Why did Jesus come? There are levels at which this question cannot be easily answered. The incarnation of the Son of God is the highest conceivable expression of divine grace. It was one thing for God to create the whole universe out of nothing, bestowing existence graciously, out of no inner necessity save love. But it is quite another for God to decide that in order to reconcile and heal humankind God ought to take on our human nature and show [God] to be the servant and lover of us all.
Why would God do that? Why would the awesome creator of all things abase God's self and stoop down to our poor estate? To the question posed in this way, we can only speak of the marvelous grace of our loving Lord.
But there is another level on which to confront the question. Biblical Christians have often felt certain that they have grasped clearly the motive of the incarnation. We have heard the angel's announcement, "You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21). We know the words of the apostle Paul when he wrote, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" (1 Timothy 1:15). We have therefore received Jesus as our personal Savior, and experienced the peace that follows upon the fact that we have been justified by faith through his finished work on the cross.
Why did Jesus come? We would answer the question in terms of the justification of individual sinners. Unquestionably we are on the right track to keep ever before us the saving purpose of the incarnation. For it has happened in the past that theologians have forgotten what the primary motive of the incarnation was and developed systems quite at odds with the biblical testimony. They have sought to discover some abstract and metaphysical principle latent in that event.
Certainly according to scripture Jesus came into our brokenness, discord, and guilt in order to heal, restore and save us. However, a perplexity arises when we ask ourselves why, if this was indeed Jesus' mission and the chief motive of his advent, he concentrates so heavily on matters of social relevance and moral power in his recorded teachings and actual words? Was it an interest of his which lay, so to speak alongside his fundamental saving mission, or was it somehow integral to it?
The answer is found, I believe, in a fuller conception of the salvation Jesus was bringing by his incarnation and a more adequate estimation of the full need under which we all suffer. While it is true that we need the announcement of divine pardon made available through Jesus, it is also true that our need is even more extensive, and that thanks be to God, the salvation Jesus brings to us is fully adequate to meet it. God's restoration of us in Christ is on a grander scale than we usually think, a fact which it is a good thing to ponder.
Men and women, according to the biblical story, created in God's image and possessing finite freedom, have become by their own decision, both at the outset of human history in Adam's fall and regularly since, autonomous and independent of God their Maker. Though autonomy and independence may have seemed sweet and desirable at first, the actual empirical result was a self-centeredness which has alienated the sinner both from God and from his fellow creatures. Human existence has come increasingly to be troubled and anxious. We have become unsure of ourselves, uncertain where to turn, and confused about our own identity, since, as a finite being, we are not capable of being our own master. Our desperate attempts to overcome the anxiety and estrangement brought about by sin, have only mired us more deeply in self-created dilemmas.
Out of our efforts to carve out for ourselves an autonomous kingdom have proceeded the very pride, selfishness, warfare, and idolatry which so desperately need to be overcome. We have turned away from God and toward ourselves. Instead of pursuing God's will, we now seek our own interests so that human history has degenerated into the clash of one against another, and the possibility of a harmonious community of love existing on earth has become almost nonexistent and unattainable. The fall of humanity into sin has set off a cycle of cumulative degeneration with disastrous historical consequences. It has released into our historical process demonic powers that may overwhelm the human community entirely.
What biblical Christians need to grasp is the fact that sin, far from primarily adversely affecting our spiritual life has ravaged our social life as well, and made human fulfillment impossible at both levels. Whatever solution there may be to our dilemmas, it must be able to address both dimensions of the problem: the social and the spiritual.
In the original creation, God intended to establish a community of human beings, reflective of his image, living obediently before God and in loving fellowship with each other. But men and women, by their rebellion and the tragic misuse of their finite freedom, have set themselves against this purpose, and corrupted the entire historical process. The biblical account seems to me to be in complete harmony with all recorded history, which lies in a morass of sin and evil. And that is the context in which we all emerge, and attain personhood, and by which ourselves and all our communities are therefore marred.
Being corrupted by the ongoing historical process, each of us in turn has become a further corrupting power. The classical doctrine of original sin attempts to say this, and is in close touch with observable reality. The psalmist was right when he said, "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me" (Psalm 51:5). And Paul did not exaggerate when he wrote, "There is none righteous, no, not one" (Romans 3:10).
