Three

Reasons

Jesus Came

Why did Jesus come to Earth? Surely He had other things He could have done. Some say that Jesus came to give us a good example, or to be a great teacher. Others have different answers. What does the Bible say?

Jesus gave three main reasons in the Bible why He came to this planet.

JOHN 18:37-38 NKJ
37 Pilate therefore said to Him, "Are You a king then?" Jesus answered, "You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice."
38 Pilate said to Him, "What is truth?" And when he had said this, he went out again to the Jews, and said to them, "I find no fault in Him at all.

Pilate asked Jesus, "What is truth?" When my son was young he would ask the same question. I would say, "John, tell the truth." He replied, "What is the truth, Daddy?" It was not easy for me to answer.

What is truth? What would you say? It is not a lie. It is when you tell things like they are. Truth is what is true. Truth is what is right. It is not what is wrong. It is not a lie. The Bible says Jesus is the truth. It says God's Word is the truth.

In John 14:6 Jesus said that He was the truth. Jesus said, praying to the Father in John 17:17, that God's Word is truth.

JOHN 17:17 NKJ
17 "Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.

JOHN 14:6-10 NKJ
6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
7 "If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him."
8 Philip said to Him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us."
9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, 'Show us the Father'?
10 "Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.

Jesus did not say He was the Father. He talked of Himself and the Father as different personalities. However, in verse seven, He says if you knew Him, you knew His Father also. He is so exactly like the Father, to see one is like seeing the other.

Watching Jesus in action, reveals as much to us about God the Father, as if we were watching the Father Himself in action. Why? Because they are identical.

Jesus said He was born that He should bear witness to the truth.

What is truth? Or more accurately, who is truth? Who is the personification of truth? Who has never lied or deceived anyone? God.

The world did not know -- and most people still do not know -- what God is like.

Jesus said this was a reason He was born, so the world would know what God is like. Jesus came to be a witness, to bear witness to the truth. Every act Jesus did allowed us to see God in action and to get acquainted with God. He let us know God is not mean, or some sort of weird creature, but gracious and compassionate.

He is a God of love, a God of perfection. Think of what a perfect person would be like -- then magnify that by infinity -- that's what God is like. God is as perfect as you can imagine -- then multiply that by ten billion.

Jesus said this is why He was born, so He could bear witness to the truth.

This is the first reason we will look at why Jesus came to Earth, to show us what God is really like.

Exact Image

HEBREWS 1:1-5 NKJ
1 God, who at various times and in different ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets.
2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds;
3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,
4 having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.
5 For to which of the angels did He ever say: "You are My Son, today I have begotten You"? And again: "I will be to Him a Father, and He shall be to Me a Son"?

Jesus is the express image of God's person (verse 3). The exact image. Strong's Concordance says the word translated exact image means the exact copy. W. E. Vine's Greek dictionary says it is the fact of complete similarity which this word stresses.

The fact of complete similarity.

The NIV translates this, the exact representation of His being.

Would you like to know God? Would you like to know what He is like? Jesus Christ of Nazareth, when He walked the earth, was an exact representation of the being of God. Exact. Not differing in a few minor ways, but exact. Jesus is an exact representation of God's being.

Look at 2 Corinthians 4:4, which tells us the same thing.

2 CORINTHIANS 4:4 NKJ
4 whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.

Jesus is the image, or exact representation, of the Father. He is the exact likeness of God the Father. Vine's Greek Dictionary says of this scripture and word, that Jesus is essentially and absolutely the perfect expression and representation of God the Father.

JOHN 12:49 NKJ
49 "For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak.

JOHN 10:37 NKJ
37 "If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me;

JOHN 10:37 NEB
37 `If I am not acting as my Father would, do not believe me.

If all Christians understood this verse, it would help them so much. It would eliminate so much terrible teaching.

What people say makes it clear they do not understand this verse. If you understand that Jesus showed us exactly what the Father is like -- the words He spoke were the Father's words, the actions He did were the Father's actions -- then you cannot declare it is not God's will to heal all. Or, say something like God may not be interested in our finances.

Why did Jesus feed the people when they were hungry? Why did Jesus heal all who came to Him? One main reason was to let the world know what God is like. To let us know what kind of character and nature the Father has, and to give a demonstration the world would never forget of the will of God.

It is not the will of God for people to suffer. It is not the will of God for people to go without. It is the will of God for people to be forgiven of their sins, to be in right standing with God, to have their needs met, and to be made whole.

