7. Who was Jesus? - Part I

Chapter Three

“He who believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And he who sees me sees him who sent me. I have come as light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. If any one hears my sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. He who rejects me and does not receive my sayings has a judge; the word that I have spoken will be his judge on the last day. For I have not spoken on my own authority; the Father who sent me has himself given me commandment what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has bidden me.”

John 12:44–50

In the previous chapter I explained that our commission to fulfill the work of Creation requires that we eat freely of the fruit of the Tree of Life. The consumption of God’s seeds makes it possible for us to become sons and daughters of God and thereby bring God’s fulness to all Creation. However, according to Genesis, we lost access to the Tree of Life.

Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever”—therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.¹

If we are unable to approach the fruit of the Tree of Life, then how are we to become like God and accomplish the work for which we were created? The answer lies in Jesus. John beautifully described Jesus when he wrote:

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.²

Jesus was not an earthly king, a religious revolutionary, or merely a moral teacher. Jesus was the fulness of God’s Word united with the flesh of a man. He was the Word incarnate.³

Although I have the academic training to rationally comprehend the theological concept of God’s incarnation in Jesus, I—like the apostle Thomas⁴—had to see it firsthand before the idea could become living knowledge within me. When I observed Jesus through the eyes of my soul, I saw one who changed what it means to be a man or woman on Earth.

The Annunciation

And the angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.”⁵

There were three moments in Jesus’s lifetime when God’s spoken Word was clearly observed and historically documented: his conception, his baptism, and his transfiguration. First among these is his conception, traditionally called the “Annunciation.”⁶

Standing within my heart, I saw before me a woman in a long red dress. Her head was uncovered, and her flowing hair rested upon her shoulders. Clasping her hands over her heart, she knelt on the ground and appeared to pray. As she did so, a luminous mist descended upon her until it completely enveloped her body. Then the mist entered into her abdomen, coalesced inside her womb, and shone outward as a soft white light.

Reflecting on that vision, I concluded that Jesus was conceived by the seeds of Life.⁷ That which had “moved over the face of the waters” in the beginning, now moved within the waters of a woman’s womb. That which had fashioned the Earth on the third day of Creation, now fashioned the child who was born to set Earth free. That which had been breathed into dust to form the first man, was now breathed into the dust of Mary to form the Savior of mankind. Untouched by the shadows of the fallen world, Jesus was the incarnation of Life.

The Baptism

And when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him; and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”⁸

Although Jesus resembled the first man in that he was formed directly by Life, Jesus differed in that he did not have immediate and unlimited access to the fulness of God’s Word. The seeds of Light and Love remained outside of him, hidden within the religious rituals of the Mosaic Law and the ancient words of the Prophets. For three decades, Jesus faithfully labored alongside his fellow men and women, slowly laying up the seeds of Light and Love within his pure foundation of Life. However, that changed on the day Jesus was baptized.

With the eyes of my soul, I beheld Jesus emerge from the waters of the Jordan river, spreading out his arms and looking up toward the sky. That instant, a flash of golden Light appeared from within the sparkling whiteness of God, penetrated into the sphere of Heaven, and struck Jesus on the chest, filling his body with a golden radiance that shone out over all the Earth. The Light continued onward, wounding the darkness within the Earth below him. Just as Light pierced the waters of the Deep on the first day of Creation, so did Light pierce the heart of Jesus as he rose up from the baptismal waters. On that day, the Light of God incarnated in the flesh of a man.

Immediately after becoming Light, Jesus encountered darkness:

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. And he fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterward he was hungry. And the tempter came to him.⁹

Just as Light wounded the Deep in the beginning, so too did Jesus push aside that which assailed him. Jesus, “the light of the world,”¹⁰ countered each of the shadowy temptations, and in the end “the devil left,”¹¹ for the Deep had been overcome.

