I would like to apologize to my readers, if any are still around, for taking so long between posts. I just was not feeling up to it and what I write about should not be written if not with passion and conviction.
Christ Jesus is the central figure of Christianity. That seems like a fairly obvious statement. I suppose one might say the Trinity is, but we come to know the Trinity through Christ first, he is the spokesman and facilitator of God's will to His people through His preaching and Resurrection.
Yet stating all this, why do we need Jesus? What would be the effect if he did not exist to us?
This is a critical question to be able to answer well for Christians, as it is one many non-Christians will likely ask us is discussion, and because it is so central to faith and how we interact with the world.
I would start out with saying we only know of Jesus and His importance because God revealed His son in prophesy and in the flesh. We could not know we needed Christ otherwise. But why was this revelation necessary? Precisely because of prior revelations from God and in examinations of humans and their condition. For when God created man, He gave us a choice between His will or our own (free will), with Adam and Eve choosing to abandon God for our own will (how literal one takes the creation story is irrelevant to the proof). This lead to what is commonly know as "The Fall", humans being consumed by sin and sentenced to death, separating themselves from God. The sin was tied to the physical being of us, and we were doomed to physical existence and separation from God as long as this endured. What happens next is God slowly reestablishing contact with His creation, perhaps most significantly with Moses and the gift of the Law to the people of Israel, which allowed for repentance and redemption not previously available.
The Law; however, was a poor method of forgiveness of sins, and really dealt with the symptoms rather than the cause. This is critical to understanding the importance of Christ. Beside anything he said, what his arrival signified was a cure for the disease that plagued us, sin, rather than a variety of treatments which the Law provided for. Before, one had to be constantly aware of sin in order to cleanse oneself of it, and the treatment was giving in such a way as we would now call a "clinical trial", meaning it was available to a select few and everyone else was excluded no matter how much the treatment might have benefited them. Christ, simply put, changed everything.
If one does not accept that humans have sin, are in rebellion against God and that death is tied to all this then surely Christ is unnecessary. If humans in the Law are and were perfect and offered perfect sacrifice and devotion to God's will then Christ is unnecessary. But if the above is true then a solution is necessary. What is needed is something without sin that is fully of God's will as a result and can defeat death and transform creation. This is Christ on the cross. Humiliated, mocked and beaten, the perfect lamb whose blood is sacrificed to spare the people of God from their own iniquity. That is in rising the physical body, he defeated death and the Devil, and restored the sinful creation to its Maker, and providing means for all people, regardless of race, gender, or religion, to find the truth, light, and way to salvation.
We must remember that the way Christ lived his live as critical. His life was the perfect manifestation of the human conforming to God's will. He shows that the Law was perfect, and that it was us that had failed, even at our best to reach the standard it set. He provided real world application of perfect obedience and service to the Father.
He also preached and did forgive sins and by doing so allowed for the Holy Spirit to come to any and all, removing the forgiveness of sin from direct appeal to god through imperfect sacrifice to attaching oneself to a perfect sacrifice through the Holy Spirit, removing the sin and barrier to God. This process allows for the new creation to occur, so that one is of Christ rather than merely from Christ.
It can be thought of as well that Christ is the mechanism of reconciliation between us and God, not only derived from His purpose and function as savior and King over us all, but through his very meaning, being equally human and God.
While I realize that most of this is obvious and I probably missed a thing here or there, but I hope it is helpful in making it clear in all Christians mind that Jesus is not merely a nice guy that said nice things, but the beginning and end of our journeys to be creatures obedient to God. We cannot fulfill God's will without Christ, for to ignore Christ or deviate from in any way is to do the same to God. But we must not at the same time separate Christ from His context and purpose, and come to know the Christ revealed and known rather than the Christ we desire for our own will. For as Jesus completely surrendered His will to God, may we surrender our will to him.
