The creed in plain words – (3) The great rescue plan

Crucifix in St Mary's Church, Peterborough

For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried.

When we look at the vast expanses of space and recall that an infinite God is even greater than an infinite universe we may wonder with the Psalmist “what is man that you [God] are mindful of him?” (Psalm 8:4). And when we see the headlines about crime and corruption, war and violence, we may cry with the prophet, “Why do you make me look at injustice? Why do you tolerate wrong?” (Habakkuk 1:2).

The creed offers a clue: “for us”; “for our salvation”; “for our sake”. God is people-centred. He has our interests at heart. Jesus wept over social corruption and religious distortions and over the indignity of death and bereavement. He gave immoral women a fresh start, restored hope to grieving families, warned a rich man to give rather than hoard and told pompous clergy to stop harassing faithful worshippers.

He did it for us, but not as some might wish. God made one attempt to summarily rid the earth of wrong-doers through the almost total destruction of the flood. He then vowed never to repeat the exercise. Instead he used a more subtle and costly approach. Over centuries he sought to woo people back to himself before finally becoming human to show as well as tell what he is like and what he requires.

The death of Christ

In order to rescue a human race drowning in a turbulent sea of self-will God himself jumped into the water to offer a lifeline. In the process, the waves pulled him under and he died in the attempt.  “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son…” (John 3:16). By doing so he fulfilled the Old Testament religious requirements (“without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness”, Hebrews 9:22). The sinless God-man, judicially murdered by jealous leaders, made it possible for fallen humans to be reconciled to a perfect God. There’s no easy way to explain how his death “atoned” for human beings in this way, but it was the way God chose to demonstrate the extent of his love.

The creed names Pontius Pilate, who cynically washed his hands of the affair and allowed the man he believed to be innocent to be crucified in order to avoid further conflict with the baying crowd of local leaders.  It reminds us that these events took place in real time in recorded history. Pilate is known from other sources; he was later sacked for misgovernment, which is saying something in the ruthless Roman empire.

The birth of Christ

The previous clause may give us problems: “incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary”. The Christmas crib is one thing; virgin birth another (technically it is “virginal conception”). There are other hints in the New Testament that Jesus’ birth was unusual. The Pharisees called him illegitimate and he was described as “Mary’s son” which was derogatory in a patriarchal community.

Virgin birth is not unknown in the animal kingdom but usually results in female offspring; the Y chromosome needed to develop a male foetus is passed only through the male parent. There are rare cases of genetic abnormalities with women carrying the Y chromosome yet remaining fully female, and of men without it yet who are fully male (although sterile).

A person born normally has two natures but is a single person: he or she contains the natures of both parents derived from the union of their chromosomes. If Jesus was the pre-existing Son of God, fully human yet also fully divine, a simple divine exercise in genetic engineering or special creation would perfectly fashion the unique person of Jesus and demonstrate the fact. He would have both human and divine natures, fused into one person. It’s the sort of thing God would do to enable a one-off intervention in history. For us.

Think and talk  

1.  How New Testament writers explain Jesus’ death: Mark 10:45; Romans 3:21-26; 5:6-11; Colossians 1:15-23; Hebrews 7:26-27, 10:19-22; 1 John 2:2.

2.  Suggestions that rumours about Jesus’ unusual birth were circulating: he was accused of being illegitimate, John 8:41; he was called Mary’s son, Mark 6:3 (but in parallel passages in other Gospels the paternal line is noted without comment; note too Luke 3:23, “he was the son, so it was thought of Joseph”); Galatians 4:4 refers to Mary, not Joseph. Ignatius (about AD 110) also refers to the virgin birth.

3.  “God waits for the chances we give him to show his great generosity” (John Chrysostum, 4^th century Archbishop of Constantinople). “God often visits us, but most of the time we are not at home” (French proverb). Why are we slow to respond to the Gospel challenge to trust Jesus because of his loving sacrifice?

© Derek Williams 2015

Material from these posts may be reproduced with appropriate acknowledgment for local and small group study