Book027

The glorified Jesus. 2. His roles

Jesus as the Prototype of the new creation

The previous document, How Jesus might be, dealt mainly with what the glorified Jesus is; this one deals mainly with who the glorified Jesus is. What, is his being; who, is the subject of his relationship with us, his roles. The question is this: If God made Jesus so special, "The Chosen" one, as we believe he did, what was his purpose? Was it for himself (God)? or for us? or both?

Jesus, a Prophet with a message

I believe that God chose Jesus with the main purpose of sending him as a prophet with a message for mankind. In fact, Jesus revealed to us two fundamental truths: one, that God is Father; and two, that he is inviting us to share his eternal life with him.

It might be that we take these two tenets of Christian faith for granted, but they are not our entitlement; they are grace, gift of God, and we wouldn't know them with certainty, if God hadn't revealed them through Jesus, as he did.

Note. I won't explain here the scope of these two issues, —that God is our Father and our eternal life; these two themes are developed in separate documents. To see God as Father, click here; for eternal life, click here.

Jesus, the Prototype

Close to the fact that God is our Father and that he invited us to his kingdom, is also the fact that God wanted Jesus to be the Prototype of the new creation, the "model" of what we all will be. Jesus is the precursor of what will happen to us. This is the firm hope of our faith, and we believe this is the will of God.

The New Testament and Jesus, the Prototype

We find the New Testament talking about Jesus as the Prototype in several places, but for our purpose we'll take only these two statements:

1. For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to his glorious body (Philippians 3:20-21); and

2. For whom he (God) foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the Firstborn among many brethren (Romans 8:29).

I'd like to concentrate the attention just on these words: "be conformed to his glorious body," and "to be conformed to the image of his Son."

Paul's vision of Jesus as the Prototype

In these two quotations Paul clearly states that Jesus is the model whose "image" we'll resemble. This is precisely what Prototype means, to serve as the model for others. So, the glorified Jesus is our Prototype, our model; we'll resemble him after death. We'll share the being and the attributes of God, as he does, although to a different "degree," if we can use this word.