Bible Studies

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Jesus True Mission on Earth

Many people, even Christians, have many ideas as to what was Jesus main mission on earth. Many say:
-He came to forgive sins ((Matt. 9:2; Mark 2:5; Luke 5:20; Luke 7:48-49; Mark 2:10; Luke 5:24).
-He came to remove sin as a force in people’s lives (Hebrews 8; Harpers Dictionary: Atonement)
-He came to make the enemies of the Father a footstool for His feet (Psalm 110; Hebrews 1:13).
-He came to proclaim the Kingdom of God (Mark1:38; Luke 4:43).
-He came to raise up disciples/apostles to carry the word when he was gone (Luke 10:1).
-He came to perform miracles (New Ungers Bible Dictionary - Miracles
-He came as a mouthpiece of the Word of God (Baker Encyclopedia of Bible, p. 1182
-He came to introduce Godly love (John 11:5, 13:1, 13:23-24; 19:36, 21:10).
-He came to do away with the Law and its dead works and to introduce His New Covenant (Heb. 8:7-13).
-He came to overcome death by being resurrected (Mark 16:1-8; Mt 28:6; Jn 20:7; Lk 24:40; Jn 20:27; Mt 28:9; Lk 24:30; Jn 20:17, 27; 6); Lk 24:30, 43; Jn 21:12; Lk 24:39).



The above purposes are not only important reasons for Jesus coming to earth but they are essential to His ministry. He had to forgive and more importantly REMOVE sin from humanity. He had to destroy the Father’s satanic enemies (Ephesians 6:12). He had to equip the Saints (Sons) to do battle against the forces of evil (Ephesians 6:10-20). He had to introduce the love that was to identify the members of the Body of Christ (“you will know them by their love”; John 13:35). The New Covenant of Christ promised to write those Laws on their hearts so they would be compelled to walk in them. More importantly Christ overcame death and Christ was resurrected into the glory of the Father. All of these acts of Christ were an example to believers as they too will walk in them like Christ.



However these purposes were not the main reason Christ came to earth. In the Garden of Eden mankind was separated from God because of their sin. Creation was subjected to futility (Romans 8:20). Instead of having God close (He used to walk with man in the “cool of the day”; Genesis 3:8) man had to cry out to God (Genesis 4:26). Christ’s purpose was to relate mankind to the Father as once had been.
Jesus was the Father on the earth. He said: “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him” (John 14:7-8). Further in John 17 Jesus says:” “And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent…“I do not ask in behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be in Us; that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me (John 17:3, 20-21).


The Godhead (the Father, Son and Holy Spirit) are separate entities but they are absolutely ONE with each other. The Father wanted his many Sons to be one with Him and the Trinity.

Jesus said: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to the Father. “And whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. “If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it” (John 14:13-14). The mystery is that Christ will raise up many Sons just like Him. Romans says: “For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren; and whom He predestined, these He also called; and whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified” (Vs 8:29-30). Hebrews 2:10 says: “For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings”. These Sons will be one with each other and one with God.



Only Christ knew the Father. “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son, except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him” (Matthew 11:27-28). The Pharisees and other religious leaders of the day only knew the Father through the Law of Moses. They believed the way to salvation was by doing the works of the Law. But Jesus knew Him and had been with Him in eternities past. He did not come to do His own will but He did only the will of the Father. “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner” (John 5:19-20). And: “For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me commandment, what to say, and what to speak” (John 12:49). Thus with every word he was conveying the Father to those with ears to hear.



The Father’s power resurrected Jesus from the grave. It is likely He expended more energy raising Jesus that in creating creation. The Father had to go against every physical law he had created as he reached down and pulled Jesus from death. The Father was glorified in every aspect of the savior’s life.



We do not minimize Jesus by putting the focus on the Father. Jesus when he came to earth was a man like all of humanity. He worked with his hands like mankind. By definition he experienced all of what man experiences while on the earth. Otherwise He couldn’t have man’s Savior. The NT declares that the Son (the second person of the Trinity) had a human body prepared for him by God the Father (Heb 10:5). The earthly body was engendered by the conceptive work of the Holy Spirit through the Virgin Mary (Mt 1:20); the one thus born, humanly speaking, as a descendant of David (Rom 1:3), was also to be called the Son of God (Lk 1:35). The apostle John emphasized that the body of Christ was really human physically, not something gaseous or ethereal (1 Jn 4:2, 3) as some persons in John’s day were already beginning to argue. God “became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14; cf. Is 53:1–4). Jesus’ earthly body possessed ordinary human characteristics and limitations. That is, as a real human being, Jesus Christ experienced sorrow (Heb 5:7, 8; Jn 11:35), weariness (Jn 4:6), thirst (19:28), and pain (vv 1–3).



At the Last Supper Jesus elaborated on the oneness that will exist between God and man. “Father, the hour has come; glorify Thy Son, that the Son may glorify Thee, even as Thou gavest Him authority over all mankind, that to all whom Thou hast given Him, He may give eternal life. “And this is eternal life, that they may know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. “I glorified Thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which Thou hast given Me to do. “And now, glorify Thou Me together with Thyself, Father, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was. “I manifested Thy name to the men whom Thou gavest Me out of the world; Thine they were, and Thou gavest them to Me, and they have kept Thy word. “Now they have come to know that everything Thou hast given Me is from Thee; for the words which Thou gavest Me I have given to them; and they received them, and truly understood that I came forth from Thee, and they believed that Thou didst send Me. And I am no more in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to Thee. Holy Father, keep them in Thy name, the name which Thou hast given Me, that they may be one, even as We are. “While I was with them, I was keeping them in Thy name which Thou hast given Me; and I guarded them, and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled” (John 17:1-9, 11-12).



All of Christ’s works were but a means to the end described in John 17. In the end all is turned over to the Father anyway. “…then comes the end, when He delivers up the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power (1 Corinthians 15:24). The judgment and curse initiated in the Garden is reversed and all of creation is released into oneness with the Father.

©Kenneth B. Alexander
Scripture References: New American Standard Bible, ’78 edition

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