Who is Jesus Christ? Discovering the Son of God and His Mission
Introduction: The Most Important Question in History
“Who do you say that I am?” This question, posed by Jesus to His disciples nearly two thousand years ago, remains the most crucial question anyone can answer. Throughout history, countless individuals have offered their opinions about Jesus Christ. Some have called Him a great moral teacher, others a revolutionary prophet, and still others a misguided fanatic. But who is Jesus really? The answer to this question has profound implications not only for understanding Christianity but for determining the eternal destiny of every human soul.
Jesus Christ stands at the absolute center of the Christian faith. Unlike other religions that focus primarily on teachings or ethical systems, Christianity is fundamentally about a person. The claims made about Jesus are extraordinary—that He is the eternal Son of God who became human, lived a sinless life, died for the sins of humanity, and rose from the dead. These are not claims that allow for casual acceptance or polite dismissal. As C.S. Lewis famously argued, Jesus must be either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord. There is no middle ground.
In our modern age of religious pluralism, many attempt to reduce Jesus to merely one spiritual teacher among many, a wise man whose insights can be appreciated alongside those of Buddha, Muhammad, or Confucius. However, Jesus Himself made such a position impossible. He claimed to be the only way to God, the embodiment of divine truth, and the source of eternal life. These claims demand investigation, and this article seeks to explore who Jesus Christ truly is, what He came to accomplish, and why His identity matters for every person who has ever lived.
The Identity of Jesus Christ: Fully God and Fully Man
The Divine Nature of Christ
Christianity teaches that Jesus Christ is the second person of the Trinity—God the Son, eternally existing with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. This doctrine, known as the Incarnation, proclaims that the infinite, eternal God took on human flesh and entered His own creation. The Apostle John begins his Gospel with these profound words: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made” (John 1:1-3).
This Word, John explains, became flesh and dwelt among us. Jesus is not a created being or merely a human who achieved a special relationship with God. He is, according to Christian teaching, God Himself who chose to become human while remaining fully divine. The Apostle Paul writes to the Colossians: “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9). Every attribute of deity—omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, eternality, immutability—belongs to Jesus Christ.
Throughout the Gospels, Jesus demonstrates His divine nature through various means. He performs miracles that only God could perform—calming storms with a word, walking on water, healing incurable diseases, raising the dead, and multiplying food to feed thousands. He forgives sins, something that belongs to God’s prerogative alone, as the religious leaders of His day correctly understood. When a paralyzed man was brought to Him, Jesus said, “Son, your sins are forgiven you,” prompting the scribes to think, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:5-7). Jesus did not correct this reasoning; instead, He proved His authority to forgive sins by healing the paralytic.
Perhaps most significantly, Jesus accepted worship from His followers. Throughout Scripture, angels and godly men consistently refuse worship, directing it to God alone. Yet Jesus repeatedly received worship without rebuke. Thomas, upon seeing the risen Christ, declared, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28), and Jesus commended rather than corrected him. Jesus even claimed equality with God the Father, stating, “I and My Father are one” (John 10:30), a claim His Jewish audience immediately recognized as a declaration of deity, for which they sought to stone Him for blasphemy.
The early Christians understood and proclaimed Jesus’ divinity from the beginning. Despite their strict Jewish monotheistic background, which would make worship of any created being unthinkable idolatry, they worshiped Jesus as God. The transformation of these monotheistic Jews into worshipers of Christ testifies powerfully to the reality of who Jesus revealed Himself to be.
The Human Nature of Christ
Yet Jesus was not only fully God; He was also fully human. This mystery, difficult as it is to comprehend, is essential to Christian faith. Jesus was born of a virgin, Mary, through the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit. He grew from infancy to childhood to adulthood. He experienced hunger, thirst, fatigue, and physical pain. He wept at the death of His friend Lazarus and agonized in the Garden of Gethsemane before His crucifixion. The writer of Hebrews emphasizes this humanity: “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15).
Jesus’ humanity was real and complete, not an illusion or mere appearance. He possessed a human body, human emotions, and a human will, though His human will was always perfectly aligned with His divine will. This true humanity was necessary for His mission. To redeem humanity, He had to become human. To serve as our representative and substitute, bearing the punishment for our sins, He had to be one of us. The Apostle Paul explains: “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all” (1 Timothy 2:5-6).
