Jesus
In His mercy, God promised a way of salvation from sin and death that all humans face because of our first parents, Adam and Eve. God provided a Saviour named Jesus.
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Jesus, born around 4 BC, was a unique human being because of who his parents were. The Bible calls Jesus both the Son of man and the Son of God.
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His human mother, Mary, made him a son of man. Mary descended from the royal family of Israel that started with King David.
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His father was God, so he was the son of God. The Bible says Jesus was God’s only begotten, or born, son (1) (Mathew 3:17; John 3:16).
The name Jesus means “Saviour”. God sent an angel messenger to tell Mary (who was an unmarried virgin) that she would have a son. The power of God’s Holy Spirit acted on Mary to conceive the son (2)( Luke 1:35). Mary should call his name Jesus, since he would save his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21). The name Jesus means “God is salvation”. Note how this special purpose was decided before Jesus’s birth.
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Therefore Jesus’s purpose was to save people from death—since sin causes death. Several Bible passages speak of this purpose. (3) (Hebrews 2:14) starts off saying that Jesus had flesh and blood nature—he was in the same sinful, mortal (or, dying) condition as all humans are. Hebrews then says:
“that through death he [Jesus] might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery”.
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Jesus came to destroy or defeat sin, which leads to death. In other words, Jesus came to defeat the cause of death, which makes him the Saviour.
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