A Quick Confession of Christ

Jesus Christ is essential to my religious experience, both in theory and in praxis. He is my starting point for understanding God and Man. Christ is the mediator between God and Man and I understand Him to be the full and complete revelation of God and the full revelation of Man. I understand Christ to be the God-Man, the incarnate Word spoken by God simultaneously with the breathing out of God’s Spirit.

In terms of my theory, Christ is God’s means of reconciling Man to Himself and He is the fullest expression and evidence of God’s love. In order to redeem Man from death and fulfill His intention of creating a creature in His image with which He could fellowship, God sacrificed His Son to become incarnated in flesh as Man for all time in order to be the full and complete representative of all that Man is intended to be. As perfect Man, Christ Jesus has Man’s full and intended fellowship with God which is not interrupted by death because God recognizes in Christ the love and devotion of a creature that can and wants and deserves to be in fellowship with Him. In this, Jesus Christ became God’s sacrifice to Man, and also Man’s sacrifice to God. Man’s fellowship with God is continued and death is overcome. And in order to redeem more of Man than just Christ, the mercy and grace of God upon Man comes through Christ in that God chooses to view Man through Christ and in Christ and not as himself. In this regard, all women and men who are identified with Christ are granted the blessings that God gives to Christ. Man and God are reconciled through the God-Man and fellowship is uninterrupted.

In terms of praxis, I understand Christ to be the fulfillment of the law and the standard by which I apply God’s commands. I see the law and, in particular, the greatest and second greatest commandments as speaking to the individual’s relationship to God and to Man. That Christ is both God and Man speaks to the legitimacy of His example and the central position He has in all these relationships. Therefore, I understand my relationship to God as being one that exists through Christ. Furthermore, I understand that my relationship to others as being one that exists through Christ. I would go so far to say that I understand my relationship to myself as being one that exists in and through Christ. I base my entire religious experience with God and with Man as one that is in Christ. I work and pray to become more Christ-like, I measure my faith to the standard that is Christ, and I seek to relate to God and to Man as Christ does.