Yet unlike every other human who has ever lived, Jesus was without sin. He faced every temptation common to humanity yet never yielded. Satan tempted Him in the wilderness, offering Him shortcuts to glory and power, but Jesus remained obedient to His Father’s will. Throughout His life, He maintained perfect moral purity, fulfilling every requirement of God’s law. His enemies could find no legitimate accusation against Him. Even Pilate, the Roman governor who sentenced Him to death, declared, “I find no fault in this Man” (Luke 23:4).
This sinlessness was not merely passive—an absence of wrongdoing—but actively righteous. Jesus perfectly loved God with all His heart, soul, mind, and strength, and He loved His neighbor as Himself. He embodied the righteousness that the law required but which no human could achieve. This perfect righteousness would be credited to all who trust in Him, while He would bear their sins on the cross.
The Mystery of the Two Natures
How can one person be both fully God and fully human? This question has challenged theologians throughout church history. Various heresies have arisen from attempts to simplify this mystery—some denying Jesus’ full divinity, others His full humanity, still others suggesting He was a mixture of the two, neither fully God nor fully man. The orthodox Christian position, established at the Council of Chalcedon in AD 451, affirms that Jesus Christ is one person with two distinct natures, divine and human, united without confusion, without change, without division, and without separation.
This union of two natures in one person is unique in all creation. Jesus is not half-God and half-man, nor does His divine nature diminish His humanity or vice versa. Rather, He is the God-man, possessing all the attributes of deity and all the properties of humanity (except sin) in one person forever. This mystery, while beyond complete human comprehension, is essential for understanding who Jesus is and what He accomplished.
The Mission of Jesus Christ: Why He Came
To Reveal God to Humanity
Jesus came to show us what God is like. For centuries, humanity had received glimpses of God’s character through creation, through His interactions with Israel, and through the prophets. But in Christ, God fully revealed Himself. Jesus declared, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Everything Jesus did—His compassion for the sick and outcast, His righteous anger at injustice, His tender love for children, His fierce opposition to hypocrisy, His willingness to suffer for others—reveals God’s heart.
Through His teachings, Jesus unveiled profound truths about God’s kingdom. The Sermon on the Mount presents a radically different understanding of righteousness, one that examines the heart’s motivations rather than merely external actions. His parables illustrated God’s mercy, the value of the lost, and the cost of discipleship. In His person and words, Jesus made the invisible God visible and the transcendent God accessible.
To Provide Atonement for Sin
The central purpose of Jesus’ coming was to save sinners. The angel announced to Joseph, “You shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). Jesus Himself stated, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). Everything in His earthly ministry pointed toward the cross.
Sin had created an insurmountable barrier between holy God and sinful humanity. Divine justice demanded that sin be punished, yet divine love desired to save sinners. How could God be both just and merciful? The answer is found in the cross of Christ. There, Jesus bore the punishment that our sins deserved. Isaiah prophesied: “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5).
On the cross, Jesus experienced the full weight of God’s wrath against sin. The physical suffering—the scourging, the crown of thorns, the nails, the suffocation—was terrible, but the spiritual agony was infinitely worse. Jesus, who had enjoyed eternal fellowship with the Father, experienced separation from God as He bore our sins. His cry, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46) expresses the depth of this anguish. He endured hell so that we wouldn’t have to.
This substitutionary death satisfied God’s justice while demonstrating His love. Paul writes, “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). The cross reveals both the seriousness of sin—it required nothing less than God’s own death to atone for it—and the depth of God’s love—He was willing to pay that price.
To Conquer Death Through Resurrection
The crucifixion was not the end of Jesus’ mission. On the third day after His death, He rose from the grave, conquering death itself. The resurrection validates everything Jesus claimed about Himself. It proves He was who He said He was—the Son of God with power. It demonstrates that His sacrifice was accepted by the Father and that sin and death have been defeated.
The resurrection is not a peripheral doctrine but the cornerstone of Christian faith. Paul declares, “If Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty” (1 Corinthians 15:14). Without the resurrection, Jesus would be just another failed messianic figure, and Christianity would be nothing more than a philosophical system based on the teachings of a dead man. But because Christ lives, everything changes.
