A Shattered Mirror

Out of love, God created mankind in His image, that God might love man and man might love God.

That is who God is, almighty yet most humble, the center of the universe yet selfless.  He created mankind so He could delight in us, and we in Him, with selfless love.

But in order for this love to be valuable, it must be voluntary, so God gave man the choice to love Him or reject Him. When man disobeys God, it is tantamount to rejecting God.  In rejecting the Source of Life, we bring death upon ourselves.

This bears repeating: The result of sin is death because it is a rejection of the Source of Life.

That’s why, in the Christian worldview, sin against God is more than just doing something wrong.  It is rebellion against the Sustainer of the universe.  It is the most destructive force in the cosmos, the ultimate root of every pained heart, every broken family, every pointless war, every heinous genocide.  Sin spreads through generations like a malignant cancer, and it razes civilizations like a plague.  All of creation cries out for restoration!

The effect of sin is cataclysmic. Like taking a sledgehammer to a mirror, sin shatters the image in which man is made.  When Adam sinned, the image of God in man was irreparably broken and distorted.

This is the Christian worldview: Sin has ravaged our souls and the entire world. There is no way for us to un-sin.  We cannot simply do a few good deeds to un-shatter our souls.  There is nothing on earth that we can do.  It would take a miracle, an act of God, to restore us and save this world.

In the Christian message, there is good news.  In Greek, the word for good news is euangelion, which in English is translated "gospel".  It's where we get our English word evangelize.  And the good news is this: even though we cannot get to God, out of His great love, God has come to us and made a way for us.  God, Himself, has paid for our sins and will eternally restore our souls.  All we have to do is repent of our rebellion against the Source of Life, have faith in what He has done, and follow Him.

To pay for our sins, God entered into the world.  Without changing his Divine nature, God took upon Himself a human nature.  He was born as a human, but not of the broken, distorted image/lineage of Adam.  He was born unbroken, the way mankind was intended to be, the way we will ultimately be when we are miraculously remade.

He took the name Yeshua, which means "Yahweh saves".

With respect to his human nature he grew as a human, ate food as a human, suffered alongside humans, and ultimately died as a human.  In all this he never sinned, so he was able to bear our sins.  He was the unblemished Lamb.

He lived the life we ought to have lived so He could die the death that we deserve to die.

By dying on our behalf He took upon Himself the sins of all mankind, so that whoever believes in Him and accepts the free gift of what He has done will have eternal life.

From the perspective of a human watching Yeshua, it might have looked like just another man dying just another death.  So to prove to the world that His death was not just another death but one that brings life to the world, and to prove that He was indeed the God He claimed to be, He rose from the dead and lives today!

On the one hand, this was a sign to all who were skeptical that Yeshua truly has supernatural authority and deserves to be heard.  On the other hand, it was a symbol for those who believe in Him that death has been defeated.  Yeshua has conquered it for us.

As we follow Yeshua, we become more like Him, the unbroken man, and He gradually begins the miraculous work of restoring our otherwise irreparable souls as our parakletos... our Helper... our Comforter.

Like Yeshua, we are filled with a selfless love, and we begin to live for others instead of ourselves, just as God lived for us.  Those who go further along the path of being like Yeshua even reflect Him in their willingness to die for others, just as Yeshua was willing to die for us.  They become more like God: selflessly delighting in others.

The fundamental problem of mankind is sin, and we are powerless to save ourselves.  The good news is that God loves us and makes a way for us by paying our penalty Himself upon the cross.  Yeshua proved that He is the Author of Life by rising from death.  We who repent and follow Yeshua demonstrate our faith in Him and His Salvation, and God begins a transforming work in us. 

As we follow Yeshua, He makes us more like Him and sends us into the world to love mankind with the selfless love of God.  We can even lay down our lives for others, as Yeshua modeled for us.  Our ultimate restoration will come to miraculous fruition when we are remade, unbroken, to live with Him and love Him in an immortal state.

So, when it comes to salvation in Christianity, Yeshua is literally "the way", and our love for God is our primary expression of worship.