p. 8 | Why Did Christ Come?

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Feb 1, 1910

Why Did Christ Come?

THE Son of God did not come into this world primarily to be an example; that was incidental rather than objective. He did not come to be a miracle-worker. He did not come to be a great teacher. He was an example; He was a miracle-worker; He was the wonderful Teacher. All these were consequent upon His great mission.

He saw man “without strength,” and doomed to death, and He came to give what the world most needed—life. “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” John 10: 10. Of himself sinful man does not have life in himself. Mankind, unregenerate, unbelieving, are “without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.” Eph. 2: 12. Those who persist in sin and unbelief “shall never see life.” Those who yield to Christ in faith receive in Him eternal life. John 3: 36, 16; and many other scriptures.

Christ Jesus as an example alone is but mockery to souls in sin. But Christ Jesus as the Way, the Truth, the Life, furnishes the power which the sinful soul needs. “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” We are “saved by His life.”

He “died for our sins,” He “gave Himself for us,” that we might have His righteousness and life; for it is life, and the power which comes by life, that man needs; and it is that which Jesus brought to men.

In bringing this to a dying, rebellious world, He was manifesting God’s infinite love. The fulfilment of that mission, the doing of God’s work, made Him all that He was and is. Not by trying to copy Him, not by endeavoring to walk in His precepts in our own strength, do we succeed. We conquer when we appropriate His death for our sins and lay hold by faith on the eternal life of His Spirit. That life will make us like Him, and it will make us gladly obedient to all His commandments.