Biography

Biography

The author of a biography begins at the birth and follows through to the death of his subject. But to understand any life story you must go back from the end to the beginning. What a man became is what makes his growth and development significant.

If this is true of a man, how much more is it true of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God-Man. This is why God did not give us a biography of Christ. The four Gospels are far from being biographies; they are portraits of various phases of His revelation of God. The meaning of the whole story can be determined only by seeing Him at the end, enthroned at the right hand of God the Father. It is this enthronement that gives significance to His resurrection. It is His resurrection that gives significance to His death, and it is His death that gives significance to His life.

Does this mean that we can dispense with the story of His birth and childhood? One school of thinking tends to believe that Jesus' ministry began with His baptism. For all intents and purposes they leave out the important first thirty years. Another school of thinking, especially in the Roman Church, overemphasizes the birth of Jesus and the exaltation of His mother. It lessens the importance of His later work, practically concluding with His death, and putting little emphasis on the resurrection.

Resist these trains of thought and take the whole story from glory to glory. What do we find? We see the whole Christ, who came from the throne of the Father and is back on that throne now. We see Him confronting us as the living God, born for us and crucified for us. His redemptive work and the power of His resurrection lead us to faith in His divine birth by the work of the Holy Spirit.

When we know Him in this light, we find ourselves identified with Him, as He becomes identified with us. His virgin birth makes us realize that our own new birth is divine. His pure boyhood beckons us on to purity, and growth in Him. Seeing Him as He is leads us on "until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph. 4:13).

1. Are there any parts of Christ’s “biography” that are more important that the other? If yes, what are they and why?
2. Did Jesus have a full knowledge that He was God, even from His infancy?  
3. What is the error in thinking that Christ’s ministry only started at his baptism or only focusing on the virgin birth and Mary?