Jan Ross

The Gospel of John helps us contextualize judgment: "And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light" (John 3:19).

The Son of God has taken our nature and the consequences of our sin to Himself as He descended to the very abyss of the human condition.

The Son of God heals our nature by joining it to himself. Human nature is changed by this union. Mortality joins hands with immortality. The grave becomes the beginning of life.

In the Roman Empire, crucifixion wasn’t only about death. It was about public disgrace. The problem with being crucified wasn’t just that it would kill you but that it would humiliate you at the same time.

Christians today might be more tempted by the allure of a triumphalist faith, or by a distorted gospel that promises worldly satisfactions and success. But believers are baptized into the way of a suffering Lord who lays on his followers not a crown but a cross.

The Incarnation, the Virgin Birth, and Peter’s hell-conquering confession that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt 16:16) are all crucial to the good news of forgiveness of sins and the gift of eternal life.

When the Spirit (ruach) hovers or broods over the womb of Mary, we see a picture of God’s creative work once again. The physical man Jesus is the result of the creative breath of God’s Spirit.

Jesus was fully God, but He was also fully human. As the Son of God and the Son of Man, Jesus, our Lord and our King, is deserving of both titles.