In the Beginning was the Word [Jesus]
by Mihran Kulhanjian
My dear Friends,
We know from the Gospel of John:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:1-5).
What does John say here about Jesus? Jesus is the Word. In fact, the Word is the whole Godhead [The Trinity—the whole triune God]. The Son existed in the beginning, before the universe was created, before the world was created. He always was. As the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus created the universe including this world as His Father (the First Person of the Trinity) designed it. Jesus was with the Father in fellowship throughout eternity. “In Him was life and the life was the light of men.” Both life and light are qualities of Jesus. “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.” (John 8:12). Jesus offers life eternal for those who follow Him and the light represents holiness, righteousness and purity. And darkness is sin, evil, it is Satan. The darkness could not comprehend [overcome] the light [Jesus]. Jesus, as the Sacrificial Lamb on the cross, overcame darkness for us out of His great love for us. He died an agonizing death on the cross, spilling His blood, was buried, rose three days later from the grave and ascending to Heaven. His death was the blood sacrifice for man that man might have life and communion with God as it was planned in the beginning with the first man, Adam. Life is in the blood. “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul’ (Leviticus 17:11). And we know from Hebrews 9:22: “And according to the law almost all things are [a]purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.” .Only a perfect blood sacrifice could atone for man’s sin. Jesus was the perfect blood sacrifice. He defeated death. He defeated Satan. Satan is a loser. Jesus was the sacrificial Lamb of God. He was sacrificed on the cross to bear the sins of the world. All sin, from every human being past, present and in the future has been dealt with. Jesus was the sacrifice. He took the punishment for sin that was rightly for you and me and the entire human race. There was an exchange. Jesus exchanged His life for ours. By His great love for us and His obedience to the Father, He did this one act that saves man; but man must receive Jesus, repent and believe. We must become disciples of Jesus Christ if we want to appropriate the gift of eternal life in which Jesus has given us.
You might ask: Why must God's wrath come down on sinners? The answer is: God is holy. Holiness means a separation from sin. God is separated from sin. He has no tolerance for sin. We are separated from God because of our sins. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Our sins have separated us from God because God is holy, we must also be holy, pure to have fellowship with Him. Jesus bridged the gap between us and God the Father so that we could have fellowship with Him as God intended in the beginning.
Adam, the first man created by God from the dust of the earth, was sinless until he disobeyed God. When Adam disobeyed God, he sinned, he rebelled, and because of his sin he could not have fellowship with God again as before. In the garden, Adam and Eve lived in communion with God. There was no disease, illness, pain or sorrow in the Garden of Eden. And there was no death. When Adam and Eve rebeled and transgressed God's word, they now found themselves separated from God with guilt and shame. A triune God created a triune man [spirit, soul and body]; in His image and likeness. Therefore, human beings are exalted above all animals and Adam was given by God dominion over the Garden and all living creatures. As punishment for disobedience to God, Adam and his wife, Eve [the first recorded to sin], were ejected from the Garden of Eden [their home] and they would have to make their own way in life, separated from God and all the good provisions given to them in the Garden of Eden. Again, less we forget, when Adam and Eve lived in the Garden there was no suffering, pain or death. Once out of the Garden, they experienced pain, suffering and death. There are consequences to disobeying God and the consequences for the unrepentant sinner is eternal. A disciple of Jesus Christ fears God and keeps his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man (Ecclesiastes 12:13).
"And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you[shall surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17).
All human beings inherited the sin nature from Adam. Each of us has the rebel inside of us. We must remember that God is holy [He is sinless and cannot sin] and to be accepted into the Kingdom of God we must also be holy, justified and sanctified in Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior. As mentioned earlier, being holy means being separated from sin. This means we must be sinless. When we pray, confess our sins to God, He forgives us of our sins. God is merciful and faithful. If we what to have fellowship with God, receive His blessings, His promises and eternal life, we must turn to Him with confession of sin, repentance and with faith. We must believe that the Lord Jesus Christ came from Heaven to earth, was crucified and died on the cross, was buried, and rose on the third day. He is alive, in Heaven with all authority by God the Father to rule over Heaven and earth. If you believe on Jesus and follow Him, you will have eternal life. This is a gift from God. But God wants your love and He wants you to be in alignment with Him not with this wicked world. You cannot love this world and love God. You must choose. He wants communion with you. God is not a magic genie or Santa Claus. He is God, the Creator of all that is good, the heavens, the earth, the universe and all things.
Everyone who sins and remains in sin [lives in sin] has separation from God; there is no communion with God as originally intended by God when He created the first man and woman. God wants man to love Him; but He does not need man's love. God loved us first; He gave His only Son [Jesus] to us that we might know Him and live. However, the Bible does not say why He loves us. We are not very loveable are we?
Jesus, the only Son of God, and is God, said the greatest commandment is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30). But to love Him we must know Him. Few people know Him. And to know Him is to obey His commandments. If we love God we will obey His commandants. To be a Christian is to be like Christ—to take on His attributes—to be holy—to be pure; to take on His character.
When we believe in Christ and obey his commands, God does not see us as unrighteous; but we are cleansed, washed, sanctified and justified through Christ (1 Corinthians 6:11). God now sees us as pure, as holy, as righteous in Christ. We are righteous in Christ in us, not righteous of ourselves. We become the children of God, the brothers and sisters of Christ. That is, when we turn ourselves over to Him. When we submit to God and receive Jesus in faith as our Lord and Savior with the new birth [born again], with repentance, confession of sin and faith in Him [Jesus], God the Father erases away our sins--as though we have never sinned. He now sees us as He sees Christ. We are pure in His sight. We now belong to the family as a child of God. And as a child of God we behave as a child of God ought to behave--righteously, carefully not to offend our Father by rebelling and turning to disobedience.