Jesus said this was the purpose for which He was born, to bear witness to the truth. Jesus came to earth to let you know that God is not looking for a chance to get you, but He is looking for a chance to love you, and to help you.

JOHN 8:29 NKJ
29 "And He who sent Me is with Me. The Father has not left Me alone, for I always do those things that please Him."

Jesus always did the things that pleased God. Not once in a while -- always. Jesus did not do things just acceptable to the Father, but everything Jesus did thrilled the Father. Each time He healed someone sick, the Father was thrilled about it. Jesus never had to stop and ask if it was the Father's will to heal anyone. He did not have to ask if it was the Father's will to feed the hungry.

In effect, Jesus was saying, "Philip, you have been with me for years. You watched me every day. You saw me in all types of circumstances. Did you not realize all I did was the Father's will? Each time you saw Me act, you saw the action the Father would have taken if He were in my place. Do you not understand, Philip? I am the exact representative of God."

Everything Jesus said, everything He did, was not just acceptable to God, but was the exact words, the exact action, the exact attitude the Father would have had in the same situation. Exactly.

If the world understood that, masses would turn to the Lord Jesus Christ. If the world knew God was like Jesus Christ, and knew what Jesus was like from reading the New Testament, people would turn to Jesus.

Jesus Does Good

ACTS 10:38 NKJ
38 "how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.

Jesus went about doing good and healing ALL. Of all who came to Him, Jesus never turned one down. He never told anyone they had to stay sick.

It says, for God was with Him. God was with Him in every word He spoke. He was with Him in every action. God was anointing Him. It was the power of God and the wisdom of God which caused Jesus to do what He did.

Jesus went about doing good -- not bad things. When the Bible says good, it means good.

Some people, when they read the Bible, think like this: that may not mean good like I think about good. It may seem bad to me but it might be good to God, because God's ways are much higher than mine.

That is the devil's lie to confuse you.

When the Bible says good, it means good like you would think about good. The Bible was written to you, not to God. It is written in human language.

The people thought what Jesus did was good. He did not go about doing bad, He went about helping people. He blessed them. He set people free from their afflictions. He raised people from the dead. Jesus went about doing things that thrilled people.

(Of course, the religious leaders were not thrilled with the good Jesus did, because they were afraid of losing their position of leadership and influence with the people.)

Great multitudes followed Jesus. They went out into the wilderness, walking for two or three days, to be where He was. They were so thrilled about Jesus, that they would forget about food and water. They never thought about where they would eat because they were so caught up with what Jesus was doing. He could hardly get people to leave. They liked Him.

God anointed Jesus Who went about doing things which thrilled people -- people who were like you and me.

When the Bible says good, and the thought hits you that it may not mean good, it's the devil's lie. The devil tells you God means it for good, but you think it is bad. For example: to get run over by a truck, go bankrupt, and have your family die of disease, does not seem good to you -- but, and here is the devil's lie: God probably meant it for good -- so you will turn to Him, or learn something.

That is not God's thinking, or the teaching of the Bible.

In such situations, some people have turned to God, but more have turned away from God and cursed Him. You cannot credit the evil events for people turning to God. God was there all the time. Whenever people turn to God, He accepts them.

God surely hates teaching that says He uses bad things to draw people to Him, and that He teaches Christians by using evil to cause them to suffer.

You may object that some person did get saved after experiencing such bad things. Yes, some have been saved and will go to Heaven, and I am glad for that. But they are so scared of God that they probably will not be any positive witness for God here on earth.

Wrong teaching makes you afraid of God. Then you will not love God, or serve God out of love. Then you infect other people with the same junky thinking.

The world will not be won to Jesus Christ as long as they have a wrong image of what God is like.

People are not interested in God because they do not think very highly of Him.

We need to quit thinking religiously and let God bless us like He did the people in the Old Testament. They won their battles. They were victorious. They were successful. They had rain for their crops when other people did not. Because of that, people in other countries wanted to serve their God.

It is supposed to be like that with you, also. God is supposed to be blessing you so much -- not hurting you so much -- that you are a light for the world. You should stick out like a light bulb.

Jesus came to Earth saying He was the light of the world. "I will light up the world. I will let people see what God is really like. I represent the one true God. God is like me. Everything I do thrills the Father. He is pleased with every word I speak. He is pleased every time I lay hands on the sick, and they recover."

