Who is Jesus?/Book 1/Part 2/Chapter 7
VII. JESUS AS SAVIOUR
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WE ARE insistent that we shall perceive the undeniable force of the fact that God is one indivisible being, and cannot, in the nature of the case, be two, even though He may manifest Himself in such a way as to give that impression. God must be one complete and undivided being. This is the verdict of reason and the unequivocal statement of God concerning Himself. Thus, God is one and indivisible; hence two separate beings cannot be God; if Jesus is God at all, he is the one and only God; there is no other God apart from him.
Of course, we can say that it was impossible that a limited human being could be the infinite Jehovah; but we are confronted by the statements already adduced that Jehovah prophesied that He was coming into the world as a redeemer and saviour, as a deliverer and a conqueror; that He was to come as a child born of a virgin; as a human being the heir of Abraham and David; as a servant who would be despised and rejected by those to whom He came; that His coming would be heralded by a messenger in the spirit and power of Elijah.
And we are confronted by the fact of Jesus himself. What shall we do with Jesus that is called Christ? Shall we also reject him and cast him out? Has the world gotten rid of him by rejecting him and casting him out?
Jesus not only insisted that he was the fulfilment of all the prophecies concerning the Messiah, but he lived a life which we have already seen is universally admitted to be the most perfect life ever lived upon this earth, and his teachings are the supremest expressions of spiritual truth ever uttered. If God could manifest Himself as a human being, it is certain that Jesus perfectly fulfilled our ideal of what God in the flesh would be.
We recall that Jehovah said,"I am Jehovah thy God . . . , and thou shalt acknowledge no God beside me." (Hos. 13:4.) Jehovah said also in the passage we were quoting, "And there is no Saviour beside me." And yet Jesus allowed Thomas to call him, "My Lord and my God." (John 20:28.) The angel announced to Joseph that the name of Mary's son would be Jesus, because "he would save his people from their sins." (Matt. 1:21.) The "good tidings of great joy" which the angel announced to the shepherds would be to all people were: "For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." (Luke 2:11.) It fits in perfectly with the prophecy in Micah 5:2, "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting."
The whole life of Jesus proved him to be the deliverer of his people from sin, sickness, error—from evil of every kind. All of his work was of a saving character. As he himself said, "I came to seek and to save that which was lost."
And there are simply myriads of people today who accept him as a personal Divine Saviour, or deliverer from their evils and their spiritual enemies. They claim the saving work of Jesus has been continued through the ages since he was upon the earth. There must be some basis in fact for this limitless belief in him as Saviour. And it cannot be denied that positive evidence exists in the way of changed lives in confirmation of this belief. Men from being apparently hardened criminals, sinners of the worst type, are changed, as by a miracle, when they look to Jesus as an ever-present, ever-living Saviour. It is one of the most positive undeniable facts of history. And it has no parallel elsewhere. The world knows no other similar saviour.
According to the repeated statements of Jehovah, whom we all admit is the one God, the Creator of the universe, no one is Saviour but Himself. If Jesus is Saviour, He is Jehovah, the one and only God of heaven and earth, the Indivisible.