For Real

I read this dialogue by J.I Packer today and found it fascinating.  Maybe you will too.

“Without forfeiting or reducing either His divine identity or His divine powers, in full and exact obedience to the Father’s will throughout, and through the enabling agency of the Holy Spirit at every turn, the second person of the Godhead, the Son of God who is God the Son, became a fetus growing in Mary’s womb; was born and nursed like any other baby; passed through infancy, boyhood, and adolescence into manhood; knew from the first moment of his self-awareness as a newborn that He was the Father’s son, who would always know and must always do what the Father directed, and did so unfailingly, blended meekness with majesty, seriousness with joyousness, satirical humor with sensitive gentleness, forthrightness against sin with vulnerable love to sinners in a unique perfection of character; modeled wisdom and humility, self-control and integrity, independence in the face of men and prayerful dependence on his Father, in a way and to a degree never seen or imagined before; and finally endured six hours of supreme agony on the cross, giving His life a ransom for many, bearing away the sin of the world, undergoing the Godforsakeness that we sinners deserved.  Then His resurrection displayed His divinity and demonstrated His victory to His disciples, who from then on linked Him with the Father in their worship and prayers.”

After reading that, I began to meditate on the realness of Jesus.  Here are my thoughts:

Jesus was truly God and truly man.  He had complete moral perfection and symmetry of character, yet He understood our weaknesses because He lived here, with us, in this very broken place.  He was God with skin on. 

He arrived in history to the world He created, but the world rejected this very real, God-man with skin on.  They beat and bruised Him until his real skin came off and His real bones were broken.  This very real God-man died a very real and very painful death for our very real offenses and His very real red blood was shed for our sins.  He then descended into a very real Hell because this is where we were destined to go—without His very real, and very loving sacrifice. He really arose and conquered real death and then he ascended back to His real home—we would have been able to see Him going with our very real eyes had we been there.  But we weren’t, so we have to believe what the gospels say is true.

Do you believe it?  He lived and breathed and died—in this world—so we could live in a new world—Heaven—with Him someday. 

And He’s coming back again.  For real.

Believe it.

 

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,
   did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
   taking the very nature of a servant,
   being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
   he humbled himself
   and became obedient to death—
      even death on a cross!

Philippians 2:5-8