The Person Of Christ As The Work Of Christ -- By: Tom Wells

Journal: Reformation and Revival
Volume: RAR 08:4 (Fall 1999)
Article: The Person Of Christ As The Work Of Christ
Author: Tom Wells


The Person Of Christ As The Work Of Christ

Tom Wells

Despite TV’s recent interest in angels, the Bible treats recognizable angelic visits as rare. A visit from an angel was big news. You couldn’t predict such a visit and, presumably, you couldn’t forget it. It is probably due to Mary’s memory, then, that we have the following from the lips of the angel Gabriel: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy offspring shall be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35).

In the Bible we find more than one person or group seen as the son(s) of God. It may be that the godly line of Seth bears this title (Gen. 6:2). To God in Egypt Israel was “My son, My first-born.” So He said to Pharaoh, “Let My son go, that he may serve me” (Ex. 4:22–23). Pharaoh refused and quickly learned how much God loved His son. The angels too are God’s sons (Job 1:6), as are Christians today (2 Cor. 6:16–18. Cf. 7:1). The phrase “son of God” has many and varied uses.

The early chapters of Luke contain yet another use of this phrase. In the genealogy of Jesus we read of “Adam, the son of God” (Luke 3:38). Luke looks on Adam’s creation at the hand of God as sonship to God Himself. The reason is not hard to find. At Adam’s creation he was made to be (or bear) “the image of God” (Gen. 1:26–27). Given his responsibilities (Gen. 1:28–30), we may judge that this “image” was the ability to govern the rest of creation and

the character necessary to do so. In large measure Adam lost these very things when he sinned.

It is against the backdrop of Adam’s sin that the Lord Jesus appears as “the Son of God.” The Psalmist sings in a major key of man’s exalted office in creation: “Thou hast made him a little lower than God, and dost crown him with glory and majesty! ... Thou hast put all things under his feet” (Ps. 8:5–6). But the writer to the Hebrews weighs in with a somber minor: “But now we do not yet see all things subjected to him” (Heb. 2:8). Not quite a sour note, but gloomy nevertheless! Sin robbed man of his glory! Yet that is not the whole s...

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