The Paradox Of Christ

It is because of the great value that God places upon us that he took on our humanity in Jesus Christ, and in so doing he enabled us to enter into the fullness of our humanity as God designed.

So God in Jesus did become lower than the angels. God in Jesus took on our humanity that we might become truly God’s children, that we might become truly God’s family.

So I’m sorry to say that there is no contradiction in this part of the Bible. There is no contradiction between Jesus who is superior to the angels, and Jesus who for a while became lower than the angels. It is not a contradiction. It is a paradox. For these two apparently contradictory statements contained fundamental truth about the nature of Jesus.

Jesus Christ was completely divine. He was also completely human. In a sense, this is a mystery. We cannot completely understand it. But it is nevertheless true. In Colossian 2.9 we read that ‘ in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form’. God took on human nature. And he did it with one purpose. It was that Heb2: 9ff “he might suffer death so that by the grace of God he might taste every death for everyone and make men holy”. He did it that we might become his family.

So the fundamental truth about the nature of Jesus is that he was fully divine and fully human. There is no contradiction between Jesus who is superior to the angels, and Jesus who for a while became lower than the angels. And we need to understand this because failure to do so can lead to serious problems. You may not have the conversation in the pub, but you may well have the conversation on the front doorstep when the Jehovah’s Witnesses call. They would say that Jesus is a created being along the lines of an angel. Or another commonly held view is that Jesus was just another prophet. If I understand it correctly, that is what the Muslims believe.

But the message of our reading this evening is that Jesus is better than the prophets, Jesus is better than the angels, because Jesus is fully God. And Jesus did what the angels and the prophets could not do. Because as he took on our humanity, totally and completely, he was able to be the perfect sacrifice for our sins. In so doing, he demonstrated the value that God places upon us. In so doing he demonstrated the lengths that God was prepared to go to restore us to a right relationship with him. And in so doing, he brings us to glory and enables us to enter the fullness of our humanity as God intended. Jesus is the best!