We Should Worship Jesus as the One Man

Only one can rescue us from the sins, according to which our flesh assails us in making us do what we do not want to do. The Apostle Paul writes,

“For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. [. . .] For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. [. . .] Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Romans 7:15, 18-19, 24-25).

Only one empowers us to walk forward in newness of life, in forgiveness, freedom, and truth: “But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness” (Romans 8:10). This Jesus takes us while in our guilt and wrongdoing “as is,” and puts His nail-pierced hand of healing and love at our foulest places in our lowest times. How consequential can a single act be? How powerful a single man? By one man’s obedience comes forgiveness, justification, righteousness, abounding grace, and reigning in life to the many who would believe in Him.

Only one man deserves our worship, for only one could accomplish the grounds for our salvation and rebirth with a single act of righteousness: “one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men” (Romans 5:18).

To only one man are we to submit our lives without exception because only one man’s obedience could yield righteousness for any who choose to believe: “by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19).

Only one man deserves our unquestioning concurrence and unqualified trust, because only one deserves to define for us what life is to consist in and be: “those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:17).

Let us bow at the feet of this one man.

He is the beginning, the Ancient of Days, the older, taller, wiser man: “He was in the beginning with God” (John 1:2)—founding and fathering our very faith.

He is the one prime source of light and life who wants brimming goodness for the people of His creation subsisting in Him—as if the ultimate true optimist: “In him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4).

He is the one whose intentions and plans, His omnisapient counsels stand with perfection at all times. He alone is omnisciently able to overcome and accomplish precisely as He intends: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5).

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He is the lover of people, the God of compassion who welcomes and accepts everyone who would come to Him and receive Him: “The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world” (John 1:9).

He is the one of humility and willing endurance. He endured in and for a world that did not recognize or herald its Creator: “He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him” (John 1:10).

He is the selfless one who gives to the undeserving and to those who are far off enemies. To these, He gives belonging out of the overflow of His love: “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” (John 1:12).

He is the one of power who alone grants the right of rebirth and entrance into His eternal family and home: “[children of God] were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13).

He is the one who infinitely surpasses our minds, the one of transcendence, whom we can never exhaust and who is our eternal delight and joy—the one we have never fully seen: “No one has ever seen God” (John 1:18).

He is the God who dwelt on this earth, whose glory has been seen, who made Himself known to us: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory” (John 1:14; cf. 1:18). So, through the holy and inspired Word that He gave to us and by the Spirit within us, we walk this life with Him as the God we know truly in His beauty.

He is the only God (John 1:18), the only originating giver of all goodness, of all that is right to love in this world and the next.

He is the man of whom John the Baptist singularly said: “among you stands one you do not know, even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie” (John 1:27). This Jesus is the one slain for us—the sacrificial Lamb—to save us from our sins that otherwise forever alienate us from our blessed God. By one man’s act of obedience, we can have abundant grace and the free gift of righteousness by which we are rescued from sin and flesh to live to righteousness and Spirit.

To think of this Jesus rightly is to know that He is the one who alone is worthy: “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created” (Revelation 4:11) and “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!” (Revelation 5:12). We who have been saved from our sins, who have become children of God, who know the power of the Spirit to walk increasingly into our new life, who find our delight and home and happiness in Him, who receive and love Him, who regard Him as worthy and glorious will never stop worshiping Him as the one man.

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Lianna Davis is author of Keeping the Faith: A Study in Jude and Made for a Different Land: Eternal Hope for Baby Loss. She is also a contributor to We Evangelicals and Our Mission with Cascade Books. Lianna is a graduate of Moody Bible Institute and a student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. She lives in Illinois with her husband and daughter. You can learn more about her writing at her website.