I have been struck recently thinking about the fact that God Himself came into the world in the form of Christ. Today, as we read the words of Jesus in the Gospels in the Bible, we are reading the very words of God. The things that Jesus said are themselves what Good has said. The things that Jesus did are themselves the things that God has done.
This is amazing. Who wouldn’t want to know God Himself. Even if you aren’t sure about God, certainly if you could know Him and you could know that he is real, you would want to know who He is and what He is like, wouldn’t you?
This is the opportunity that Jesus gives to us because Jesus was here. He was God in the flesh. In fact, he is God in the flesh. And he will yet be God in the flesh when he returns.
To help us to know him, God decided to make himself knowable. He came as the Christ. He spoke to us in words that we can understand. He experienced what we have experienced. All of the temptations and trials…and much much more than many of us will ever experience. He endured suffering that he didn’t deserve. He made himself a sacrifice for us as an offering for our sins. And he did all of this because he was re-establishing his Kingdom. He was doing it all so that we would be able to enter his Kingdom and give him glory as our King.
So Jesus emphasized this to the people in Jerusalem. He said:
Whoever believes in me does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. The one who looks at me is seeing the one who sent me.
John 12:44-45
Jesus cried this out to the people in an attempt to help people know who he is. He wants people to know the Father and believe Him. He wants people to know himself because if they do, they will know the Father.
The connection between Jesus and the Father is amazing. But truthfully, it is also difficult to understand. We can ask ourselves the question: How does God send the Son and yet is the Son? How can the Jesus and the Father be One?
Again, these are difficult questions, at least until we understand that there is One God and that He has decided to make Himself known in three different ways: As Father, as Son, and as the Holy Spirit.
There is a lot to say about this, but for now, I want to finish by simply sharing a few other things that Jesus said related to his connection with the Father:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
John 1:1-3
My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.
John 10:27-30
Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
John 5:17-18
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.
John 6:44
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
John 14:6-7