine to not think of yourself in any other way, but what is revealed in Christ, you discover an inexhaustible source of revelation there. Revelation about Him and you, you and Him, seeing Him in a mirror until you cannot distinguish between Him and you. Then you exclaim with Paul: “he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him”

This is central to the gospel. We cannot think of Jesus Christ, without thinking of the task he accomplished in revealing God and man. So I cannot think of Him without thinking of man – and I cannot think of man without thinking of Him. He revealed man and now men who grasp that revelation, reveal Him.

Mat 16:13-18 When Jesus arrived in the villages of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "What are people saying about who the Son of Man is?" They replied, "Some think he is John the Baptizer, some say Elijah, some Jeremiah or one of the other prophets." He pressed them, "And how about you? Who do you say I am?"
Simon Peter said, "You're the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God."
Jesus came back, "God bless you, Simon, son of Jonah! You didn't get that answer out of books or from teachers. My Father in heaven, God himself, let you in on this secret of who I really am. And now I'm going to tell you who you are, really are. You are Peter, a rock. This is the rock on which I will put together my church, a church so expansive with energy that not even the gates of hell will be able to keep it out.

Here we see how Peter came to the realization that ‘the son of man’ is ‘the son of God’! That is the revelation embodied in Christ. When I hear ‘Christ’ I hear God’s declaration of mans true identity. That the son of man, is the son of God, is not only true of Jesus, it is true of you. Immediately after Peter declares this truth about Jesus’ true identity, Jesus starts speaking to Peter about his true identity. “You are Peter” ‘Peter’ meaning a piece of a rock. The second time He uses the word ‘rock’ He does not use the word ‘piece of rock’ but refers to the actual big rock from which the piece came. Isa 51:1 "Listen to me, all you who are serious about right living and committed to seeking GOD. Ponder the rock from which you were cut, the quarry from which you were dug.” Deut 32:3,4 respond to the greatness of our God! The Rock: His works are perfect. Jesus challenges Peter to consider his own origin and come to the same conclusion concerning himself as the conclusion he came to concerning Christ, namely: the son of man (son of Jonah in this case) is also the son of God! It is upon this revelation of our true identity that the church, the new community that responds to the call of their origin, is build.

When John writes his account of Jesus’ life, he does not start with His genealogy as the other writers, He goes far beyond that to His true origin – God, before all else.
Paul realized too, that the revelation of Christ, separated him from his natural genealogy Gal 1:15,16 But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me….

The truth about you is so much greater than what can be perceived in the natural. You came from God. Our Father valued us even when we did not recognize Him. He lovingly send His own Son as His final call for us to return to Him again. Let us respond to the greatness of our God – The Rock. Acknowledge that His work (that includes you) is perfect! Ponder the rock from which you were cut. Know that our Father is the substance from which you were made.

By Andre Rabe
andre.rabe@gmail.com
http://eclesia.blogspot.com