YESHUA BAR ELOHIM: THE ENIGMA OF JESUS AS SON

JESUS AS SON: PART 1 “ENTER ADAM”

“…Adam, the son of God”

-Luke

I was deep in thought today and remembered that there is something strange about this teaching in the Bible of Jesus as Son. It is not that it’s outlandish and strange, but that it has several layers of depth to it. Being a biblical scholar at the Masters level, I thought I’d tackle this question in the manner it deserves to on my blog; simply and clearly. I hope all of you will be treated to one of classical Christianity’s major belief today. The belief in Jesus, not just as a child in Mary’s arms, but as the new Adam; the real Son of God.

Luke’s genealogy of Jesus traces Jesus’s ancestry to Adam in Genesis. This aspect of Luke’s writing was to demonstrate that the ancestry of Jesus was not just Jewish from David’s lineage as Matthew did, but from the ancestor of all mankind and that’s Adam. There are implications to this as we see throughout Luke’s account, he portrays Jesus as ministering to the Romans–apart from his immediate Jewish audience. It’s in this Gospel where from the very beginning we know that things are going to get a little bit interesting when a woman is told by God about the birth of the Messiah-and that’s big news indeed.

Some of you might be wondering why I am making a bit of a fuss about this issue, but I have to be clear this is very telling about God’s view of man (men & women) as his creation made in his own image and likeness. At the Fall, we realize that the fault was ultimately with Adam who had received God’s word and not kept it, but instead blamed Eve. For those of you who doubt this, if you go back to the Hebrew, you will find that it was only Adam who was banned from the Tree of Eternal Life-not Eve. It’s also the same reason why Adam understood his fate well enough to see that Eve was going to be the source of hope and named her “Mother of all living/Life-Giver”.

Enter Mary, and God is beginning his work of new creation, she is the one receiving the news about the coming of the Messiah. Oddly, God does not tell Joseph but he does make a point of ensuring that Mary knew. What was the response? “Be it unto me, according to your word”. Mary accepted her role and she became the most honored figure in Christian/Church history. That’s why the song, ‘Mary Did You Know’ has a a little zing to it if you catch its message. If the message becomes clear that through her faithful obedience, redemption had come.

It’s after her obedience that the angel, Gabriel tells her, “you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High…therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God”. The contrast in the book is made, as Adam was created by God directly and had him for a father Jesus was God’s Son by virtue of his identity as God–pre-existing Adam himself. Notice the term used by the angel, ‘Son of the Most High’. Yeah, that term is weighty especially after the next words from the angel’s mouth were ‘throne’, ‘reign’, ‘kingdom’ and finally ‘Son of God’, he was trying to say something to Mary.

We often miss this when looking at the identity of Jesus as the new Adam. We forget that the title ‘Son of God’ has ghastly implications. For the same way Adam was given authority over all creation, Christ is practically ruler over all creation; when Adam was made in the image and likeness of God, Christ is the exact imprint of God’s person, being and character; for as Adam was formed from the ground by God (having no human father), so was Christ formed in Mary’s womb without the need for a man. Jesus’ identity as Son in relation to Adam is key to understanding why in him “all things are made new”. For someone out there who doesn’t know him yet, I would just like to encourage you to know that he loved you so much that he risked it all by becoming a man, bearing our sinful nature and died just to make your life new.

He isn’t kidding when he says, “I love you”.

“Mary did you know that the child that you’ve delivered, would soon deliver you?”

-Mary Did You Know

MARY DID YOU KNOW: WHAT EUTHANASIA DOENSN’T TELL US

WHY A LIFE REGARDLESS OF CIRCUMSTANCES, IS VALUABLE…

“Therefore he passed through every stage of life, restoring to each age fellowship with God…….He sanctified each stage of life by [making possible] a likeness to himself. He came to save all through his own person: all, that is, who through him are re-born to God: infants, children, boys, young men and old.
Therefore he passed through every stage of life. He was made an infant for infants, sanctifying infancy; a child among children, sanctifying childhood, and setting an example of filial affection, of righteousness and of obedience; a young man among young men, becoming an example to them, and sanctifying them to the Lord…..And thus he came even to death, that he might be ‘the first-born from the dead, having the pre-eminence among all [or in all things].”

-St. Origen*

 

‘Mary, did you know?’ has got to be one of the most thought provoking songs ever composed. It is quite literally a question coming from the place of amazement and meditation. There is no parallel laid out in the entire song that would suggest that there is another child being compared to the child Christ; the child’s individuality is the emphasis. The most peculiar aspect of the song is that it isn’t just talking about the birth of the Christ but it is also taking into account each and every phase the Mary went through since the time of the child’s conception.

“Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy would one day walk on water?

Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy would save our sons and daughters?

Did you know
that your Baby Boy has come to make you new?
This Child that you delivered will soon deliver you.

Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy will give sight to a blind man?

Mary, did you know
that your baby boy will calm the storm with His hand?

Did you know
that your Baby Boy has walked where angels trod?
When you kiss your little Baby you kiss the face of God?

Mary did you know.. Mary did you know

The blind will see.
The deaf will hear.
The dead will live again.
The lame will leap.
The dumb will speak
The praises of The Lamb.

Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy is Lord of all creation?

Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy would one day rule the nations?

Did you know
that your Baby Boy is heaven’s perfect Lamb?
The sleeping Child you’re holding is the Great, I Am.”

We have to remember, Mary didn’t want to get pregnant when she received the news from the angel. What’s worse is that she was engaged at the time and she also did not have an easy relationship with Joseph in the beginning because of her pregnancy. All that she had to endure during her conception, her gestation and finally her birth and raising of the child Christ alone until he matured was a heavy burden to bear. Although the Bible seems to indicate that she may have raised Jesus alone since Joseph is presumed dead in Jesus later life as a tween, she is presented as patient, wise and understanding; she is the one responsible for getting Jesus to help out with the wine issue at Cana in Galilee after all (Jesus’ first miracle).

The song asks Mary if she really saw what she held in her arms, the Great I Am. And, that all this while, if she who delivered him, knew that she would herself be delivered by the same. What is really going on here? Why recount the life of a person that the mother bore and raised…to her? Is he not her very own child? As strange as it might be, what the song seeks to do is not to recount the obvious but demonstrate the purposefulness of the Christ Child’s life coming into being to us. Through the child we, the world, came to know God fully. We benefited because one faithful woman/diligent mother accepted to do the impossible and take care of her child regardless of society’s low view of him.

She demonstrated the strength of a woman under God: Nothing intimidated her, and she did not bow to society’s will but to God’s, understanding that it was not her plan or theirs (society’s) but God’s that was ultimately going to be done. Is a child born into this world, regardless of circumstances still capable of being used by God? Yes. Is a child whose mother is strong enough and brave enough to guard and nurture him/her a great example to other women who are struggling with the same things today? Yes! Finally, is it possible for the child who doesn’t grow up in God’s will is bound to ultimately bring grief and deny his/her mother joy? Sadly, yes…but here is the hope. It can change, we do not have to put up with it, we have the power to decide.

Live and let live!

Gloria in excelsis!

*Could be Irenaeus…uncertain