The Call of Christ

Jehovah God has sent His son to the world to give everybody the opportunity to come to know the divine Creator and His heavenly Plan.

The sent one from God told about his heavenly Father and showed the way to Him. Jesus taught the will of God and showed mankind how a human being could really do the will of God. He managed to do Gods Will and gave his life for mankind. He gave complete obedience to the will of God.

Jesus was born at a time of God’s choosing

—“when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman” (Gal. 4:4)—

in fulfilment of promises and prophecies given over thousands of years and faithfully recorded in the Old Testament. In Luke 24 we see the Lord Jesus, after his resurrection, confirming this to the disciples on the road to Emmaus (v. 27) and to the eleven gathered at Jerusalem (v. 44). The Law, the Prophets and the Psalms all speak of the one who was to come, born of a woman, destined to suffer and die as a sacrifice for sin, yet to be raised and then reign gloriously. The New Testament opens by confirming his link to the promises made to David and Abraham:

“The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Mt. 1:1).

When Jesus began his public preaching at the age of thirty, there was great expectation in Judah. His followers called him ‘Messiah’, or ‘Anointed’ – the coming Deliverer. The title ‘Christos’ or Christ in the Greek of the New Testament, is exactly equivalent to the Old Testament ‘Messiah’. Everyone expected Jesus would challenge Rome, set Israel free from her enemies, and take up the throne. His extraordinary miracles of healing enhanced this conviction that he was sent from God.

The people were doomed to disappointment. Jesus remained a wandering teacher and spurned political ties. His enemies, the leaders of Israel, jealous of his popularity, successfully plotted his death. After three years, in which he transformed the lives of thousands by his example and his quiet teaching, he was betrayed and executed as a criminal. The Jews remained in dispersion, ungathered. David’s throne stayed empty. Even the body of Jesus disappeared. It looked as though, yet again, God had made a promise, and it had all come to nothing. For six long weeks, Jerusalem slept.

Whilst preaching he called others to come to believe in the Only One True God and to come to believe in him as the sent one from the Most High. He also asked his disciples and other followers to go out into the world and to continue to preach the gospel of the coming Kingdom.

Jesus his call was one of peace. But the disciple’s first call is to faith. He must believe that what God has promised He is able to perform (Romans 4:21). God’s guarantees lie in the unfailing truth of His word; the birth, life, death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ; and the evidence of countless fulfilled prophecies. The true disciple will therefore believe what Jesus taught, namely, that he will return to earth (Matthew 16:27) and be King on earth (25:31). The disciple will do what his Master asks him to do. He will confess that he believes the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ (Acts 8:12), and be baptized by immersion in water as Jesus commanded him (John 3:22; Mark 16:16).

It are not just a few that are called. Jesus called everybody to come to him and to become partakers of the heavenly calling and a partaker of his body. By coming under his wings people can become strengthened.

Let us hear the call of Jesus and make sure that we follow him, not sticking to human doctrines but to biblical teaching, like Jesus also followed the Word of God.

Preceding

Eagerness to learn and to teach others

The Way of the LORD