The Transfiguration

[Jesus] was transfigured before them, and his garments became glistening, intensely white, as no fuller on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses; and they were talking to Jesus. […] And a cloud overshadowed them, and a voice came out of the cloud, “This is my beloved Son; listen to him.” And suddenly looking around they no longer saw any one with them but Jesus only.¹²

During the years that followed his baptism, Jesus revealed Life and Light to all mankind. As Life, Jesus healed diseases and deformities, raised the dead, and displayed unprecedented power over the physical Earth. As Light, he taught a gospel of repentance with astounding authority, boldly exposed the corruption of the Jewish hierarchy, and illumined the central message of the Mosaic Law so all could comprehend it.

Then a time came when something changed with Jesus. At the end of his second year of ministry, Jesus told his disciples that he would be killed and would rise again.¹³ About a week later, he took three disciples with him to the top of a high mountain, and as they prayed together, he was suddenly “transfigured”¹⁴ before their eyes.

From the vantage point of my soul, I beheld Jesus, once again, with his arms outstretched and his face to the sky. From above him, a cloud of glistening white slowly descended. As the brilliant whiteness engulfed the summit and those upon it, I saw two men appear, one on each side of Jesus. With heads bowed, the two men reached out and touched Jesus upon the chest. Instantly, a blinding white light swept over me, and, when it passed, I beheld Jesus shining with the glistening white of Love. In an event that paralleled the second day of Creation, Jesus became Love made flesh.

According to the Gospels, Jesus came down from the mountain a changed man. Thereafter, he expressed exasperation about his life on Earth¹⁵ and inexplicably “set his face toward Jerusalem.”¹⁶ Although he knew that the Jewish leaders would kill him¹⁷ and had previously sought to avoid such a fate,¹⁸ he now walked directly toward death with unshakable determination. As the incarnation of Love, Jesus was intent upon dying “for the life of the world.”¹⁹ Jesus was now the fulness of God’s Word, and “the love of God was made manifest” in all that he did.²⁰

The Fruit of the Tree of Life

There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you of all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel.²¹

When the first man and woman were expelled from the Garden of Eden, God assigned cherubim to separate them from the Tree of Life.²² Likewise, when God gave Moses the Law, God required that the stone tablets be contained within an ark and gold cherubim be placed on the ark’s cover.²³ Then the ark was set within the Holy of Holies inside the Temple, enclosed by a thick veil upon which an image of cherubim was embroidered.²⁴ God had returned the fruit of the Tree of Life to Moses in the form of the Law, but it was to remain carefully guarded and separated from the people. Only through the Priests and Prophets could the fulness of God’s Word be given and received. Though the sacred fruit was now accessible to the Jewish people, it could not be eaten freely.

That all changed with Jesus. When Moses and Elijah (the representatives of the Law and Prophets respectively) touched Jesus’s chest, unleashing the blinding white light, I saw something entirely unexpected. To my utter amazement, I beheld within Jesus’s chest a resplendent pearl. When the fulness of God’s Word entered human flesh for the first time, the historic mediators of the Word handed over that which had long been held back from human touch. In the heart of Jesus, the fruit of the Tree of Life was restored.

(Click here for Part II…)

1. Genesis 2:22–24

2. John 1:14

3. The theological term ‘incarnation” is based on the Latin word incarnates, which means “embodied in flesh.”

4. John 20:24–29

5. Luke 1:35

6. Annuntiatio is the Latin word for “announcement.”

7. John 5:26

8. Matthew 3:16–17

9. Matthew 4:1–3

10. John 8:12; 9:5; 12:46

11. Matthew 4:11

12. Mark 9:2–8

13. Mark 8:31–33

14. The Greek word translated here as “transfigured” is metamorphoo, which is the etymological basis of the English word, “metamorphosis.”

15. Mark 9:19

16. Luke 9:53

17. John 11:8

18. John 8:59

19. John 6:51

20. 1 John 4:9

21. Exodus 25:22

22. Genesis 3:24

23. Exodus 25:10–22

24. Exodus 26:31–33