Why the Son of God became the Son of Man

Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death -that is, the devil - and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.         - The writer to the Hebrews, 2:14-15

The writer of Hebrews is saying that there is a power that the devil holds (or did hold - taking things in their proper context). That power is called the power of death. So - What does he mean by the devil's (i.e. -Satan's) possession of the power of death?

(Please note: Satan means "the Adversary." Whether you believe the devil to be a literal being or simply a mystical figure-head that represents the pervading presence of evil in the world matters not. Either understanding is applicable to the overall reality spoken of herein.)

Death could be said to be the the relentless stalker of every living creature - and no human is excluded. According to Christian tradition, the undeniable reality of death's shadowing all living creatures is a testimony to the imperfection that pervades all human beings. (The death that reigns over all creation is a direct result of the death that reigns over mankind - more on that at another time.) That imperfection is a corruption of what was originally created. Man was created in such a fashion that, at worst, he would live several times over the lifespan we are acquainted with - and at best he would never even know death. According to the most ancient written and oral traditions, this is how that corruption took place: The first man and woman created by God, Adam and Eve, had divine dimensions within their persons that included a level of communication and fellowship with God that was as much a part of their being as the hair on their head, the skin on their body and the air that they breathed. Some time after their creation, Adam and Eve gave in to the temptation to seek the purpose and sustainment of life from a source other than God. (Whether that source was themselves, or a devil, or an imposter of God is only secondary. The primary issue was that they sought to sustain life from a source other than God.) The degree of the horror of this event is measured by the dimensions of the divine splendor they had known in their fellowship with God. This horrid event resulted in the mystical dynamics of their human essence becoming corrupted. That corruption involved a severance from God that was severe enough to remove the ever-present life sustaining dimensions of the fellowship they had formerly known with him. This so corrupted the nature of their being that their genealogical structure was altered. This resulted in their offspring inheriting this corruption. And so it was from generation to generation until the Son of God became a son of man -- and the impact of his being was so tremendous that one of the names he has come to be known as is the Son of Man. Other names he is known by are Jesus the Christ (Christ means "the anointed one") and Jesus of Nazareth (Nazareth being one of the towns of his childhood). The following words celebrate the destruction of death's grip on the human race. These words were written just a little over eight centuries before their fulfillment.

On this mountain the lord of Hosts will prepare a banquet of wines well matured, richest fare and well-matured wines         strained clear. On this mountain the Lord will destroy that veil shrouding all the peoples,         the pall thrown over all the nations. He will destroy death for ever. - The prophet Isaiah, 25:6-8a

("Pall" is a word scarcely used today, so for those unfamiliar with the word - a pall is a sheet, or shroud, draped over a corpse.)

So, how did Jesus overcome the power of death, and consequently, him who holds the power of death? Jesus destroyed the works of the devil by his very presence in the earth. He who is the light of the world - by his very presence as a son of man - who though appearing many generations after Adam (the father of all sons and daughters of men) becomes the spiritual -though no less real "replacement" of the original source of human likeness (Adam) and is now the new source of identity of all mankind.

Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ said: And so it is written, The first Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a life-giving spirit. (1 Cor 15:45).

One can easily see Paul's meditations on 2 Esdras (written about 100 years before Jesus' birth by the prophet Ezra) as a key element in the backdrop to his understanding of Jesus as a second Adam. 2 Esdras refers to Adam as the "first Adam" - which communicates the notion that the first Adam is some kind of proto-type of another Adam to follow...

2 Esdras 3:21-23 -- 21For the first Adam bearing a wicked heart transgressed, and was overcome; and so be all they that are born of him. 22Thus infirmity was made permanent; and the law (also) in the heart of the people with the malignity of the root; so that the good departed away, and the evil abode still. 23So the times passed away, and the years were brought to an end: then didst thou raise thee up a servant, called David. (For those less familiar with the David spoken of here, David is the most famous king of ancient Israel and many prophets foretold of the descendant of King David that would be the messiah - the savior - of all mankind. Jesus, a descendant of David, became known as the Son of David and was sometimes metaphorically called David. His amazing miracles, profound presence, heart-penetrating teachings - and finally his resurrection convinced his followers that he was the promised "David" spoken of by the ancient prophets.)

