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 came into being through Him, and apart from Him noth­ing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the dark­ness, and the dark­ness did not com­pre­hend it…
There was the true Light which, com­ing into the world, enlight­ens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become chil­dren of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glo­ry, glo­ry as of the only begot­ten from the Father, full of grace and truth…
For of His full­ness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the Law was giv­en through Moses; grace and truth were real­ized through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time; the only begot­ten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him. (John 1:1–18 NASB)

When we attempt to describe God’s sav­ing work through Jesus Christ in words we do so on the one hand in the aware­ness of the lim­i­ta­tions of our intel­lect and the con­straints of our lan­guage which can­not ade­quate­ly grasp and reflect the great­ness of what God has done in send­ing us his Son. On the oth­er hand, we do this out of grat­i­tude for every­thing our cre­ator and sav­iour has done for us, and that he enables us to com­pre­hend the great­ness of his love togeth­er with all those who fol­low him.

Wor­thy are you, our Lord and God,
to receive glo­ry and hon­our and pow­er,
for you cre­at­ed all things,
and by your will they exist­ed and were cre­at­ed. (Rev­e­la­tion 4:11)

Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the liv­ing crea­tures and the elders the voice of many angels, num­ber­ing myr­i­ads of myr­i­ads and thou­sands of thou­sands, say­ing with a loud voice, “Wor­thy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive pow­er and wealth and wis­dom and might and hon­our and glo­ry and bless­ing!” And I heard every crea­ture in heav­en and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and all that is in them, say­ing, “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be bless­ing and hon­our and glo­ry and might for ever and ever!” (Rev­e­la­tion 5:11–13)

From the begin­ning of cre­ation, before our earth and immea­sur­able uni­verse exist­ed, God already knew the whole of what we call “his­to­ry”. From the very begin­ning God knew about the fall of man, that he would lis­ten to the ser­pent (Satan) who deceived him, promis­ing that he would become like God. This atti­tude of want­i­ng to be like God caused the tragedy of human­i­ty. Ever since, sin has deter­mined and formed the his­to­ry of man and will con­tin­ue to do so until the end of time.

God knew what would hap­pen. He knew that mankind would rebel, long­ing for “inde­pen­dence” and “self-deter­mi­na­tion”. Nev­er­the­less he cre­at­ed man because he loves him. God planned from all eter­ni­ty to lead man back to him­self. This is the oth­er pow­er that influ­ences his­to­ry and although it is much less vis­i­ble than the influ­ence of sin, it is much stronger because “invis­i­bly” it leads the world to the con­sum­ma­tion of God’s will. One day the truth will be evi­dent for every­body, for some it will be their judge­ment, for oth­ers their sal­va­tion.

This pow­er is not vis­i­ble now but real nonethe­less, just like a tiny mus­tard seed grows to a great plant thanks to its vital force or like a lit­tle leav­en leav­ens all the flour (Matthew 13:31–35). Though invis­i­ble, it is not imper­cep­ti­ble because God has hid­den it from the wise and intel­li­gent and revealed it to infants (Matthew 11:25–26). It is vis­i­ble for the hum­ble and invis­i­ble for those who hard­en their hearts so that they do not rec­og­nize what God revealed about Him­self in nature and in his­to­ry.

And he answered them, “To you it has been giv­en to know the secrets of the king­dom of heav­en, but to them it has not been giv­en. For to the one who has, more will be giv­en, and he will have an abun­dance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be tak­en away. This is why I speak to them in para­bles, because see­ing they do not see, and hear­ing they do not hear, nor do they under­stand. Indeed, in their case the prophe­cy of Isa­iah is ful­filled that says:
‘You will indeed hear but nev­er under­stand,
and you will indeed see but nev­er per­ceive.
For this peo­ple’s heart has grown dull,
and with their ears they can bare­ly hear,
and their eyes they have closed,
lest they should see with their eyes
and hear with their ears
and under­stand with their heart
and turn, and I would heal them.’ ” (Matthew 13:11–15)

His­to­ry is laid out before us: the obvi­ous tragedy of man caused by sin and the pres­ence of God’s love for man with its his­tor­i­cal impact—a con­flict which escorts mankind to the end. Sin and rebel­lion meet love and righteousness—a fight in which God wants to save man, the very crea­tures who had turned against Him. We want to fol­low the path of this strug­gle lat­er. Here we just want to briefly call to mind the most impor­tant event of this strug­gle which found its dra­mat­ic cli­max at the ful­fil­ment of times. God became man and dwelt among us. He came to his cho­sen peo­ple which he had deliv­ered from slav­ery in Egypt. He made a covenant with them, took care of them, pro­tect­ed and taught them. Over a long peri­od of time he pre­pared them so that their meet­ing with him at the end of the ages would be like a bride long­ing for the arrival of her bride­groom.