The leper came to Jesus, questioning His willingness to heal him. I like what Jesus did. He stretched forth His hand to the leper, a man with a dreaded disease, of which people were scared to death, and said, "I will."

Jesus settled it for time and eternity. It is God's will for people to be healed.

Is it God's will to heal you? A leper already asked Jesus and He replied that it was His will. When Jesus said that, He was not speaking for Himself. He was speaking what the Father commanded Him to speak. He was speaking the will of the Father.

What is the will of the Father today? If it is the same Father God and He has not been replaced by someone else, His will is the same for you today. And it is!

The devil has tried to replace God in our minds with a clone who looks like God: someone big and powerful but who acts differently. This false god goes around killing babies. He goes around doing evil. He does things to make people sad, instead of thrilled. That is not what the True God is like.

Jesus said, "I am the truth." He said He came to bear witness to the truth -- the truth of what God is like.

The second reason Jesus came, according to what the Bible says, was to destroy the works of the devil and by that to save, or deliver, mankind from the devil's control.

LUKE 9:56 NKJ
56 "For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives but to save them." And they went to another village.

LUKE 19:10 NKJ
10 "for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."

1 TIMOTHY 1:15 NKJ
15 This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.

JOHN 3:17 NKJ
17 "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

1 JOHN 3:8 NKJ
8 . . . For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.

The Son of God was manifested to destroy the works of the devil. Did Jesus accomplish His mission? If He did, then the works of the devil have been destroyed.

It is worthwhile to look at the word: destroy. We normally think it means to annihilate or put out of existence. As you look at other translations, you see that here it means to reduce to a zero, or to bring to nothing, or to render ineffective, or to make harmless.

After an enemy is defeated in war, at the signing of a peace treaty, the general is still there signing the treaty, but he has nothing backing him up any more. His authority has been taken from him. All his weapons have been taken, but he is still there. If you are foolish enough to loan him your gun, or return his weapons during the treaty signing, that is your fault.

So it is with the devil.

Jesus has already forced the devil to bow his knee. Jesus defeated him, disarmed him, and left him helpless and harmless against you. If you allow that lying deceiver to fake you out and make you believe a lie opposite to the Word of God, then he will take your weapon and destroy you with it. It will be your fault, not God's.

God sets before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore you should choose life (Deuteronomy 30:19). That should be an easy choice.

Why do so many Christians not choose life and blessing? A main reason is wrong teaching; either lack of right teaching, or wrong teaching. They do not know the Word of God and the God of the Word.

HEBREWS 2:14 NKJ
14 Inasmuch then as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil,

Again, the word destroy in this verse has the same meaning. Jesus came to make the devil harmless and ineffective. To defeat him and reduce him to a zero. Rotherham's translation says to paralyze him.

You are to rule over a defeated enemy, not serve under a powerful one. Most Christians, because of ignorance, have been serving under the devil. They let the devil push them around. They allow sickness, poverty, bankruptcy, family problems, strife, and fear. They are suffering under the devil's attack.

You have been lifted up over your old master satan, and you should make him leave you alone. He will if you make him.

A Dream

In a dream I saw myself walking to a house where a huge girl was baby-sitting a young child. This baby-sitter had a long stick, like a whip, with leather on the end.

I had found out that the baby-sitter was going to beat the child, and I was coming to rescue the child. I do not know how the baby-sitter ever got the job, because she was a big bully.

There was no problem at all saving the child. I marched in and took the big stick away and told her to get out. It was simple.

I was small and the baby-sitter was huge. Yet, the baby-sitter put up no resistance when I walked in, but readily gave me the whip. Why? I acted with authority.

Although the baby-sitter put up no resistance, I could not get rid of her. I would try to lock the door and it would not lock. She kept trying to push the door open -- not hard or mean, but determined. I locked one door and the baby-sitter tried to come in another door. She kept trying to come in.

When I woke up I thought, that is the way the devil is. If you march in and know what you are doing, you can stop the devil cold in his tracks. He will not cause any damage. He will not stop you. But, he is still there, like a stupid bully, always trying to push his way back into your life, to see if you will allow it.

If you shut one door and another door is open, he will try to get in there. If you will stand against him, you have the upper hand because he is defeated. Even if you are a new Christian, with small faith, you still have as much authority over the devil as the Apostle Paul had.

Jesus said whoever believes can cast out the devil in His Name (Mark 16:17). You might be one minute old in the Lord, but you are still over satan. If you know it and stand on it, you can stand against the devil's work and his activities. Why? Because Jesus came and defeated the devil. He reduced him to a zero.

