Jesus Christ is an eternal Savior so that you might have eternal life.
John 17:1–5 (NIV)
CONTEXT: As His crucifixion draws near, Jesus prays to His Father.
1 After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:
“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2 For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3 Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 4 I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. 5 And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.
Listen to passage & devotional:
Belgic Confession of Faith, Article 10: The Deity of Christ
We believe that Jesus Christ,
according to his divine nature,
is the only Son of God—
eternally begotten,
not made nor created,
for then he would be a creature.
He is one in essence with the Father;
coeternal;
the exact image of the person of the Father
and the “reflection of his glory,”
being in all things like him.
He is the Son of God
not only from the time he assumed our nature
but from all eternity,
as the following testimonies teach us
when they are taken together.
Moses says that God “created the world”;
and John says that “all things were created by the Word,”
which he calls God.
The apostle says that “God made the world by his Son.”
He also says that “God created all things by Jesus Christ.”
And so it must follow
that he who is called God, the Word, the Son, and Jesus Christ
already existed when all things were created by him.
Therefore the prophet Micah says
that his origin is “from ancient times,
from eternity.”
And the apostle says
that he has “neither beginning of days
nor end of life.”
So then,
he is the true eternal God,
the Almighty,
whom we invoke,
worship,
and serve
Summary
There's a ton of confusion out there about why Jesus came, even amongst those who believe in Him. Some will say Jesus came to show the way to the Father. Others will say that He came as an example of how to live. Still others will point to Him as the ultimate expression of love and faithfulness.
Of course there's truth in all of those viewpoints, but you don't need to wonder or speculate Jesus' primary reason for coming, since He makes it clear Himself as He prays: His Father "granted Him authority over all people, that He might give eternal life to all those [the Father] has given Him (v2)."
For most people, Jesus' story begins with a humble birth in a small town. Although this does mark the beginning of Jesus' earthly ministry, it certainly isn't the beginning of Jesus! He, like the other two members of the Godhead, exist eternally, or as Jesus puts it, "before the world began."
Dig Deeper
Contemplating eternity breaks our brain. Everything that we can see, touch and feel had a beginning, and before that it simply didn't exist. With many things we can explain the process the thing went through in order to be what it now is, like a lump of coal that gets pressed into a diamond over millennia, but still, there's a moment it wasn't quite yet a diamond, and something then changed when it became a diamond.
Perhaps this is why so much attention gets focused on the humanity of Christ, because although His virgin birth throws us for a loop, at least His life on earth mostly fits into our preconceived categories (that is, until at the other end of His life He shatters death, but we'll cover that later).
This week though, do your best to focus on Jesus' eternal nature; that He is God from all eternity, and that there's never been a moment when He wasn't. This isn't something that can't be fully explained in a short blog post, or a series of posts or even a thick book of theology.
Know that your Savior, like His Father, is omnipotent (He has "all authority") and He came to give you eternal life.
ACKNOWLEDGE WHO GOD IS: Our Father, who glorified His only begotten Son that we might have eternal life;
ALIGN YOUR LIFE WITH GOD'S WILL: Pray that more and more you will begin eternal life right now as you come to know the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom He has sent;
ASK GOD FOR WHAT YOU NEED:
Read the New Testament in a year! Today: Hebrews 7
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