Jesus Christ seems to have introduced a missing piece to the picture of Messiah understood at the time. He spoke not only of himself as Christ, as the one sent by God to be the king of Israel who is worthy to be owned by God as His Son, to save the world, to rule with true care for all including the poor and weak, but he identified this Son as importantly human, in contrast to the heavenly host sons of God spoken of in scriptures such as Job 1, Genesis 6, and Psalm 82 (see also 1 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 18). To this end, he identified himself as the Son of Man, a human chosen by God, the implication being that he is chosen from among the sons who are angelic divinities, but becoming and coming as a human unlike them, who is truly pleasing to God, apparently in contrast to many of them (see Psalm 82, John 10). Believing in this Son of Man, human Son of God, meant believing that despite the failure of many heavenly sons of God to show the kind of care for the needs of the weak that pleased God, one being would be chosen to be a fully approved son, who would actually be a human being, who thus would save the world by ruling justly in accordance to the will of God in the way that fully pleases God. This one would be king of the Jews, king of Israel, fulfilling the promise to ancient Israel’s King David as one who would build God’s true temple, restoring true worship of God, saving his people from their sins. Not only is this one human, but a descendant of the ancestor of the ancient people who gave them their name, Israel, and descending through the line of the Jews and in particular from King David their ancient king. This is meaningful as part of the flow of history in which the world’s salvation comes from this particular line of the Jews, in fulfilment of prophecies of God to the Jews. Yet the salvation received by the world is not so much about flesh and descent as about spirit, and being formed anew by the Spirit which flows like water from the throne of God. The worship comes from having this Spirit through the Messiah’s teachings rather than by any fleshly descent or qualification, so it is open to all to receive it, if called and drawn to it by the Father Himself. Thus the human aspect of this salvation coming through a human Son of God, is not about humanness as flesh, but humanness as a fleshly temple abode of the Holy Spirit sent by God, through the teachings of this Son of God. To enable these disciples of his teachings to be true children of God, the Son must die for their sins, and rise again. Thus Messiahship is about the cross, and discipleship is about putting away the old habits of mere desire and putting on the new humanness of living out his teachings, which is like a crucifixion of the flesh life and resurrection to live the new life, which is the kind of humanness God always intended for humans. Thus, through this human Son, many can become the kind of humans God is happy to call His sons. This leads to eternal life. Disciples eternally with Teacher, and with his Father, their Father.
