Why did Jesus come? What necessitated His Coming? What made His Coming so urgent and so necessary for mankind at that point in time? In answering this question, it is obvious that there must have been a specific reason for His Coming. He must have had a mission in mind that He wanted to accomplish by His Coming. So there are two things here, firstly, the reason behind His Coming, that is, what prevailing conditions on earth necessitated His Coming and secondly, His Mission, that is, what did He really want to do or achieve by His Coming.

To begin to understand why He came at all, we must begin by looking a little at the Parable of the wicked husbandmen! The owner of the vineyard sent several people in succession to the husbandmen to collect rent, but those sent were beaten, tortured and even killed. This, the owner did until it reached a stage where he felt that he had to send his own son, thinking that the latter would be respected and as a result be given what was due to him. This son however, was, just like his predecessors beaten and killed.

The earth had reached such a stage in its downward path that all the prophets sent by God to mankind were either tortured or killed and the downward path to spiritual death, that we human beings had chosen was inevitable. There were still people however, a very small minority, who were still good and still sought the Creator. In fact with the dark spiritual state then, the prophets whom God had sent of old, had no more power in their words to induce men to change. The spiritual in man had become so dark that these prophets could not make much progress in terms of reaching our souls with their words.

In this state, someone stronger was needed, one who was this Word Itself, one equipped with so much power that he could forcibly burst asunder the dark layer and penetrate into the souls of men. Such a desperate spiritual state of men, which if not arrested at this stage was bound inevitably to lead to spiritual death for mankind and also for the few who were good necessitated the coming of someone who could arrest such a state of affairs and at least offer those wanting help the necessary power and knowledge to prevent their final fall into the darkness. This state of affairs therefore necessitated the Coming of Jesus Christ, a Part of the Word Itself.

So, clearly the spiritual state of man at that time was desperate and in order to prevent also the death spiritually of those who were still good, whose souls also had been dragged down by the bad ones, and whose souls also could not be all that influenced by the weak human prophets, necessitated the coming of One more powerful than all the others.

Such was the terrible state of affairs that not a single human prophet would have been effective, and because of the Love for the few human beings who could still be saved, the ultimate had to be done; the descent of a Part of God Himself, an extraordinary happening made possible by a Love which human beings would never be able to understand, a Love which understood the distress in Creation, and which because of this distress, which arose up to Him, took it upon Himself to come down personally. One is bereft of words to describe such a happening but that was what happened. In fact we may begin to contemplate this alone and from there begin to assess the measure of our guilt considering our attitude towards the Word and Him Who brought this Word.

A Sacrifice engendered by the desire not to see a minority of earnest ones destroyed with others. A Sacrifice which at that time guaranteed the continued existence of Creation and all human beings today. If that Sacrifice had not been made, all of us would irretrievably have had to go down finally into perdition. top

A most important Mission, without which all the other acts of Mercy from the Creator could never have followed. We might all as well begin again to ponder about Jesus Christ and the great Sacrifice of Love on His part.

The descent down to night of mankind and the sheer impossibility of help through human prophets necessitated the Coming of the undimmed Truth Itself. Having understood why He came the question now remains: what did He come to do? To understand what He came to do, we must realise that the generality of the people took a voluntary decision in descending into the darkness. We decided out of our own accord to allow ourselves to become evil. Since this was a voluntary decision, no one but ourselves was to blame for this, certainly not the Creator, Who had always sent His prophets to teach and help us on our paths. So, this was a voluntary walk on the road that leads into the darkness.

Having now become entangled in this darkness what was needed was for us to have a way out, a way to be shown to us, a path on which we could travel back outwards from the depths and the necessary strength for it. We descended into the darkness out of our own volition, nobody forced us to do this, we would also then have to be the ones to make our ways back with our own limbs, but what we needed was a way to be shown to us and then the strength so that we would not tire too quickly on our way back.

The Mission of Jesus then laid in this, the bringing of the Word down to mankind which showed us the way, which explained how the household of Creation was, what the Laws were, which operate therein and how we could obtain forgiveness even after we have sinned. The Mission laid in the explanations He gave about the Laws and the structure of Creation, the place of man and his relationship to the Creator. These teachings of His, which contained the vitality of the Laws of Creation, was what was lacking in the rigid laws which the Pharisees and scribes forced men at that time to believe. The lack of vitality was what shackled the human spirits and prevented them from recognising their responsibility towards their God. top

The letter of the law of the then religion, turned human beings into machines with no wills of their own, into blind slaves or believers in the half-truths and explanations which these learned ones taught in their synagogues. The Mission laid in bringing mobility into the souls of men, in bringing the Truth so that men, in knowing what the Truth is, would be free from the rigidity of the laws of religion and that was why Jesus said that “the Truth shall set you free”. Set us free from the rigidity which religionists set up in their letter of religious law.

Before then, nobody taught man about who he was, what he was, what his relationship to his Creator should be or what the Laws of the Creator were and what we had to do to avoid sin. Nobody gave any explanations about the structure of Creation and the Laws and the role human beings played in all these. No one, no religious teaching did this. Instead, emphasis was placed on externals which had nothing to do with the real thing.

The externals, enshrined as they were, in a written law, ensured and guaranteed the power of these priests on the people. They had total control. Instead of being servants, teaching man how to be free in his relationship to his Creator, they became masters and tyrants, who did nothing but torture or kill any who dared to oppose the laws which they devised with their brains.

All these, Jesus overthrew with a few words thereby immediately undermining the grip of the priests on the people. This led to hatred and slander and the eventual murder of the Son of God. The Sacrifice laid in His taking upon Himself the responsibility of coming all the way down here to give His Word and the Mission laid in this Word. Anyone who could follow His teaching would see the way out of the darkness before him and at the same time would receive strength to be able to travel along this path.

None of the human prophets could give these to any of us, only He Who created all things and Who also was able to see into our souls could. By seeing into our souls, He could know what the problem was and as such frame or fashion His Words so that these could penetrate into our souls and work there. He could frame His Words in such a way as to have the maximum effect on freeing us from spiritual bondage. The Words therefore performed two functions: (1.) They showed a path out because they told us what to do about our condition, allowed us to see ourselves as we stood, told us how to act and how to go about our daily lives in order to remain free from sin. (2.) The Words also contained the power which we needed to obey the Word and walk on the path shown. top

The accompanying miracles also helped to make the Help complete; for these were supposed to fortify the faith of the hearers in the genuineness of the Truth-Bringer because without belief, we would not have been able to walk on the path shown to us. The miracles were supposed to instil a kind of belief, a kind of faith in the power of God, which is an absolutely necessary condition for anything that concerns the ascent of man. Those who witnessed these miracles or had these miracles performed on them, were meant to think or ponder about these activities and finally arrive at a conclusion that only He, Who worked in the Ray and Power of God could work such miracles.

This would strengthen their beliefs and make ascent faster and it could also be the early stages in the development of conviction, which is the basis of Salvation because it is only when one is convinced about the Power of the Creator, His Omnipotence and His Love can one stride powerfully upwards to the Luminous Heights. The Coming of Jesus therefore held so many promises for mankind. It is difficult to see the place of sacrificial death in all these. All the attitudes and Words of the Saviour pointed to the fact that we were the ones to walk on the road to Salvation which He pointed out to us in His Message. If we want to be clear about this we need do nothing more than examine the Words of Jesus Himself on these issues.