Jesus Sent His Spirit Among Men

Jesus birth in Bethlehem almost 2000 years ago was goodwill to all mankind as announced by the Angel. His birth brought God to mankind in the form of human flesh. After his sacrifice on the cross, He died and went to Heaven and sent the Holy spirit most prominently on the day of Pentecost to be with every man and soul that will follow the way of salvation.  

Not only did Jesus have to be born, but He had to pay the penalty for our sins through His own death, and then be resurrected to ascend to the Father as our High Priest. Only then would humanity at large be able to receive and benefit from the incredible gift of God’s Holy Spirit.

“This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear” (Acts 2:32-33).

On the Day of Pentecost, only a few weeks after Jesus died and was resurrected, God poured out His Spirit on the few assembled followers of Jesus. Peter, who was among that early gathering, summarized what we must do to receive the Spirit of God. He powerfully proclaimed, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).

Why was Jesus’ physical birth essential to His followers’ receiving of the Holy Spirit? Because no one is worthy to receive the Holy Spirit, and we must be begotten of God through His Spirit to receive eternal life.

Jesus’ death—His ultimate sacrifice—made possible the forgiveness of sins, which in turn enables us to look forward to living and reigning with Christ in the Kingdom of God. Without Jesus’ birth, none of this would be possible.

Through Christ, God has restored that which was lost in the Garden of Eden: access to a right relationship with God and access to the tree of life. Through the sacrifice of Christ, God has made possible this right relationship with mankind. “As God has said: ‘I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be My people’ ” (2 Corinthians 6:16).

God has made it possible for all mankind—every person—to come voluntarily into an intimate relationship with Him. This could not have been possible, in God’s great plan, without the birth and subsequent sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ.

Jesus: The Promised Seed!

God promised Abraham that through his (Abraham’s) “seed,” or descendants, all nations of the world would be blessed (Genesis 22:18; Galatians 3:14-16).

Through faith in God and His name, people of all nations have access to God’s mercy, forgiveness and reconciliation with God the Father. God does not show favoritism (Acts 10:34). Indeed, His plan of redemption includes all people of all races, of all national and ethnic groups. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:28-29).

The key word here is heirs . Through Christ, believers become sons of God (Romans 8:14). “And if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ …” (Romans 8:17).

Under the Old Covenant, God chose a physical people, Israel, to set the example for other nations (Deuteronomy 4:5-8). Israel, being unconverted and subject to the frailties of humanity, failed. But the Israelites were forerunners of a converted, spiritual Israel, which includes believers of every ethnicity and nationality (Galatians 3:27-29; Galatians 6:15-16; Romans 2:28-29).

Jesus had to be born to provide the promised spiritual fulfillment of the Seed of Israel. Jesus, quite appropriately, was a literal, physical descendant of Abraham. He was Abraham’s Seed, through whom all nations of the world would be blessed.

Christ: The Mediator!

Jesus is the mediator of the New Covenant. Under the New Covenant, God replaced the sacrifices of the Levitical priesthood with the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus Himself. “But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is the Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises” (Hebrews 8:6).

But what were the terms of the New Covenant? God explained that “this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord:

I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people” (Hebrews 8:10, quoting Jeremiah 31:33).

The law written on the believer’s heart under the terms of the New Covenant is the immutable spiritual law of God. Paul wrote that this law, summarized by the Ten Commandments, is “holy and the commandment holy and just and good;” (Romans 7:12-14). This law serves as the basis for the covenant agreement. Psalms 19:7 tells us that “the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul.”

The understanding that Jesus is the mediator between God and mankind makes it easier for us to comprehend that the ministry of Christ is an administration superior to the Levitical priesthood.

This understanding lets the believer purge his conscience from dead works to serve the living God (Hebrews 9:14). Upon acceptance of the terms of the New Covenant, the believer is imbued with the power of the Holy Spirit so God can write His laws on the believer’s heart and mind (Hebrews 8:8).

Why does the need for a mediator mean Jesus had to be born? It is because the priesthood, staffed by the Levites, as revealed in the Old Testament, was imperfect. It was only a forerunner. Jesus had to be born because the salvation of mankind requires something better.

Christ Sacifice Saves Us From Sin and Death.