He did it through death. Jesus entered into death to defeat the devil for you. Now you can be free!

The third reason Jesus came to earth was so you could have life.

Without Jesus, people have mere existence -- not life. People take up space like an unplugged refrigerator which takes up space but has no life in it. It will not do what it was designed for until it is plugged in.

JOHN 10:10 NKJ
10 "The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.

Jesus is implying people did not have life. If people had life there would be no reason for Him to say that He came that people might have life. People were dead in trespasses and sins, dead spiritually, dead on the inside. Death was in their spirits.

Jesus said that He came for people to have life.

The Wuest translation says I alone came in order that they might be possessing life.

Mohammed, Buddha, or Confucius did not come so people might have life. Jesus alone came that people might have life.

Jesus came into this planet with life. Jesus said that He had life in Himself, just as the Father had life in Himself (John 5:26).

Jesus gave up His life, as a sacrifice in our place, so all humanity could, by God's grace, receive the gift of God.

What is the gift of God? Romans 6:23 says it is life -- eternal life -- which is God's kind of life.

ROMANS 6:23 NKJ
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

1 JOHN 4:9 NKJ
9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.

The Phillips translation says, "To give us life through Him."

God did not send His Son into the world so we could have Christmas, Easter, and church, but to give us life through Him.

The New English Bible says, "He sent His only Son into the world to bring us life."

We did not have life before. Jesus came to bring us what we did not have. Life is what we needed.

Jesus redeemed us and defeated the devil through His death as our substitute. The devil is master of the death realm, but he does not have any dominion over those who are alive. When Jesus gave us the gift of God, which is Life, it made satan unable to lord it over us any longer.

A twenty pound child can boss every corpse in the morgue around. They will not talk back one bit. But, if all those bodies come to life it would be a different story!

So it is with us. When we have been brought to life, we have the life of God in us. We have the gift of God, eternal life, in us.

Because we have life, satan has no more dominion over us. We are in a different realm, in a different sphere of existence. The devil is not the lord of the realm of life. The devil has no dominion over us in this new realm.

God sent His only Son into the world to bring us life.

JOHN 6:33 NKJ
33 "For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."

Jesus speaks of Himself as the bread of God.

Wade's translation says, ". . . not only descends out of Heaven, but also imparts life to the world."

JOHN 6:51 NKJ
51 "I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world."

Jesus is the living bread which came down from Heaven. Heaven was where life was, because that is God's realm. Life was not available on Earth, because all men were dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:5). The light had gone out. There was no life. There was no longer any spiritual life on earth.

One translation says, "The bread which I will give to bring the world to life is my flesh." Jesus is the living and life imparting bread that descended out of Heaven. If you partake of Jesus, or receive Jesus, you partake of something which gives you life.

Jesus said that is why He came: so people could have life.

What kind of life? Life in your spirit, life on the inside of you. Eternal life. It is the kind of life God has, the kind of life which is in Heaven.

Eternal life is something which satisfies you on the inside. When you get life on the inside, it will also affect the outside. You will act differently.

Jesus did not say that He came so people could get along a little better. No, He came to raise them up to the full level of existence, out of one realm into another. Out of the death realm and into the life realm. To give them the same life He had in Himself and the same life the Father had. To bring them into the family of God. That is the reason Jesus came.

Two Groups Of People

1 JOHN 5:11-12 NKJ
11 And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
12 He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

There are two groups of people: those who have life and those who do not have life. I am not talking about physical existence. Everyone exists somewhere. Everyone who has ever lived on this planet is still alive somewhere. They are in two categories also: those who have life and those who do not.

If you do not receive Jesus, the Son of God -- you will stay dead. If you reject Jesus, you allow the devil to continue being your master. Then the devil will take you to hell and torment you forever. It is your choice.

You are already in trouble, whether you know it or not. You are dead and there is only one Source of life.

There is only one answer. There is only one bread from Heaven. Only one person came out of Heaven to bring life to the world: the Lord Jesus Christ. If you receive Him, you receive life. If you reject Him, you remain dead spiritually.

Summary

According to God's Word, the reasons Jesus came to Earth were:

To bear witness to the truth. To show us what God is really like.

To defeat mankind's old enemy, the devil, and deliver mankind from his control. To render him harmless against those who know the truth.

So man can have life. There is only one way mankind can be brought to life -- by receiving Jesus Christ.