A Tale of Two Histories - Part 2

For this to effectively happen, God had to come in the Person of Jesus to go through all the stages of human life, to re-trace the steps of the old Adam, and to reverse the old miserable story. He did this in such a wonderful way, saving us with His life and death and Resurrection.

What Jesus did was of great cosmic significance, something that is echoed in the eighth chapter of Romans. All of creation, including the human race, is groaning for release into a new story of redemption and freedom.

Christmas is the story of how God set about to do this – through the ‘summing up’ of our story in Jesus, the new Man. Through His sinless life, sacrificial death, and victorious Resurrection, Jesus pioneered a new story for us and invites us to be united with Him and His story through faith and obedience. He has changed our destiny and history and will change us through and through as we walk united

with Him.

Irenaeus further explains the doctrine of recapitulation:

Therefore He renews these things in Himself, uniting man

to the Spirit; and placing the Spirit in man, He Himself

is made the head of the Spirit and gives the Spirit to be

the head of man … He therefore completely renewed all

things, both taking up the battle against our enemy, and

crushing him who at the beginning had led us captive in

Adam, trampling on his head …

The word ‘head’ is mentioned several times. Jesus heads the Spirit who heads redeemed and renewed human beings, and He does this by crushing the head of the ancient serpent on the cross, as promised by God in Genesis 3. Through His recapitulation, Jesus has properly reheaded all things – this is God’s eternal purpose.

The mystery of it all is that divinity should enter humanity in order to bring humanity into divinity. When Jesus ascended into heaven, He brought our humanity with Him. As A W Tozer said in a sermon, Jesus took up human nature “into the Godhead.” There, in God’s presence, human nature is “received, embraced, welcomed and enthroned at the right hand of the Father.”

What does all this mean for us who celebrate Christmas?

Firstly, we must stand in awe as we consider the Incarnation – the coming of Jesus as a man into our human history. It is of such great significance and glory – far beyond anything we can use to celebrate it. It means that we are part of something far larger than any of us, or even all of us together. We must realise we are, unfortunately, often like the ignorant man who is excited by a matchstick more than the live volcano on which he is standing.

Secondly we must realise that there are two histories at play in our world – the old history of Adam and the new history of Jesus. Much of what goes on in our hectic and fallen world has to do with the old history (despite the new gadgets and ideas). There is no real future in the old history. We are called to be people of the new history.

Thirdly, we can be part of the new history if we are united with Jesus who came to retrace, renew and reverse our human history. We do so by believing in Him as our Saviour, submitting our lives to Him as our Lord, and letting His life and new history be made manifest in us. As He came to recap our lives to reverse their courses, we must recap His life to find our way Home.

Consider this:

Jesus came to pioneer a new history. How did His death on a tree (Acts 5:30; 10:39; 13:29; 1 Peter 2:24) reverse and change forever the sad history of the human race that flows from the tree of human disobedience and sin (Genesis 3)? How do the two histories show up in your life?

How does one join the new history pioneered by Jesus? What does it mean to be united with Jesus? Consider what Paul says about baptism and how it symbolises how we are united with Jesus in His death and Resurrection (Romans 6:1-14). Commit yourself to live in the new history created by Jesus.

Excerpted from Apprenticed to Jesus by Robert Solomon. © 2023 by Robert Solomon. Used with permission. All rights reserved.