Noah and the patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—offered sacrifices to God. God asked Abraham, the father of the faithful, to sacrifice his son Isaac as a test of faith and obedience. Though God intervened to stop Abraham from actually going through with it, Abraham’s willingness to give up his son foreshadowed the role of God the Father, who “so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son” as a sacrifice for our sins (John 3:16). Isaac, in offering no resistance, was a forerunner of Jesus, who willingly and obediently offered His life’s blood for the sins of the world.

Hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth, God revealed through His faithful servant Moses a religious system that included animal sacrifices and offerings. “… Let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. According to all that I show you, that is, the pattern of the tabernacle … so you shall make it” (Exodus 25:8-9).

God instructed His people during this time to set up in the wilderness the tabernacle, the tent that was the forerunner of the temple. God filled the tabernacle with His glory (Exodus 40:34-35). God’s Spirit in this earthly tent pointed forward to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the minds and hearts of Christians.

Why did the need for a perfect sacrifice mean that Jesus had to be born? It was because the earlier, physical sacrifices were imperfect. They could not take away the penalty for sin (Hebrews 10:4).

God instructed the Israelites in the need for sacrifice, but they had access only to physical forerunners of the ultimate sacrifice, which would come later in the form of Christ Himself. God instructed His people to participate in the physical rituals of animal sacrifices not because they were sufficient to remove people’s sins, but because of the lessons they taught—that sacrifices were necessary because of mankind’s sins.

Jesus had to be born because, without the true sacrifice, humanity was doomed. All would die, with no hope beyond the grave.

God Reveals Himself Through Christ Birth.

God wanted to reveal His righteous character to Adam and Eve and to all of mankind so they could become like Him in mind and spirit.

God created our two original parents in His own image (Genesis 1:26-27; Genesis 2:7). Accordingly, God instructed them to exercise their free will by urging them to look to Him as the revealer of good and evil. God gave Adam and Eve the opportunity to embrace His divine wisdom.

Tragically, Adam and Eve followed the father of lies, Satan, and both ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This wrong choice, this rebellion against their Creator, severed their close relationship with Him. God cast them out of the Garden of Eden, cutting off their access to the tree of life, which was symbolic of God’s Holy Spirit (Genesis 3:22-23).

Why did God’s desire to reveal His character to mankind mean Jesus had to be born? Jesus had to be born because Adam and Eve failed to carry out God’s mandate to glorify Him in their lives. It was left for the Son of God, thousands of years later, to ultimately fulfill the divine revelation of God’s character and purpose for man.

Reasons Why Jesus Was Born!

Scholars and theologians, ministers and teachers have long pondered the meaning of the life and death of the teacher from Nazareth. Jesus Christ was born and lived on earth for a little more than three decades. But why did He come? Few realize that ultimately there was no other option—Jesus had to be born!

God’s great plan for mankind included the necessity of a savior, a redeemer of mankind. Here are seven reasons; leading up to the greatest of all, that Jesus the Messiah, the very Son of God, had to be born.

Jesus had to be born because of mankind’s sin.

God created Adam and Eve and placed them in a beautiful environment that supplied their every need. In the Garden of Eden our original human parents found food plentiful, animals tame and a loving teacher—God Himself—accompanying them and teaching them everything they needed to know.

If Adam and Eve had obeyed God, they could have bridged the gap between mortality and immortality; they had access to the tree of life.

They had every advantage, so what went wrong? Adam and Eve did what every other human being has done: They sinned. They disobeyed God and God gave our original human parents the gift of free choice. He gave them the ability to decide whether they would obey Him, and they missed the mark. God allowed Satan, in the form of a serpent, to attempt to subvert God’s will for mankind (Genesis 3:1-4). The devil appealed to Eve’s vanity, convincing her she could be as God Himself, “knowing good and evil” (verse 5).

Satan, in a blatant lie, told Eve she didn’t have to depend on God for anything. Satan posed as the liberator, offering Eve instant gratification. Eve was willingly deceived by this appeal to her vanity, so she ate the forbidden fruit and presented the same fruit to her husband. Adam then also ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (verse 6).

Why did Satan’s deception of Adam and Eve mean that Christ had to be born? The Savior had to be born because mankind, after the sin of Adam and Eve, would have been eternally lost—cut off from God—had not Jesus come to earth and allowed Himself to be sacrificed to save mankind from its sins, which began with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.