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| Lecture 18 : [Christology] Jesus and the Person who has realized the purpose of creation | |
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| Date created : 2014-12-31/ Views : 951 | |
Christology
Chapter 18 Jesus and the Person who has realized the purpose of creation
Welcome back to The Path to Happiness, an introduction to the Unification Principles. I’m your host, Dr. Tyler Hendricks.
In our last session, we saw that God has a plan for each of our lives, and we see that by following principle and living for others, we will fulfill that plan. But you might say, sure, I want a great marriage and family, but how does that make me, well, like Jesus? Isn’t there something more, cosmic? I thought Jesus was, … God himself, and I’m not that! And Jesus wasn’t married, so am I supposed to be married? St. Paul said that married people get distracted from God! Today’s session on Christology will cover these really important questions.
Christology is the study of the truth about Christ, in particular the issue of whether Jesus is God or a human being, and his mission. The Bible gives Jesus different titles. Some are very exalted: Messiah—savior king, Christ—anointed of God, the Son of God, the Logos—God in the flesh, alpha and omega (the beginning and the end), Emmanuel (God with us), lamb of God. Others are more human-like: Rabbi (teacher), healer, father, the son of David, son of Mary, and, most important, Bridegroom.
So, first—is Jesus God, or is he a person, well, like me? This is the topic of Christology, and, to cut to the chase, we say that Jesus is a man who has realized the purpose of creation, a fully mature person, a perfect person. Now, what are the implications of this?
First, the relationship between God and a fully mature person resembles the relationship between the dual characteristics. We have mind and body in the likeness of God, and the relationship between God and a person who has attained perfection may be compared to that between mind and body. Just as the body is created in the likeness of the intangible mind, a human being is created in the likeness of the intangible God. Just as there is inseparable oneness between the mind and body, there is inseparable oneness between God and a true person. In that union, the person experiences the Heart of God as his or her own reality. Jesus spoke of this state of perfection, saying “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”3 This person assumes divine value. So Jesus has divine value – but so does every such person.
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Second, let us consider this from the perspective of purpose. God created us for the purpose of sharing joy. Each of us possesses a unique individual character, and we each can be God’s substantial object partner who manifests a distinctive aspect of God. Hence, each person is the only one in the entire universe who can stimulate that distinctive aspect of God’s nature to bring Him joy. Every person who has completed the purpose of creation is thus a unique existence in the cosmos.
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Third, a person who has completed the purpose of creation can govern the entire universe. Possessing both spirit and flesh, we can rule the spirit world with our spirit self and the physical world with our physical self. With us as mediators, the two worlds unite as a complete object partner to God.
The universe is the substantial unfolding of the dual characteristics of a human being. A person’s spirit encapsulates all elements of the spirit world while his or her flesh encapsulates all elements of the physical world. So we are a microcosm of the universe. So each of us has the value of the entire cosmos. We can thus understand the saying of Jesus in a new light, “For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life?”
Suppose there is a perfect machine, whose every part is the only one of its kind in the world. The value of each part is the same as that of the whole machine. Similarly, no matter how insignificant each of us may seem, our value is equivalent to that of the entire cosmos.
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How about Jesus? Jesus was sent as the Tree of life. His mission is to restore the tree of life which was lost in the garden of Eden. God wants to expand the lineage of perfect Adam and Eve and create heaven on earth. So we proclaim that Jesus’ value was that of a man who fulfilled the purpose of creation—divine, unique and the lord of the cosmos.
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So, Jesus is the one man who has fulfilled the purpose of creation. As a perfect human being, Jesus is one with God, the Son of God, and the co-creator with God of the universe and God’s children. This glorifies Jesus and it shows how he is the perfecter and finisher of our faith, the first among many, for we all are to be as Jesus, and he said that we will do even greater things than what he did.
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The First Epistle of St. Paul to Timothy 2:5 states “For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus”, and Romans 5:19 says “For as through the one man's (Adam) disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One (Jesus) the many will be made righteous”, while 1 Corinthians records “For since by man (Adam) came death, by man (Jesus) came also the resurrection of the dead”. So Jesus’ divinity in the flesh makes him fully a man—fully God and fully human.
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The Gospel of Luke 17:26 states” And as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man”. In this way, the Bible has sufficiently portrayed Jesus as a human being. And on top of it, his mission of redeeming humankind by coming forth our true parents, the new Adam, makes it imperative for him to come as a human being. We shouldn’t spiritualize everything; that is called Gnosticism, and it denies the value of the physical world, as if the physical world is inherently evil. No; God created this world as good. It is we who are evil, and when we get rid of our evil, we will create ideal marriages and families on the earth that will bring God joy here and in the spirit world.
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Of course, because Jesus is divine, when Philips asked Jesus to show him God, Jesus said those who see him see the father (God), how can you ask me to show you the father (God) when I am inside him and you don’t believe he is inside me.” John (14:9-10) This statement illustrates that Jesus, who has fulfilled the purpose of creation, is one with God, therefore his divinity makes it possible for us to call him God, as well as affirm his full humanity before Jesus’ own Father, the Creator God.
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John 1:10 says that this world was created through the Word, and Jesus was the Word made flesh. Some conclude that Jesus was the creator. “He (Jesus) was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him”. This means that God created the physical world on the model of perfect human being. Because Jesus came as the one who had fulfilled the purpose of creation, John used those words. This verse clarifies Jesus as the one human who has fulfilled his portion of responsibility and became one with God’s original Word, the alpha and omega.
In John 8:58, Jesus tells us he existed before Abraham. Historically, Jesus is the descendant of Abraham but since Jesus came as “Adam,” to give rebirth to humankind, in terms of the providence of restoration he becomes the ancestor of Abraham. So Jesus was explaining that he was the son of God and ancestor of Abraham, who would be resurrected through him.
Jesus in Gethsemene called for God three times to ask him to take away the bitter cup (matt 26:39-44). Jesus also cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (matt 27:46) while on the cross. As a divine being, still Jesus had a reciprocal relationship with God. Jesus said he would be on the right hand of the Father. (Romans 8:24, Ma 27:46) Some say, “Jesus is God,” but they don’t mean Jesus was talking to himself, or sitting at his own right hand.
As illustrated above, Jesus is distinct from God. He is the image of God and lord of creation. We, too, can have the same value as God if we connect to Jesus, who came as the new Adam to give rebirth to humankind. As we become aware of our original value, and by following Jesus’ way of faith, we can fulfill the purpose of creation. But, how does this happen? We have been baptized and taken communion for 2,000 years, as Christians, but still we are waiting for something more, called the Second Coming. Jesus shed his blood for me, but I still have sin. Who’s going to figure that out? This is what Rev. Moon teaches about, and we’ll get into it in our next session.
Thanks for listening, and please join us for our next session.
