Ever wonder why God chose to take on human form, why God the Son needed to become the man, Jesus? I’ve wondered about that. Here’s what I found.
I first looked at the holiness of God. God is absolutely holy, absolutely pure. In order to stand in God’s presence, one needs to be absolutely pure as well. But we’re sinful people. How can we do this, and how could the people prior to Christ stand before God?
Until the Mosaic Law, men would sacrifice for themselves and/or their families. Able sacrificed to please God (Gen. 4:3) but for himself alone, no one else. Job sacrificed for himself and his family (Job 1:5). In Genesis 8:20, we’re told Noah sacrificed after the flood waters subsided. Things changed, though, when Moses climbed Mt. Sinai and received the Law from God. Now God would use an individual to represent His people before Him, the High Priest.
In that Law it as clear the shedding of blood was needed for forgiveness of the sins of Israel (Lev. 16; Heb. 9:22). Indeed, God requires every human be purified by blood before it can enter His presence.
The High Priest was a sinful man. He could only stand in the presence of God’s glory once a year. He could step behind the veil of the temple into the Holy of Holies to offer blood for the sins of God’s people (Lev. 16). There was a purification ritual before the High Priest was purified enough to be entitled to enter into the Holy of Holies. This involved blood.
Even then, the High Priest needed to purify the altar upon which the sacrifices for God’s people would be made. That was done with blood. When the High Priest was holy enough to offer sacrifice for the sins of Israel by sprinkling blood on the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant, he could enter the Holy of Holies. All this so Israel could have a mediator between God and the people for their sins.
Considering the lengths the High Priest had to go through, it seems clear even after all that ritual, the High Priest was still living on the edge. According to Lev. 16:13, if the High Priest did something wrong God could strike him dead. No one else was holy enough to pass through the veil into the Holy of Holies to retrieve him if that happened. Because of this, Jewish tradition tells us bells were attached to the tassels on the High Priest’s robe and a rope tied to his waist when he entered past the veil. If no bells were heard for a period of time, the other priests would assume the High Priest had made an error and God had struck him down. They could retrieve his body by pulling it out using the rope.
So, the point is that God’s mediator must be pure and perfect in his duty. For man to fulfill that role, he must be unique and pure and that purity only remains for a brief period.
Then Jesus entered our world physically. According to Hebrews 4:14, He is now our High Priest. He represents God’s people before God. He is also the perfect sacrifice, the perfect Lamb of God Who paid the price for all our sins. His blood covers us as the blood ritual the High Priest needed to perform. The difference is Jesus, our High Priest, is not in danger of error. He is so pure, He may remain in the Father’s presence indefinitely. In fact, His sacrifice made us Christians all holy enough to enter the Holy of Holies too and without the priestly rituals. The veil has been torn to gain us access directly to God (Matt. 27:51). It was torn from top to bottom, from God to us, welcoming us into God’s presence under the credentials of His Son.
Why is This Important?
The importance of this is that the Mediators between God and man is no longer just a man who was made just holy enough to stand in God’s presence briefly. Our Mediator is God the Son in human form. He knows what it is like to be a man and to be God. Jesus is the only one who is fully qualified to argue our case before the Father. He is our Advocate (1 John 2:1) who argues for our forgiveness as He stands before the Father, Himself payment in full for our transgression.
God didn’t create some being and send him to take on human form. He could have sent an angel, a perfect being, but no one is good enough but God. His love for us is such that He came Himself.
We no longer have to wait a year for someone to sacrifice in the temple for our sins. We no longer have to wait a year for forgiveness. Now we have access to the throne of God (Heb. 4:16) to ask forgiveness or to ask for mercy or for healing.
Jesus is the perfect go-between, the perfect Mediator. He connects each realm, God’s and man’s.
Jesus paid that price for us around 30 a.d. Just forty years later, the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed by the Roman general, Titus. It was of no use anymore. The needed ultimate sacrifice had been made. The price had been paid.
1 Timothy 2:5 (ESV)
5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
Believers Armed and Dangerous 