A PORTRAIT OF CHRIST

      A Look at Who Jesus Is and What He Is Like from the Gospels

      Copyright © 2013 D. Patrick Ramsey. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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      ISBN 13: 978-1-62032-768-5

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      Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

      Scripture marked NKJV is taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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      To my wife Rachel,

      the delight of my eyes.

      Jesus is God lived by a man.

      —F. Godet

      Preface

      This book originated as a sermon series on the person of Jesus Christ. It focused on answering two questions, “Who is Jesus?” and “What is Jesus like?” The emphasis was decidedly on the second question and this is reflected in the book. I was especially helped in this regard by B. B. Warfield’s article, “On the Emotional Life of Our Lord.” It is indeed a classic and well worth reading today.

      I would like to thank Dr. Michael Haykin of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary for reading the manuscript and for his helpful suggestions. I would also like to thank my wife, Rachel, and my five boys Sean, Drew, Aidan, Luke, and Asher for their continuing love and support. Most especially, I would like to thank Jesus, the subject of this book, for saving me from my sins and loving me with an everlasting love.

      1 / The Promised Christ

      A number of well-loved books share a common theme: an epic battle between good and evil. In The Lord of the Rings, for example, Aragorn and company wage war against the powerful but evil Sauron; and in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Aslan the lion battles the White Witch.

      These great stories also share a number of other elements that make them gripping and intriguing. One is that their battles have universal and grave consequences. If Frodo fails in his mission to destroy the ring, and if Aslan does not come to conquer the Witch, then all is lost for everyone. There is a do-or-die element to these stories.

      Another common component is the oppression of people by an evil tyrant. Times are tough and desperate. In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, the citizens of Narnia live in constant fear of their ruler, the White Witch, who makes it winter all year round, but never Christmas. The story is somewhat different in The Lord of the Rings, as the evil Sauron is not quite in control of Middle Earth, but he is rapidly gaining strength and is on the brink of complete domination.

Still another theme, which binds together many of these well-loved stories, is the presence of a promised hero who will save the oppressed. This is especially the case in Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Many of the Narnians have lived in hope for a very long time, because of the prophecy that one day the great and mighty Aslan will come to Narnia and right all wrongs and turn winter into spring. Aslan’s victory, according to another prophecy, will happen when two daughters of Eve and two sons of Adam arrive in Narnia and sit on the four thrones at Cair Paravel. This is why when Mrs. Beaver meets Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy for the very first time, she exclaims, “So you’ve come at last! At last! To think that ever I should live to see this day!”1

      Good versus evil, oppression, deliverance, powerful enemies, promised saviors, and do-or-die battles are all components that wonderful epic stories have in common. Yet, there is something else they share: to one degree or another, they reflect reality. Perhaps this is why such stories are so popular. They express truth in the form of art, which we can relate to, and which we long to experience ourselves.

      While we may be unaware of it, there has been a cosmic battle between good and evil since the time of Adam and Eve in the garden. Since the entrance of the first sin into the world, humanity has been enslaved and oppressed, subject to all sorts of misery, including death. Against this background, God has promised to send a savior to rescue his people.

      The four Gospels teach that Jesus is this promised savior. Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Mary, is no ordinary man. He is the one the Old Testament prophets said would come to deliver God’s people.

      The Need for a Savior

      Evil first entered God’s good universe when an angel opposed God and subsequently was cast out of heaven. The Bible tells us very little about the fall of Satan, but it does seem that pride was a root cause of his rebellion. Also, it is clear that he took many angels with him. Fallen or rebellious angels are commonly called demons.

      In his hatred for God, Satan sought to destroy the apex of God’s creation, human beings, who are made in the image of God. The evil one cunningly tempted the first two human beings, Adam and Eve, to rebel against God by eating the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3). Tragically, Satan was successful. Adam ate the fruit, bringing sin and its consequences into the world (Romans 5).

The situation in Narnia under the White Witch somewhat captures humankind’s situation since Adam’s fall into sin: living under an evil tyrant in a place where it is always winter and never Christmas. The Bible teaches that all men are by nature living under the tyrannical rule of Satan (Eph 2:2; 1 John 5:19). Furthermore, the Bible teaches that all humans are sinners, and are therefore under God’s wrath and curse and are “liable to all miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell forever.”2

      Our own experience confirms these truths. This world is full of suffering, evil, oppression, and death: infanticide, betrayal, rape, murder, genocide, and abuse. We do not have to look outside ourselves, however, to see these things. We have personally suffered misery and pain to one degree or another. We have caused others to suffer by our words and actions. And what is more, we are all going to die.

      Appreciating the need for a savior can be obscured, however, by God’s goodness. We have good jobs, great marriages, healthy children, and nice homes. Who needs saving? When life is good, we should enjoy it and praise God for it. But the fact remains, we live in a sinful, fallen world, and sooner or later, our world will crash in on us. We lose our job, health, or family. Then all of a sudden, we are reminded that all is not well here. We are awakened to the fact that we need a savior. We need someone to deliver us from sin, misery, death, and Satan. We need a hero to make all wrongs right and to turn winter into spring.