THE SON OF MAN

THE SON OF MAN

                Jesus talked a lot about His Father in heaven and this rattled the Pharisees, because in calling God His Father, they said that He was making Himself equal with God. So Jesus was definitely introducing something new into the world. He was introducing God as His Father, but HE was also including us in that family. He was our Father too. He had come here from somewhere else to rescue us from our downward plunge. He had left His Kingdom, the one He had created Mankind to live in and He had actually entered into our dark and hopeless fallen kingdom to perform a rescue operation. It was a greater rescue operation than had ever been attempted in the past or will ever be attempted again

                So, this rescue mission could be accomplished by no one less than the Creator God Himself and yet God could not save us. The only way to save us was to get inside of us and to change our very hearts and minds and characters, which had immediately taken on the evil bent of our new master. Satan.

                But it was more than that. With the first sin, God had to flee from Adam, because Adam had forfeited His inheritance. (This treasure in earthen vessels)  When God had created man in His image, He had created a body into which He had breathed His Spirit and Adam had become what the Tabernacle of Moses clearly showed. He had become a tri-part being made of spirit, soul and body and now the presence of God had had to flee from Adam’s spirit. Adam became a man in whom the Spirit of God could no longer dwell. His spirit was now void of the presence of God.

                This same thing had happened to Israel concerning their temple. Ezekiel tells of the Spirit of god departing from the Most Holy Place and reluctantly hovering over Jerusalem and then the Mt. OF Olives and then back to God in heaven. And that spirit did not return again until it came back housed in the body of Jesus, the second Adam.

                Now, God’s flight from Adam had not been to protect Himself, you understand. God had fled to protect Adam, because sin and sinners cannot dwell in the presence of a Holy and All-powerful God without immediately being consumed. God had fled from Adam to protect him and to preserve His life until He could send a perfect go between… someone who was both God and Man

                So Jesus, the Son of God had to come into this world as something more than the Son of God. He also had to come as the Son of Man. And it is interesting that in the Greek, that phrase is something more specific than we have it in English. Jesus, in fact called Himself, “The Son of THE Man. So Jesus was the Son of God, but He was also the Son of the Man Adam who was the Son of God. Jesus was the Son of that Man who had defected from the kingdom.

                So Jesus came to succeed where Adam had failed and to take upon Himself the horrible penalty of eternal separation from God, in order to reconcile us back to His Father. But reconciliation requires more than a substitutionary death on our behalf. He also has to enter into the very heart and soul of man and transform him into what Adam was before the fall. In other words, as long as we remain evil rebels, the presence of God will still kill us.

                But as John 3:16 tells us, “God loved us so much that He sent His only begotten Son so that whoever believed in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

                So Jesus accomplished His substitutionary death for us, quite apart from us. God must give up His life in our place, but that is only half of the story. For when Jesus had accomplished His substitutionary death for us, He went back to heaven, to send down His Holy Spirit to dwell in us and to transform us into sons and daughters of God. His own blood would now provide a covering for our sins, thus allowing His very Spirit to enter into us and to transform us into His likeness

                So while He was on this earth Jesus delighted in calling Himself “The Son of The Man.” He had come into the world to rescue us. But it was a man that had sold our world out to Satan and it was a Man that must buy it back.

                There is a wide margin of understanding within Christianity. Some speak only of His substitutionary death for us but ignore pretty much the fact that He came to transform us into His image. Still, others talk a lot about becoming like Jesus while treating lightly His death on the cross through which we enter into His death and are born again into His kingdom.

                Today fundamental Christianity is on its way out in many circles so that those who are Bible believing, Born again, Spirit filled Christians are actually despised by much of Christianity. Many hold the Holy Spirit at arm’s length, treating Him as an optional Member in the salvation package.

                But it is interesting yet terrifying to realize that those who are rejecting fundamental Christianity are actually lining themselves up with the global religion of the Beast, embracing political correctness, denying many of the essential elements such as repentance, the cross and the blood of Jesus and so, like the first Adam, they are literally rejecting God’s salvation plan even as they call themselves “Christians.”

                It is a tragic thing to watch as large parts of Christianity follow the first Adam in rejecting the real Jesus in favor of the imposter. They are saying yes to Satan’s perversions and his culture of death in opposition to the life that Jesus came to give us. Today the idea that we must live holy lives by the indwelling power of Christ is becoming a rare thing and the idea of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us and empowering us to live the life of Jesus and to do His works is all but gone in many circles.

                Today we love our traditions more than we love the presence of God. We love the Law that condemns us more than we love the Lord who came to save us from the inside out.  We still tacitly accept Him as the Son of God, way up there in His realm, but not as the Son of Man who came to tread the pathway that we as His disciples must follow.

                We may repeat the mantra that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, but we don’t often live like that is true. We tend to live separate lives as if religion is something we can stop by once a week and get a refresher course, rather than actually living all the time in that awareness of His presence and power. So Christianity has become a part time job for many.

                AS the Son of the Man, Jesus succeeded where Adam had failed, but now, He is also making us into sons and daughters of God… adopted into the family… and being trained and shaped into His image so that we can actually reign with Him on the throne of the universe as kings and priests unto our God. 1 Peter 2:9, 10

                Are you on God’s program or are you on a manmade program of good intentions and spiritless Christianity. Time will tell which road you have chosen, because it is not merely a matter of being a church member. It is a matter of being transformed into His image by His indwelling Holy Spirit and His Word. By the promises of God’s Word we are partaking of the divine nature of Christ. We are partaking of His divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.  2 Peter 1:4. And as Galatians tells us, it is being done by promise rather than by Law. (See Galatians chapter 4) It is His work both for us and in us that we are saved and not one or the other. We must know Him both as the Son of God and as the Son of the Man.

                We are entering, by new birth, back into the kingdom that the first Adam forfeited and we are learning to live like kingdom sons and daughters of God. And as sons and daughters of the King, we delight in Him just as He delights in us. So smile… we are in this present age for a cause and a purpose, but Satan has been given term limits and the end of his term is fast approaching.