Why Did Jesus Come Into The World? Understanding the Heart of the Christian Faith.
There is a question at the very center of Christianity that, surprisingly, many believers have never fully wrestled with. It is not a complicated question on the surface, but the depth of its answer has the power to completely reshape the way you understand your faith, your relationship with God, and the life you are called to live. The question is simply this: Why did Jesus come into the world?
Before we can answer that question well, we have to settle something foundational. Jesus did not begin to exist when He was born of Mary. The Gospel of John opens with a declaration that the Word already existed at the beginning of time, and that Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. The language John uses for "dwelling" is deeply intentional. It points directly back to the Old Testament tabernacle, the tent where the glory of God resided among the Israelites.
In Exodus 40, the cloud of God's presence settled so powerfully on the tent of meeting that Moses himself could not enter. John is making a breathtaking claim: that same glory, that same divine presence, took up residence in the person of Jesus Christ.
This is not a minor theological footnote. It is the foundation of everything.
Fully God, Fully Man
One of the most important and most misunderstood truths about Jesus is what is called the hypostatic union. This simply means that Jesus possessed two complete natures simultaneously: a fully human nature and a fully divine nature. Colossians 2:9 states plainly that in Christ, all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. Not a portion of deity. Not a diluted version. All of it.
He was not a man who was simply filled with the Holy Spirit in an exceptional way. He was God incarnate. When Philip asked Jesus to show the disciples the Father, Jesus responded with a question that should stop us in our tracks: "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." That is not a statement a mere man could make without it being either blasphemy or the most profound truth ever spoken. The Jewish leaders understood exactly what He was claiming, and they picked up stones because of it. Jesus never corrected their understanding. Because He was exactly who He claimed to be.
He Came to Fulfill What Was Promised
Long before Jesus was born, the prophets of the Old Testament painted a detailed portrait of the one who was coming. Isaiah 7:14 spoke of a virgin conceiving and bearing a son called Emmanuel, meaning God with us. Isaiah 9:6 described a child who would be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace. The title "Mighty God" in that passage, El Gibbor in Hebrew, is a title reserved exclusively for deity.
This was not poetry about a good teacher or a moral reformer. This was a description of God stepping into human history.
When Jesus was born, He fulfilled these prophecies and hundreds more. He Himself declared in Luke 24:44 that everything written about Him in the Law of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms had to be fulfilled. Nothing was left undone. When He cried out from the cross "It is finished," He was not simply announcing the end of His suffering. He was declaring the completion of everything the Father had sent Him to accomplish.
He Came to Save Us From Sin and Wrath
Matthew 1:21 gives us one of the clearest statements of purpose in all of Scripture. The angel tells Joseph that Mary's son is to be named Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins. Not save them in their sins. Not help them manage their sins more comfortably. Save them from their sins entirely.
Isaiah 53 paints a portrait of a suffering servant who takes on the infirmities and sorrows of others, who is pierced for transgressions and crushed for iniquities. First Peter 2:24 quotes this passage directly and applies it to Jesus, who bore our sins in His body on the cross so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. This is what is called the great exchange. He took what we deserved so that we could live unto righteousness, now and forevermore.
Romans 5:8 reminds us that this was not done for people who had earned it. God demonstrated His love for us while we were still sinners. The cross was not a response to human goodness. It was the ultimate expression of divine love reaching into human brokenness.
He Came to Defeat Death and the Devil
Hebrews 2:14 tells us that Jesus shared in flesh and blood specifically so that through His death He might destroy the one who holds the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who had been held in slavery by the fear of death. The cross looked like a defeat. It was anything but. Colossians 2:15 describes Jesus disarming spiritual powers and authorities and making a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them through the cross. The resurrection was the declaration that death itself had been conquered.
He Came So We Could Know the Father
Perhaps the most intimate reason Jesus came is this: to make the Father known. John 17:26 records Jesus saying that He made the Father's name known and would continue to make it known, so that the love the Father had for the Son might be in His followers. Jesus was not just a messenger carrying information about God. He was God, making Himself accessible, relatable, and knowable to humanity.
This changes everything about how we approach faith. Christianity is not primarily a system of rules, a self-improvement program, or a means of extracting blessings from a distant deity. It is an invitation into relationship with the living God, made possible through the person and work of Jesus Christ.
The more clearly we see who Jesus truly is, the more everything else comes into focus. He is not simply a good example to follow. He is the eternal Son of God who entered human history, fulfilled every promise, bore every sin, defeated every enemy, and opened the way to the Father. That is worth building your entire life around.
Full teaching here;
Be Blessed,
Marty, Brigitte, and the R.A.I.S.E. Team
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