What Does Believing In Jesus Really Mean? II
The Person of Christ
Christianity flowed through promises that God made to His covenant with Israel. I think we gloss over that in 21st century from our Gentile perspective and maybe even consider it irrelevant today. Going back to the day of Pentacost, I believe Peter sets the stage. Speaking to a Jewish audience, Peter describes for them this Jesus in Acts 2:22-36. For a Jew this was significant because the Jewish hope for restoration and fulfillment of covenantal promises was found in the messiah. The messiah would not be just another king nor one of God’s prophets. The messiah would be God’s anointed king, succeeding from the line of David embodying the spirit of YHWH. The Jews were basically looking for God Himself to come through divine representation.
But Peter had understood this prior to that day. When Jesus asked him, who do you say that I am? You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God. He was saying, “you are the messiah, the one whom God has sent to fulfill these promises”. Peter recognized Him as deity. Also, consider Stephen’s rather lengthy recitation in Acts 7. Christ was explained. John makes it a point in His gospel to get to this right away. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God…and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. God among us, emptying Himself to become a sacrifice, but we’ll get to that in a minute.
In Acts 10, Peter recognizes that the covenantal promises of God were not just meant for Israel but for all peoples who would believe in Jesus, which he makes clear in vs. 36 “the word which He sent to the sons of Israel, preaching peace through Jesus Christ. Thus, by appropriating faith in who Jesus was, Gentiles could now be the recipients of covenantal promises. So getting back to the Paul, Silas and the jailer, I have to imagine that this explanation was part of the redemption package explained to him, that he was once far off from these promises could not access them through Jesus Christ (Ephesians 11-13) and it starts with recognizing who He is.
I think its fascinating that so much doctrine developed through the work of councils due to heresies concerning the person of Christ. The councils of Nicea, Constantinople and Chalcedon were critical answering the question of who is Christ. He did not become God at birth nor was he never man, as some supposed, but fully God and fully man. Some thought other details were too nitpicky. What does it matter regarding the substinence of Christ, whether He was 2 people in one, whether He was a whole new 3rd person or had one will instead of two? This seems so trivial. And doesn’t that resound today? Why cause division with details or make much ado about too much. But I think that Irenaeus, Athanasius, Flavin and Leo understood that we can’t put trust in someone who is not. If we get Christ wrong regarding who He is, then the whole thing falls apart.
Would one need to immediately understand all of this to profess faith in Christ? Absolutely not. But if one professes Christ, and in turn is indwelt with the Holy Spirit who bears witness to Christ, would that person then refuse to acknowledge Christ on His terms? How then can we profess faith in Christ and not believe in who He is? So placing faith in Christ would necessitate understanding His person, that He is the Christ, Son of God who descended from heaven, born of a virgin, becoming man, yet sinless to restore humanity to right relationship with God.
