Hb. 5:1-11, What do ya’ know: Jesus is the God-Man (4)

 3)    Why was it necessary that the Christ be fully God and fully Man?

a)    John 1:18: It was necessary for revelation.  God revealed Himself in creation, conscience and history.  This was a true revelation but was incomplete.  Then God revealed Himself through the prophets and the people of Israel in the Old Testament.  This was and continues to be a strong description of God.  But there is nothing better than for God Himself to come.  And He did it through His Son, not an angel, not God’s partner, not a famous person or any other One but His Son.  The only begotten of God, who is one with the Father, gave us the clearest and strongest revelation of God possible.

b)    2 Cor. 5:19,21: It was necessary for reconciliation.  God required a sinless sacrifice to pay the price for sinful men.  Only God could be that One.  But this righteousness had to be proven.  The Christ had to be one of us, to live the life we live; He had to be one with us in life, as well as death.

c)    Heb. 2:14-17: It was necessary for deliverance.  Death is not just an “event.”  It is a power, power to imprison sinners.  By God’s plan and permission, the Devil held this power.  As God told Adam, in the day you eat of the tree you will surely die.  Even though He didn’t immediately die physically he became bound by spiritual death, a culture of death if you will.  We were slaves of sin, the end result being that we lived in death (Rom. 6:20-21).  But Christ became flesh and blood so He might experience the death event, so that through His resurrection He might destroy the one (the Devil) who had the power of death.

d)    Heb. 2:17-18; 4:15: It was necessary for intercession.  This involves Jesus’ role as our High Priest.  One qualification for any High Priest is that he must be from the same “crowd” that he represents before God. Every high priest taken from among men is appointed for men in things pertaining to God (Heb. 5:1).  In this way the priest can plead with God on behalf of the people.  He knows their weaknesses.  That can be said of Christ: In that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.

      e)   Heb. 5:1-11: It was necessary for salvation.  What we needed in a High Priest was not just one who could sympathize with our weaknesses.  We needed one that could satisfy the payment for our sin in such a way that we would never need to offer another sacrifice.  Christ cannot offer a sacrifice unless He is a priest.  But He cannot be a priest unless He is one of us.  The sacrifice, to meet our need, must be one involving a sinless Lamb.  In a perfectly sensible but surprising move, Christ became both High Priest and Lamb of God.  It could only happen if the Christ who was One with God came to earth to become One with us.