GOD'S SOLUTION "THIS IS MY BELOVED SON"
Part 6:
Tragic as it was, God used the fall, and the struggles of the people in the Old Testament, to display
His sacrificial love. Without the fall, love would not have been able to express itself in complete,
grand form. God's love reached down to us when Jesus became a man and took our place by dying
on the cross for our sins.
In the Old Testament, God had promised to restore humanity by making a way for us to
come back into a relationship with Him. He spoke to Abraham about being the father of a new
people who lived by faith. Then through the prophet Jeremiah, God promised a New Covenant to
replace the Old. The Old had come to us from the outside—from the Ten Commandments written
on stone tablets. The New would come to us from the inside—from God's Word written on peo-
ples' minds and hearts. The Old Covenant was based upon the will of man, but the New Covenant
is based upon the will of God. Jeremiah wrote, "But this is the covenant that I will make with the
house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on
their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people" ( Jeremiah 31:33).
To usher in the New Covenant, Jesus came to earth as a human being. As a man, Jesus re-
mained 100 percent God, but He voluntarily laid aside all of His divine power. In this sense, Jesus
was like us. He was tempted and tested in all things and was not given any extra amount of grace,
strength or power to overcome Satan's attacks. Rather, He humbled Himself and depended (like
we are designed to) on the Holy Spirit to accomplish God's will through Him. As a man, Jesus
showed us how God made us to live as full, complete human beings. He modeled life the way we
were created to live it.
At the beginning of His earthly ministry, Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan River. At
this time, the Father spoke from heaven directly to Him, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am
well pleased" (Matthew 3:17). On the Mount of Transfiguration, the Father addressed Him again,
"This is My beloved Son" (Matthew 17:5). Deep in the core of His being, Jesus knew His Father
loved Him. God's love provided the foundation and framework for Jesus' life ... and death.
Because Jesus trusted in His Father's unfailing goodness, He gave up everything of Himself
(His soul) and embraced all His Father had to give. Trusting in God's love for Him allowed Jesus
to live a life of complete surrender (obedience) to His Father's will. Knowing God's all-e compassioning love allowed Jesus to live a life of love.
In His life on earth, Jesus lived in Spirit-to-spirit relationship with His Father. In this way
His life was like a channel through which His Father's loving nature flowed from heaven to earth.
As His Father lead, Jesus told stories of a caring shepherd looking for a lost sheep and of a father
loving a disobedient son. Under the Spirit's direction, He shared His life with tax collectors, pros-
titutes and others shunned by the cultural traditions in which He lived. With the Father's compas-
sion, He healed the sick—even on the Sabbath, the law-given day of rest.
In unbroken relationship—in perfect unity of action, thought and character—Jesus took the
will of God as His own. He said, "I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the
will of Him who sent Me" ( John 6:38). He also said, "The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what
He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves
the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself does" ( John 5:19–20). In this way, Jesus' life
on earth was a reflection of the Father's will—the Father's loving nature.
The final test of Jesus' love-relationship with His Father came in the Garden of Gethse-
mane. On the night before He was betrayed, Jesus was greatly distressed. He cried out, "My soul is
exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death … O My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me;
nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will" (Matthew 26:38–39). Three times Jesus prayed, giving up
His will and asking for the Father's will to be done. Although it required death—although it didn't
seem good—He surrendered the desires of His soul and trusted in His Father's love.
The all-knowing, all-powerful, infinite love Jesus knew in His Spirit-to-spirit relationship
with His Father thus defined and filled His entire soul and poured out of His broken body to the
world. In this way, the Son of Man surrendered His soul-life and became a spirit-soul-body chan-
nel carrying God's will—God's love—to the world. Truly we see the love of the Father in the life
and death of His Son.
This surrender ushered in the New Covenant. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus regained
what Adam had lost in the Garden of Eden. Adam had chosen his own will above the will of God;
Jesus chose God's will above His own. In dying to the desires of His soul, Jesus conquered sin and
death which reigned on earth through Adam's soul-guided nature. By the complete surrender of
His will, Jesus gave up His soul-life in order to give us His Spirit-life.
In the New Covenant, Jesus provides a way for us to regain our original God-given destiny.
We were made in the image of God to radiate His likeness on earth—just as Jesus did. As Jesus
received from the Father, so we receive. Jesus said, "As the Father loved Me, I also have loved
you; abide in My love" ( John 15:9). In an abiding love-relationship, our souls surrender their
independent ways and come to rest in the loving guidance and care of God.
Jesus came to save us from ourselves—from our soul-guided way of living that can never
be right. He made a way to restore our spirits—in Spirit-to-spirit relationship with God. And Hemade a way to restore our souls; our mind, will and emotions are renewed in the love of God as
our souls come to rest under the leadership of the Spirit. In this way, in alignment with God, we
become as He created us to be—born of the Spirit and led by the Spirit. In this way, as spirit-soul-
body channels, we radiate the image of God—just as Jesus did.