We have brought ourselves and our history to the brink of destruction, and to an impasse from which we cannot possibly extricate ourselves. Our only hope in this situation is the breaking into history of the love and reconciliation of God. We can hardly expect any solution to arise from the body of diseased humanity itself. If it comes, it must come from beyond history. And the glorious truth of Christ is that this, nothing less, has actually happened. "His name will be called Emmanuel, which means, God with us" (Matthew 1:23).
Of course it would be wrong to think that the process of divine reconciliation and healing began with Jesus. In actual fact it began at the very beginning, of history when God promised deliverance to Eve. Ever since then God has been at work in and through history to change it from being a sinful process into being one responsive to his will, and ultimately his own kingdom.
The story of salvation proper begins in detail with the calling of Abraham, a man receptive to God's purposes and dedicated to his will, and out of this small beginning God's counter-movement took shape and grew. In the deliverance of the Israelites out of
All of these developments were to prepare the way for the advent of Jesus the Christ, in whom the will of God was perfectly done and in whom the love of God established a unique beachhead in human history. In this person Jesus there was a bridging of the gap between God and man, an "atonement," and out of that event emerged a community which was destined to include all the nations. In Christ, God's kingdom or sovereignty over history actually began to break into human history and become an effective; force within history. The Holy Spirit could now be poured out because here, at last, through Jesus' person and obedience, God was able to enter history and work within it in a way not possible before (cf. John 7:39).
In a real sense history has begun again. The second Adam passed the test and there is a new creation: We see the beginning of the end of our rebellion, and at the same time the beginning of the fulfillment of God's original purposes for us (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:17).
We noted earlier what havoc sin has created in the social as well as personal dimension of human life. It is crucial now to observe that what came out of the work of Christ was a good deal more than a divine pardon for guilty sinners on the basis of his atoning death. What also issued out of the cross and resurrection was the constitution of a new community based on love and obedience to God. It is noteworthy that Jesus did not take time to write a book or create a theological system, but invested his time largely in the molding of a new society, a new kind of human family in which our rebellion could be reversed and history turned around.
The flow of history toward increasing autonomy and self-destruction was at that point reversed and a new direction begun toward community and genuine freedom. In this new relationship, made possible by Jesus, [hu]mankind is freed from the enslaving self-centeredness that has bound him up, and enters into the liberty of the children of God. In this new community the mind of Christ that took him to the cross reigns, and in the context of love and mutual service our authentic human existence is recovered, that for which we were created.
By now the pattern is tolerably clear. In our desire to create an autonomous kingdom, the turning away from God and retreat into ourselves has corrupted history and become a serious danger to us. The fulfillment of our lives both personally and socially has become almost impossible. The only way for our destiny to be realized, is through the disarming of these self-destructive powers we have loosed into history.
In Jesus Christ this has taken place, and a new possibility exists, not only for individuals to be reconciled to God, but for the human community to be healed and restored. Our hope for the coming of the
Until then the church is a sign of the coming order, a community which, just because it is responsive to God's love and purposes, constitutes the vehicle of his Spirit in history. There is meant to be visible among us a foretaste of the new order, an anticipation of the meaning and power of self-giving love by means of which God wishes to bind us all together so that others may see it and glorify God. To belong to Christ's church is to participate in the new humanity which God has announced and is in the process of transforming. It is to participate in the principal agency or vehicle through which that transformation is now being historically wrought. And when we take the gospel to the nations of the world, it is not in the belief that we are a society of God's favorites who have received a bliss denied to the others, but rather as members of a community which, we believe, is the beachhead through which God is now advancing his purposes to convert the nations into his loyal subjects and children.
The church exists to mediate God's love to all peoples, so that new impulse which entered history when Jesus came, and as a result of his work, may be carried everywhere and in the end encompass and overcome all the parochial traditions and hostilities of humanity. Insofar as this has already happened in the church, it is the foretaste of that anticipated
When we understand the social dimension of our problem of sin, we can begin to see why Jesus spoke a great deal about social matters, how people should relate to people, and what principles should govern their lives. It was because his purpose in coming to earth was to heal us completely, to restore us on a scale so much grander than we are apt to consider and which includes our social existence. Biblical Christians need not go back on anything they have cherished. It is forward we must go, unto a more adequate and more fully biblical doctrine of the salvation Christ brought. In ways far more profound than we normally think, Jesus has come to heal and to save us.
Clark Pinnock was professor of theology at
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