Jesus destroyed the power of death - and we receive the power of His life and liberation from the power of death because of His very existence as a son of man in the earth. No other son of man could have done this. God, in his wisdom, provided a son of man that could. And Jesus fulfilled his purpose in coming into the world as a man. He remained completely faithful through his faultless, obedient fellowship with his Eternal Father as a son of man. In going through death, he experienced that which he did not deserve because he was sinless. But by becoming a man born of a woman, he suffered death. Now do you see how it is that he suffered death because of Adam's sin - because of all humanity's sin? Now do you understand why it is that the Messiah must die? The Messiah must die, because the Messiah must be a member of mankind. It was his Father's purpose that he must become one of the created men that live on the canvass of world history -- and as such, would taste death -- and through his death shatter the shackles of death -- first for himself and then for all the rest of mankind.

We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man. (Heb 2:9)

Ahh! - the love of God! The love of the Father! The love of his obedient Son! The One by whom all things were made comes to earth in the form of his fallen - death dominated brothers. And not only that! Not only does he suffer death as all the rest of mankind has suffered - he suffers a most violent death at the hands of a most violent rejection of his person. And yet the Father, knowing what faced his Son, still sent him. The Son, knowing the severity that lay before him, was willing to come to us at his Father's beckoning.

Who could have believed what we have heard? To whom has the power of the LORD been revealed? He grew up before the Lord like a young plant whose roots are in parched ground; he had no beauty, no majesty to catch our eyes, no grace to attract us to him. He was despised, shunned by all, pain-racked and afflicted by disease; we despised him, we held him of no account, an object from which people turn away their eyes. Yet it was our afflictions he was bearing, our pain he endured, while we thought of him as smitten by God, struck down by disease and misery.. But he was pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; the chastisement he bore restored us to health and by his wounds we are healed. We had all strayed like sheep, each of us going his own way, but the Lord has laid on him the guilt of us all. He was maltreated, yet he was submissive and did not open his mouth; like a sheep led to the slaughter, like a ewe that is dumb before its shearers, he did not open his mouth. He was arrested and sentenced and taken away, and who gave a thought to his fate - how he was cut off from the world of the living, stricken to death for my people's transgression? He was assigned a grave with the wicked, a burial-place among felons, though he had done no violence, had spoken no word of treachery. Yet the LORD took thought for his oppressed servant and healed him who had given himself for a sacrifice for sin. He will enjoy long life and see his children's children, and in his hand the Lord's purpose will prosper. (- the prophet Isaiah, 53:1-10 Revised English Bible)

