Unlimited: He Came Down from Heaven
Oct 3, 2019 2263
No one has gone up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven (John 3:13, ISV).
When Jesus says this to Nicodemus, he doesn’t mean it literally. He’s actually referring to a poetic and mysterious part of the book of Proverbs called the “sayings of Agur.” The writer challenges the hearer to understand and be wise (Proverbs 30:1–3), and then he challenges the hearer with:
Who has ascended into heaven and descended?
…What is His name or His son’s name?
Surely you know! (Proverbs 30:1–4, NASB).
Agur’s questions culminate in the name of the Son. The key point that Jesus is making to Nicodemus is that he is God’s Son. If you read Proverbs 30, you will see that Jesus isn’t just claiming to be the Messiah. He is also claiming to be God himself, for the one who ascends and descends in Proverbs 30 is the Creator God.
Jesus goes on to tell Nicodemus that all of existence depends on that same Son and that his own salvation depended on believing in him (John 3:18). Should anyone not believe in his name, indeed, they have been judged already (vv.14-18).
Jesus is the one who has come down from heaven (John 3:31). By doing that, Jesus has interrupted the history of this world. He wants to interrupt your life, so that one day you may be able to go up to heaven with him.
– Eliezer Gonzalez
Eli’s Reflection: Go out at night to a place where you can clearly see the stars. Look up and wonder at the sight as you pray. Ask yourself this: What is your response to the fact that Jesus came down from heaven for you?
Dr Malcolm ROBERTS
Oct 3, 2019
Hi Brother Eliezer, I appreciate you to taking the reader to Agur's to point to Jesus being the Son of God. Sure - so was Adam, son of God too. Right? What I am saying is that Jesus had come down to earth in the form of man - fleshy and had made himself devoid of all godly virtues and all the miracles he had performed on earth were by the Holy Spirit (most times). We need to accept this fact that Jesus was not God on earth { (lest we are deem Antichrist 2 John 1: 7), as the Catholics maintain adamantly to make Mary to be the Mother of God), though he had all divinity in him (being the converted zygote from the logos WORD - God). Philippians 2:5-11 confirms this truth. It is as a man Jesus had lived a righteous life, which had surely qualified him to be the savior of mankind. Had he been God on earth, then the purpose of a savior could be lost. No? Your brother in Christ Mal :-)
pauline
Oct 3, 2019
He died that l May live. He lived that I may have everlasting life. Amen ?
Eliezer Gonzalez
Oct 4, 2019
Hi Mal - Yes you are absolutely right. Jesus had definitely come down to earth in the form of man. Yes it is as a man that Jesus had had lived as a righteous life which qualified him to be the saviour of mankind. Yet we must extend this thought. His perfect humanity along didn't qualify him to be the savior of mankind, for else how could he have borne the sin of the world within his single, normal (though perfect) humanity at Calvary. So, the Bible teaches us to never forget both parts of his identity. Jesus was indeed both simultaneously God on earth (as he himself claimed and as he was acknowledged to be), and the perfect man - both held perfectly within the one life. It is both of these that qualify him to be the saviour of the world, else we would have merely a human Savior. You are also quite correct that the Bible teaches us that that we all of the human race are sons and daughters of God. The interesting thing in Proc 30:4 is that the focal point of the Sayings of Agur is not the "son" but the one who has established the ends of the earth and whose hands have gathered up the wind, etc. This is clearly a Divine figure, i.e. God himself, and would have been understood as such by the Rabbis in Jesus' day. The main thrust of Jesus' use of this passage is not to identify himself as the "son" but as God himself, which he then parenthetically identifies with the Divine Son, and goes on to elaborate in John 3. That's may understanding of what is a difficult passage. Of course, please bear in mind that I had few words to elaborate in this devotional, and that I threw this devotional in as something I was thinking about which is far more theological in nature than I usually write for these brief devotional thoughts.