The perfection and righteousness of Jesus Christ

My devotional reading this morning reminded me of quite a long time ago, working for Apologetics Resource center. One of the readings was Luke 1:26-38. Another Hebrews 2:1-18. There was some commentary in my devotional book about the importance of the eternal Son taking on human flesh.

The verse in Luke that caught my attention was “The Holy Spirit will over-shadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God.” And in Hebrews, “for it was fitting for him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings. For both he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father; for that reason he is not ashamed to call them brethren,…”

One of my first attempts at writing about a religious movement after writing about Scientology was a movement I have mentioned before, the ‘Manifested Sons of God.’ The central theme of this movement was that a group within the Church would be so filled with power from the Holy Spirit that they would overcome death before Christ returned. Some times this was referred to as the Man-Child Company a misunderstanding of Revelation 12.

Their main understanding of Jesus Christ was more or less an adoptionist view. That is, God choose Jesus the man and so empowered him with the Holy Spirit that he could accomplish his works. In other words he was not eternally Christ but became Christ. They saw the word “perfect” in Hebrews meaning that Jesus had not yet lived up to the requirements of God so God was making him a perfect man by his suffering. In other words he was imperfect and so God was making him perfect.

But that word perfect instead implies that the work that Jesus was called to do was being completed by his sufferings. As Donald Guthrie’s in his commentary states, “The meaning is rather ‘to bring completion’ in the sense that suffering was necessary before Jesus could be the complete pioneer of salvation, or the perfect high priest.” But many leaders of the Manifested Son’s of God didn’t see it that way.

Jesus wasn’t perfect without, etc.etc, doing this or that. And to top it all off we, like him, could all be made Christ.

While I was writing the paper, I discovered that one of Sacramento’s Christian radio stations was almost completely taken over by teachers who were in this movement. God works in interesting ways. Only one pastor on the station that I knew about, a Calvary Chapel pastor, did not teach this heresy. I called him to talk. When I started explaining the problem, he said, “Wait just a minute, I want to put you on conference call so that some other people at my Church can hear.” It turned out that Pastor was just in the process of renewing his contract with the station.

As the weeks went by the owner of the station, who was deeply involved, started teaching with an open line for discussion. I remember clearly that when I pressed the point that Jesus was Christ from his conception his remark was “a little Christ.” The important thought here is that many of these poor people were encouraged to works righteousness rather than the righteousness of Jesus Christ.

But the truth is, God the Son took on our flesh, lived without sin, died on the cross for our sins, and rose to give us eternal life. As the verse states, Jesus is bringing many sons and daughters to glory. It is his righteousness not ours. We find our perfection in Jesus.

Another reading was Psalm 87: “His foundation is the holy mountains. The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all other dwelling places of Jacob. … But of Zion it shall be said, ‘This one and that one were born in her’…” It is those reborn, born anew into the Church of God, the true Church, the blood washed throng that the Lord will notice…”The Lord will count when he registers the peoples, this one was born there.’ Then those who sing as well as those who play the flutes shall say, ‘all my springs of joy are in you.’”