The evidence for the resurrection is compelling. The tomb was found empty, and no one—neither His followers nor His enemies—could produce the body. The disciples, who had fled in fear at His arrest, were transformed into bold witnesses willing to die for their testimony that they had seen the risen Lord. Over five hundred people saw Him alive after His resurrection. The conversion of skeptics like James, Jesus’ half-brother, and Saul of Tarsus, a fierce persecutor of Christians, testifies to the reality of the resurrection.
Jesus appeared to His disciples over forty days, teaching them about the kingdom of God and preparing them for their mission. He then ascended into heaven, where He now sits at the Father’s right hand, interceding for believers and reigning as King of Kings and Lord of Lords. His ascension was not an escape from this world but His enthronement as the ruler of all creation.
To Establish His Kingdom
Jesus came proclaiming the kingdom of God. This kingdom is both present and future—already inaugurated but not yet fully realized. In one sense, God’s kingdom came when Christ came. Wherever Jesus is acknowledged as Lord, His kingdom advances. Every life transformed by the gospel, every act of justice and mercy performed in His name, every prayer offered in faith represents the kingdom breaking into this fallen world.
Yet the kingdom awaits its full consummation when Christ returns. At His second coming, He will judge the living and the dead, defeat all His enemies, and establish His eternal reign. Suffering, death, sin, and injustice will be no more. The creation itself will be renewed, and God’s people will dwell with Him forever in the new heaven and new earth.
The Continuing Work of Christ
Jesus’ earthly ministry lasted only about three years, but His work continues. He is not a distant historical figure but a living Lord who remains actively involved in His creation and in the lives of His followers.
Christ as Intercessor
At the Father’s right hand, Jesus intercedes for believers. When we pray, we come through Christ our mediator. When we fail, we have an advocate with the Father. The writer of Hebrews assures us, “Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25). Our salvation does not depend on our ability to maintain perfect faithfulness but on Christ’s perfect and perpetual intercession on our behalf.
Christ as Head of the Church
Jesus did not merely establish an organization and then abandon it. He remains actively involved as the head of His church. Through the Holy Spirit, He guides, teaches, corrects, and empowers believers. The church is called His body, with Christ as the head directing and coordinating all the members. Every genuine movement of the church throughout history has been Christ working through His people.
Christ as Coming King
Jesus promised, “I will come again” (John 14:3). This blessed hope sustains Christians through trials and persecution. One day, every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Those who have rejected Him will face judgment, while those who trust in Him will enter the joy of their Master. History is moving toward this glorious culmination when Christ’s kingdom will be fully realized and His enemies finally defeated.
Why Jesus’ Identity Matters for You
Understanding who Jesus is has profound personal implications. He is not simply a figure to admire from a distance or a teacher whose wisdom we can selectively apply. Jesus demands a response. His claims are too radical, His works too astounding, and His resurrection too well-attested to be ignored or casually dismissed.
If Jesus is truly who He claimed to be—the Son of God, the only Savior, the Judge of all humanity—then our response to Him determines our eternal destiny. Those who trust in Him, who acknowledge their sin and receive Him as Lord and Savior, receive forgiveness, eternal life, and adoption into God’s family. Those who reject Him remain under the condemnation their sins deserve.
Jesus offers what no other religious leader can provide: not merely good advice or moral examples, but salvation itself. He doesn’t simply point the way to God; He is the way. He doesn’t just teach truth; He is the truth. He doesn’t merely discuss life; He is the life. In Him, we find everything we truly need—forgiveness for the past, purpose for the present, and hope for the future.
Conclusion: The Choice Before You
Who is Jesus Christ? He is the eternal Son of God who became human to save us from our sins. He is the perfect revelation of God’s character, the atoning sacrifice for sin, the conqueror of death, and the coming King. He lived the life we should have lived and died the death we deserved to die, so that we might have the life He deserved to have.
The question Jesus asked His disciples confronts each of us: “Who do you say that I am?” Your answer to this question is the most important decision you will ever make. It affects not only your understanding of religion or history but your eternal destiny. Jesus stands before you today, offering forgiveness, new life, and eternal hope to all who will trust in Him.
Will you acknowledge Him as Lord? Will you turn from your sins and place your faith in Him alone for salvation? The choice is yours, but the stakes could not be higher. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost. He came for you. The question is: will you come to Him?
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