The voice of my beloved!
Behold, he comes,
leap­ing over the moun­tains,
bound­ing over the hills.
My beloved is like a gazelle
or a young stag.
Behold, there he stands
behind our wall,
gaz­ing through the win­dows,
look­ing through the lat­tice.
My beloved speaks and says to me:
“Arise, my love, my beau­ti­ful one,
and come away,
for behold, the win­ter is past;
the rain is over and gone.
The flow­ers appear on the earth,
the time of singing has come,
and the voice of the tur­tle-dove
is heard in our land.
The fig tree ripens its figs,
and the vines are in blos­som;
they give forth fra­grance.
Arise, my love, my beau­ti­ful one,
and come away.
O my dove, in the clefts of the rock,
in the cran­nies of the cliff,
let me see your face,
let me hear your voice,
for your voice is sweet,
and your face is love­ly.” (Song of Solomon 2:8–14)

Direct­ly before his arrival he even sent a mes­sen­ger to pre­pare them for his com­ing:

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a wit­ness, to bear wit­ness about the light, that all might believe through him. (John 1:6–7)

This pas­sage shows that God sent John the Bap­tist so that all might believe through him. Jesus him­self men­tions a sim­i­lar long­ing in the para­ble about the wicked vine-grow­ers.

And he began to speak to them in para­bles. “A man plant­ed a vine­yard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the wine press and built a tow­er, and leased it to ten­ants and went into anoth­er coun­try. When the sea­son came, he sent a ser­vant to the ten­ants to get from them some of the fruit of the vine­yard. And they took him and beat him and sent him away emp­ty-hand­ed. Again he sent to them anoth­er ser­vant, and they struck him on the head and treat­ed him shame­ful­ly. And he sent anoth­er, and him they killed. And so with many oth­ers: some they beat, and some they killed. He had still one oth­er, a beloved son. Final­ly he sent him to them, say­ing, ‘They will respect my son.’ But those ten­ants said to one anoth­er, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inher­i­tance will be ours.’ And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vine­yard. What will the own­er of the vine­yard do? He will come and destroy the ten­ants and give the vine­yard to oth­ers. Have you not read this Scrip­ture:
‘The stone that the builders reject­ed
has become the cor­ner­stone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is mar­vel­lous in our eyes’?”
And they were seek­ing to arrest him but feared the peo­ple, for they per­ceived that he had told the para­ble against them. So they left him and went away. (Mark 12:1–12)

Despite all pre­vi­ous failed attempts he sends his only beloved son with the words, “They will respect my son.” This is what God is like!

Although God knew what would be done to Jesus, he behaved in a way that is incom­pre­hen­si­ble for us: he sent his Son. Sim­ply because God is love! He can­not give, wish or want any­thing else but what is good! God gave him­self because he could not give more. That is why he did every­thing so that peo­ple would hon­our and accept his only Son. He did it because it is best for every­body. How­ev­er, things turned out dif­fer­ent­ly:

The Light shines in the dark­ness, and the dark­ness did not com­pre­hend it…
There was the true Light which, com­ing into the world, enlight­ens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. (John 1:5+9–11 NASB)

Jesus also point­ed out this painful pos­si­bil­i­ty in his para­ble men­tioned above: Woe to you if you kill the son because the vine­yard will be tak­en away from you and you will per­ish…

Jesus’ painful sigh, when he mourned over Jerusalem, express­es this, too:

And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, say­ing, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hid­den from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your ene­mies will set up a bar­ri­cade round you and sur­round you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your chil­dren with­in you. And they will not leave one stone upon anoth­er in you, because you did not know the time of your vis­i­ta­tion.” (Luke 19:41–44)

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I want­ed to gath­er your chil­dren togeth­er, just as a hen gath­ers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it! 35 Behold, your house is left to you des­o­late; and I say to you, you will not see Me until the time comes when you say, “blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Luke 13:34–35 NASB)

How often I want­ed what would have brought you free­dom and sal­va­tion, but you did not want it!

