All human history converges on the Incarnation and then proceeds from it.” I read that quote the other day, and I’m not sure who originally wrote it, but it is a powerful truth. The child in the manger’s humanity was all humanity, and the life Jesus lived on earth, He lived in our place and on our behalf. He wasn’t just an example for us; He was an example of us.
In John 8:23, Jesus repeatedly said to the Pharisees who were gathered around Him, “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world.” In verses 26, 28 – 29, Jesus added, “I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you, but He who sent Me is true; and the things which I heard from Him these I speak to the world. When you lift up the Son of Man, Then You Will Know That I Am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me. And He who sent Me is with Me, He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.”
The incarnate Christ, speaking from His humanity contrasted the life that He lived on earth compared to the unbelieving Pharisees. Jesus said that He lived the “above life,” and they were living the “below life.” He also told them that they were of this world, but He was not. Jesus modeled the reality that we can be in this world but live above this world at the same time. The above life the revealed mystery that human beings were created to experience the manifest presence of God in and with them continually. Jesus models to us the human disposition that stewards this “above life.” He said that He did nothing on his own initiative and that he always did the things that were pleasing to the Father. This disposition of total and relentless surrender, this obedience of Christ, allowed the Father by the Holy Spirit to manifest the reality of heaven through Him. Jesus who is the author and perfecter of our faith invites and woos us to lay down all independent rights and bring every thought captive to “the obedience of Christ.” I asked the Lord recently about Christians demanding “rights,” and the Holy Spirit said in (to) me, “You have the right to participate in thinking what Jesus thinks, feeling what Jesus feels, speaking what Jesus speaks, and doing what Jesus does.” If it is true that “Christ is our life,” and that “our life is hidden with Christ in God,” and these are the only rights we have which makes us the most privileged people who’ve ever existed. In His humanity, Jesus never initiated anything; therefore, neither should we if we are going to experience the “above life.” You might say but that sounds like passivity, but instead of passivity, it is being surrendered to (resting in) Divine activity, and there is nothing passive about the life that Jesus lives. Eternal life is our participating in the life of God through Christ. It is the grand adventure.