Jesus is God’s promised saving king (the Christ, or Messiah) – the one who God has sent to set everything right in this world.
A Historic Figure
From one perspective, Jesus was simply a Jewish man who lived about 2000 years ago in the Roman-ruled area of Palestine. This man developed a following through his distinctive teaching about God’s Kingdom and the reports of his miracles, but he became unpopular with the religious leaders of the day who engineered his tragic crucifixion by the Romans.
God’s Saving King
The claim of those who followed Jesus closely during his life, however, is that Jesus is not merely a man – he is God’s saving King. The Jewish people had been waiting many years for God’s Annointed One (the Messiah, or Christ) to arrive and rescue them from their enemies and establish God’s eternal kingdom of peace and justice. Jesus understood himself to be this promised king, and so he proclaimed and demonstrated the arrival of God’s Kingdom through his words and powerful healings.
But Jesus understood that to be God’s Messiah, or Saving King, required him to suffer and die in the place of God’s people and to be resurrected after three days. At the heart of the salvation that Jesus brings from God is the forgiveness of sins and hope beyond death. Jesus established this salvation through his sacrificial death of the cross – bearing the sin, or rebellion, of the world in our place – and his astonishing resurrection from the dead – creating a new humanity, reconciled to God. Jesus’ resurrection proves that he is indeed God’s promised Saving King, that his death was effective in dealing with our sin. It also provides assurance that Jesus is returning to establish God’s perfect kingdom of justice and peace one day. Jesus appeared alive after his crucifixion to his followers, the men and women who had listened to Jesus’ teaching and witnessed his miracles. Their eyewitness reports have formed the basis of the New Testament gospels and letters and enable us to hear what God has done for us through Jesus, his Saving King.
God Himself
The writings of the New Testament go beyond even describing Jesus as God’s saving king; they make the claim that Jesus is God’s unique self-revelation in this world. Through Jesus, we can understand who God really is and what he is really like. The words and actions of Jesus reveal the character and purposes of God to us. In fact, as the early Christians wrestled with what Jesus had said about himself, what he had done, and what the Jewish Scriptures revealed about him, they quickly came to understand that Jesus was in fact God himself in the flesh. This is the ultimate Christian understanding of Jesus Christ – he is both God and man, and thus the perfect mediator between God and humanity.
Our Lord and Redeemer
Here at Chatswood Baptist, we understand Jesus to be our only true Lord and Saviour – God himself come to redeem us as God’s saving king. We focus our services, growth groups and programs around getting to know Jesus better through the Bible and encouraging each other to trust and follow him and to shape our lives around him.
To find out more about Jesus, why not do the Life of Jesus course? This is a six-week video and discussion based course that explores the life and teaching of Jesus with the help of Historian and Christian teacher, John Dickson.