THE FINALITY OF CHRIST

THE FINALITY OF CHRIST

Any assertion of the finality of Christ sounds very strange to our neighbours in the multi-cultural, multi-religious setting of South Asia.

As Christians, we are called to respect others more than ourselves (Rom 12:3), and so we owe them an explanation of this claim of finality. In offering it, we must make it clear that we respect all people and all faiths. We have no enemies among human beings, least of all in our own neighbourhood. We are also not simply setting out to compare the value or merit of our faith with other faiths. The finality of Christ is not a claim that we make for ourselves based on the assumed superiority of our faith; rather, we believe, it is a claim made on us, which we acknowledge with utmost humility.

When we speak of the finality of Christ, we mean, first, that Jesus Christ is the final and full revelation of God for humankind (Heb 1:1- 4) and, secondly, that he is the only one who can redeem and save people (Acts 4:12). To understand how we can say this requires understanding who Christ is and what he does.

The Christian faith affirms that Jesus Christ is both human and divine. As a human being, he is fully human in all respects. He shares the finiteness (limitations) and weaknesses we all have. For example, when he lived on earth he could not be in more than one place at a time, and he became tired and hungry, like we do (Mark 4:38; Luke 4:2). The only respect in which he differs from us is that he has never sinned (2 Cor 5:21; Heb 4:15). He is thus the perfect human being, sinless and in communion with God, as God originally intended us to be. This absolute absence of sin and absolute consciousness of God make him unique and final. There has never been nor will there ever be any other human being like him.

At the same time as being fully human, Jesus Christ is also fully God. In this respect, too, he is unique (for more on this, see the article on “Avatar and Incarnation”).

The Christian faith asserts three things about what Christ does:

• his purpose in coming to this world was to save and redeem humankind;

• he accomplished this purpose;

• as perfect God and perfect human being, he did this in the perfect way.

What is perfect cannot be duplicated, bettered, supplemented, modified, or improved. As something done by God, it cannot be dismissed, damaged or set aside.

This brings us to another point. Given that Jesus Christ is perfect, what he does is perfect. Therefore his diagnosis of the human condition is perfect, and so is the solution he offers. The two are so closely linked that there is no space for anything else.

When we look at the perfect man, Jesus Christ, we see our sinfulness and how far we fall short of God’s ideal. The only solution to this human predicament is available through the work of Jesus Christ. His grace is the only answer to the question of how we can be redeemed from our fallen state and restored to fellowship with God.

People may ask, if Jesus Christ is God, how can he restore us to fellowship with God? Are there two Gods? In response, we must point out that the Christian faith is Trinitarian. In other words, we believe in one God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Where one member of the Trinity is present, all three are present, in person and in work. We have no way of knowing this objectively, for there are no tools that we can use to locate, measure or understand God. All that we know about God is what he chooses to reveal to us. Our knowledge of God comes from the way he relates to us, and we “sense” and “taste” his presence as Father, as Son and as Spirit.

We cannot assume that the triune God is engaged in any redemptive activity other than that which he revealed to us when the Father sent the Son (Christ) to redeem people through the Holy Spirit.

Any redeeming work outside of this implies that Christ’s work was less than perfect and lacks the breadth and strength to redeem the whole creation. It would undermine the idea of the perfectness of Christ, the Redeemer. God’s activity in and through Jesus Christ has an integrity and a perfectness of its own, so that we cannot presume that it is just a part of many things God is doing to redeem creation.

Hence, we believe in the finality of Christ. This also means that we should not get drawn into the unprofitable debate between exclusivists who say “Only one road leads to Rome” and pluralists who say, “All roads lead to Rome.” All have a common goal: Rome. All have a common understanding of the way to reach Rome: roads. However, the Christian faith does not think in terms of God as a place or an object that people try to reach.

God is not an object; he is someone whom we can know only as he reveals himself to us through Christ in Christ’s redeeming work.

We know no other God; and we know of no other redeeming work the triune God is engaging in than the one through Christ. The Christian faith therefore asserts that both the person and the work of Christ are final. Christ is final, in being and doing.

Abraham Varghese Kunnuthara