The Incomparable Christ

My wife, my children, my parents and extended family, my Christian brothers and sisters, my work, and my health are a few of the many things for which I am thankful. You likely have a similar list.

But nothing compares to Christ and nothing should compare to Christ in your heart.

Contemplate the gift that he gave.

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

This Word which became flesh, existed with God and existed as God in the beginning (John 1:1). He carried with him all the characteristics of Deity. He is eternal (existing prior to and outside of time – John 1:1), he is all-powerful (all things were made through him – John 1:3), he is holy (in him was life, and the life was the light of men – John1:4), he is truth (grace and truth came through him – John1:17).

God is Spirit not flesh and blood (John 4:24), yet this eternal, all-powerful, wholly other spirit being, chose to come to earth to become like us for us.

He was not forced by a superior being to come, he “gave himself for our sins” (Galatians 1:4). He was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). If Jesus is God, then it was according to his plan and his foreknowledge as much as it was the Father or the Holy Spirit.

He was not the Son in eternity past, but became the Son of God in his incarnation (see Luke 1:36).

He never ceased being God. He received worship on a number of occasions (see Matthew 14:33; 21:9) without rebuke. Thomas’ powerful statement — “My Lord and my God” (John 20:28) — did not receive a condemnation, but rather agreement. Prior to his death on the cross, and after his resurrection, Jesus is God. Yet he subjected himself to the Father in all things.

“My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work” (John 4:34).

“I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me” (John 5:30).

“For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me” (John 6:38).

He “emptied himself” by coming to earth as a man and “humbled himself” by dying for mankind (Philippians 2:6-8).

After his humility and shame upon the cross, his weary body was laid in a tomb separated from his spirit (Luke 23:46; James 2:26). On that glorious Sunday morning, his spirit returned and reanimated his body. His resurrection is used as a guarantee of ours (1 Corinthians 15:12-20). He went to heaven in this body — though certainly glorified.

We know that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, the perishable cannot inherit the imperishable (1 Corinthians 15:50). Our perishable body will put on the imperishable, our mortality swapped for immortality (1 Corinthians 15:53). We will be changed, and it is then that “death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Corinthians 15:54).

Now here is something to rejoice in, be thankful for, and be awed by every day for the rest of your life.

“Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (John 3:2).

When that great day arrives, and Jesus comes for his own, our spirits will reunite with our bodies, and will be changed to become like him. We will be (in some way) like him and with him for all eternity.

Thank God for our incomparable Christ!

Lee Parish, link to original article