Here the invi­ta­tion to a wed­ding turns into grief. The bride­groom has been killed. We might think that God’s love and patience end here. No greater act of unright­eous­ness and wicked­ness could have ever been done in this world. Indeed! They killed the one who nev­er did any­thing wrong, who came to serve in humil­i­ty in order to lead us out of dark­ness, out of the shad­ow of death to eter­nal life!

On Gol­go­tha the con­flict between God and man reached its cli­max.

The short earth­ly life of Jesus Christ, the incar­nate God, bears the marks of the con­flict that ran through the whole his­to­ry of the world. It is the strug­gle between the crea­ture that has turned away from God to focus on him­self and the Cre­ator who fights for his crea­tures. It is on the cross that sin and unright­eous­ness meet love and right­eous­ness most clear­ly. The life of Jesus was the invi­ta­tion, the cross was man’s response.

But what will God do next? What will become of the dark­ness which cov­ered the whole earth like a mourn­ing-veil at the cru­ci­fix­ion?¹

The light that shines on the morn­ing of the third day gives us the answer. Jesus is risen!

“Why do you seek the liv­ing among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” (Luke 24:5b-6a)

This is God’s answer—God, through his love, has made the fruit of human wicked­ness, the cross, into an instru­ment of sal­va­tion.

But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become chil­dren of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glo­ry, glo­ry as of the only begot­ten from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:12–14 NASB)

In this way, Jesus’ obe­di­ent, self-giv­ing life became the path to sal­va­tion lead­ing through Gol­go­tha.
Every­one who calls him their Lord has to walk this path. We must take up the cross every day because we have been called to suf­fer with him and in this way to enter into glo­ry. (Romans 8,17–18) His life should trans­form our lives and enable us to be pre­pared to meet him when he arrives.

The fruit of Jesus’ res­ur­rec­tion is the Church,

… which is his body, the full­ness of him who fills all in all. (Eph­esians 1:23)

The goal of sal­va­tion is not just the redemp­tion of the indi­vid­ual, the estab­lish­ment of a rela­tion­ship between me and God. God does not want every­one to fight alone, left to them­selves. The fruit of sal­va­tion is the Church in which the love of God forms the redeemed through fel­low­ship with one anoth­er and with Christ into one body. The Church is thus the vis­i­ble com­mu­ni­ty of those in whose lives God’s sanc­ti­fy­ing work is vis­i­ble.

This is why the Church is a vis­i­ble sign for the world, like a city set on a hill or a lamp on a lamp­stand (Matthew 5:13–16). The Church moves for­ward in his­to­ry in a con­tin­u­ous strug­gle for sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion, always pre­pared to be found with­out any spot or wrin­kle when the Bride­groom arrives.

… as Christ loved the church and gave him­self up for her, that he might sanc­ti­fy her, hav­ing cleansed her by the wash­ing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to him­self in splen­dour, with­out spot or wrin­kle or any such thing, that she might be holy and with­out blem­ish. (Eph­esians 5:25b-27)

Then I saw a new heav­en and a new earth, for the first heav­en and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, com­ing down out of heav­en from God, pre­pared as a bride adorned for her hus­band. And I heard a loud voice from the throne say­ing, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his peo­ple, and God him­self will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, nei­ther shall there be mourn­ing, nor cry­ing, nor pain any more, for the for­mer things have passed away.”
And he who was seat­ed on the throne said, “Behold, I am mak­ing all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trust­wor­thy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the begin­ning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life with­out pay­ment. The one who con­quers will have this her­itage, and I will be his God and he will be my son.” (Rev­e­la­tion 21:1–7)

The Spir­it and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life with­out price. (Rev­e­la­tion 22:17)

1. Com­pare Mark 15:33 And when the sixth hour had come, there was dark­ness over the whole land until the ninth hour. ↩