We have been liberated from the power of death and made to partake in the power of his life, his life as a son of man - as the Son of Man! (His power being testified to by His resurrection!) There is a prevalent teaching today that runs contrary to the first 1,000 years of Christianity. It is this: mankind's salvation is primarily accomplished by Jesus' death on the cross as the object of God's wrath on all men's sins, his suffering and death being mankind's substitutional punishment dished out by God that would have otherwise been individually channeled toward those for which he is the substitution. Sadly, this is a common perspective. And such a perspective blinds our eyes to the beauty and glory of our salvation... and even more severely corrupts our understanding of the character of God's love... and all of this results in many perversions, not the least of which is the existance of brutally judgmental churches and Christians who think they perform righteously after the pattern of their heavenly father. God Forbid! The teaching that Jesus became a man so that he could be our substitute recipient of God's wrath misses the point entirely. And I believe that teaching to be a shell game of the Adversary. The Adversary wants us blind to who God is in the majesty of his love, and who we are as the recipients - and therefore participants of his love. Jesus came not as the substitutive object of God's wrath. He came as the new repesentative head - and therefore the life force for a new mankind. Our salvation came to us in its fullest expression of God's unconditional love while yet in Mary's womb. Though theoretically one could say that which began in Mary's womb could somehow have been soured if he had traveled the path of the first Adam - but through immeasurably greater temptation than that which confronted the first Adam, he remained faithful to that which he was from the foundation of the earth. Jesus' faithfulness throughout his sufferings magnifies the virtue and power of his life. Jesus' resurrection magnifies the virtue and power of his life. His ordeal with death magnifies the power of his life. The virtue and essence of Jesus' life - the one who is in the deepest fellowship with Eternal Father - this life is infused to us because of our union with our Lord and Savior. Through our faith and fellowship with Christ - which faith and fellowship, beginning with Christ toward us, is at once both the cause and result of our blessed union with the Father through him, and the eternal testimony of the Father's boundless love. The beginning and end of our salvation is our partaking in the power of Jesus' life. The virtue and essence of his life being infused in us is testified by the two sacraments instituted by our Lord - the Lord's Supper and Baptism. Through the Lord's Supper we feed on Christ. What a beautiful picture! The food we eat sustains our life, hence food is the source of life. Jesus instituted the Supper the night he was betrayed in the garden, and the Supper testifies to what he taught in his days among the people. What did he teach concerning this? - that unless we eat his flesh and drink his blood we have no life in us, i.e. we are not immune to death. But if we eat his flesh and drink his blood, the power of his life becomes the source of our life. Our baptism also testifies to this - the power of his life as the source of our life. How so? When Jesus came to John to be baptized, John replied with confusion that it was himself that should be baptized by Jesus. But Jesus insisted by saying that "all righteousness must be fulfilled." - Now, what did he mean by that? We find the answer in understanding the backdrop and foundation on which John the Baptizer performed his baptisms. The people of Jesus and John's day understood very plainly. But it is very often missed by present day Christians. John's baptizing was rooted in the ancient Jewish rite of purification which institution is testified to in the Book of Numbers, chapter 19. The rite of purification recorded there is the foundation of all purification rites following, including purification rites in the days of John the Baptizer. In John 3:25-26 we learn that the subject of baptism and purification are actually associated as being the same topic. Now, all the sacrificial rituals of the Old Testament point to the saving work of the Son of God. And the purification rite of Numbers 19 involved one of those sacrifices. A red heifer was sacrificed and burned periodically and its ashes were co-mingled with water. The results of this co-mingling of the ashes of the red heifer with water was known as the water of purification and used in the rite of purification. There is much to be said about this rite, but for now we will simply state that those in a state of uncleanness must have the water of purification applied to them or else they were cut off by the clammy hand of death from the family of Life. -- and ALL experienced uncleanness from time to time, e.g.- touching anything dead or attending a funeral made one unclean. This ancient ritual of purification was the platform for the baptism practiced by John. The people of his time could not help but understand this. John's message underscored and maginified purification rite as a ritual that ceremoniously released the purified from the grip of death. His message took their understanding of the rite of purification to another level. And in doing so, set the stage for the ultimate purifiction rite - our baptism in Jesus. And as there was a sacrificed animal involved in the rite of purification, then we know that there is a gospel fulfillment of this Old Testament sacrifice. It is this. Just as the ashes of the sacrifice symbolically gave the the purification water its "punch", so does the cleansing power of our baptism get its punch by the presence of the Lamb of God in the Jordan. At our baptism, we are mystically baptized in the waters of Jordan - water that has holy and mystical power by virtue of Christ's unity with those waters at his baptism. This is what Jesus meant by his baptism being an act in which "all righteousness was fulfilled". When Jesus was baptized, it was not a baptism of repentance for uncleanness nor was it a confession of his need to be cleansed. He was declaring himself as the means of righteousness (purification) for all those who are baptized into him. When you were baptized you were spiritually (remember, the spiritual is no less real than the physical) - you were spiritually baptized into the waters of Jesus' own baptism, thus declaring your benefit in his fulfillment of all righteousness. And being in him who by his fulfillment of all righteousness did destroy the one who held the power of death -- by being in HIM we are truly cleansed and released from the grip of death. And so now we see that those two holy rites instituted by our Lord, Baptism and the Lord's Supper, are beautiful "show and tell" pictures of this central message: that it is by our infusion into the power of His life that we are saved… and it is by the infusion of the power of His life into ours that we are saved.

And this is the record, God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. …And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. - The 1st letter of the Apostle John, 5:11 & 20

It can truthfully be said that he shared in our frail and broken humanity that we may share in the power of his divine life as the Son of God. Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death - that is, the devil - and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.

Feel free to respond by sending to Tommy Davis at tjdavis@tjdavis.com of TJDavis.com