Christberg: Divine Descriptors Defining Destiny

By Binanda C. Barkakaty

Christberg is a book prompted by Jesus, inspired by Jesus, and revealed by Jesus as a result of the authors constant walk with him for the last forty-five years. Based entirely on biblical words, Christberg will be an eye-opener to readers of all walks of life and all faiths who would like to know why Jesus Christ should be worshipped as our personal savior and the Lord. He came from the heavenly glory and was born as a God-mana God-incarnateand died at Calvary cross for his unfailing love toward all humanity.

The structure and the simplicity of language of the book will appeal to Bible-study groups, Sunday school teachers, and to teachers of religious studies in schools and colleges. The book will most certainly be an invaluable tool for any inquiring mind to find the answer to the question, Can Jesus be for me? In order to get to the truth, you simply taste Jesus and measure the depth of his love for you. Feel his care and compassion in his words and measure his unsearchable concern for you. Let yourself immerse in his perfect love. His amazing grace will capture you and make you a new person for ever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Jul 14, 2015
• ISBN: 9781514461426

Binanda C. Barkakaty

The son of a schoolteacher, Binanda Barkakaty was born in Assam, India. He left India in 1966 and came to the United Kingdom for higher studies, and he has been in England ever since. He graduated from Guwahati University, Assam, with a gold medal in physics. He has a PhD from Leeds, an MEd from London, and an MSt from the University of Cambridge. He has been running Christian union in schools and colleges and involved in Christian fellowship and providing Bible courses to prisoners in a prison-education setting. He has been walking with the Lord for more than four decades and has been a worshipper at Sanderstead Evangelical Church since 1982. He married his wife, Puspa, from Singapore, in 1970. His daughter, Santana, lives with her husband, Mark, and two sons, Cade (twelve) and Bailey (ten), in Chippenham, Wiltshire. His son, Biraj, is an opera singer as a countertenor and lives in Astoria, New York City, with his wife, Heather, who is soprano. Since his wife passed away in May 2014, Binanda lives on his own in suburban London.

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Copyright © 2015 by Binanda C. Barkakaty.

ISBN:      Softcover            978-1-5144-6141-9

                eBook                  978-1-5144-6142-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

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Rev. date: 07/10/2015

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CONTENTS

Dedication

The Grand Stage

Prelude

Act I

Act II

Act III

As I Begin

The Setting

The Divine Descriptors

1. Authority of Jesus

2. Divinity of Jesus

3. Humanity of Jesus

4. Humility of Jesus

5. Deity of Jesus

6. Supremacy of Jesus

7. Eternity with Jesus

8. Purity of Jesus

9. Sufficiency of Jesus

10. Availability of Jesus

11. Sovereignty of Jesus

12. Integrity of Jesus

13. Credibility of Jesus

14. Consistency of Jesus

15. Transparency of Jesus

16. Serenity of Jesus

17. Spirituality of Jesus

18. Generosity of Jesus

19. Creativity of Jesus

20. Honourability of Jesus

21. Popularity of Jesus

22. Propensity of Jesus

23. Positivity of Jesus

24. Practicality of Jesus’ Teaching

25. Ingenuity of Jesus

26. Immortality of Jesus

27. Sensitivity of Jesus

28. Potency of Jesus

29. Revolutionary Jesus

30. Economy of Jesus

31. Radicality of Jesus

32. Accessibility of Jesus

33. Transformability of Jesus

34. Inclusivity of Jesus

35. Adaptability of Jesus

36. Security in Jesus

37. Dependability on Jesus

38. Inerrancy of Jesus

39. Visionary Jesus

40. Trustworthy Jesus

41. Simplicity of Jesus

42. Immutability of Jesus

43. Intercessory Jesus

44. Empathy of Jesus

45. Propitiatory Jesus

46. Victory of Jesus

47. Emancipatory Jesus

48. Livability in Jesus

49. Touchability of Jesus

50. Sustainability of Jesus

51. Maturity in Jesus

52. Vulnerability of Jesus

53. Sufficiency in Jesus

54. Mastery of Jesus

55. Majesty of Jesus

56. Holy is Jesus

57. Honesty of Jesus

58. Mighty Jesus

59. Mystery of Jesus

60. Ministry of Jesus

61. Mercy of Jesus

62. Sincerity of Jesus

63. Liberty in Jesus

64. Stability in Jesus

65. Substitutionary atonement of Jesus

66. Singularity and Jesus’ second coming

67. Incorruptibility of Jesus

68. Infallibility of Jesus

69. Intimacy of Jesus

70. Glory of Jesus

71. Diversity and Jesus

72. Authenticity of Jesus

73. Connectivity of Jesus

74. Worthy Jesus

75. Personality of Jesus

As I Close

Reference List

DEDICATION

It is my great privilege to dedicate Christberg to the congregation at the Sanderstead Evangelical Church, England, which has been the spiritual prayer house for me and my family since 1982.

THE GRAND STAGE

PRELUDE

The Creation: Under the authorship of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

How and Why: Purposed, Planned, Predestined and Preserved.

Until: All eternity.

Over 2000 years ago the grand stage was set by God with a purpose that defies any conceivable human imagination. The overwhelming purpose was to bring back fallen, stricken, rebellious and wayward mankind to the hands of the creator God for all eternity once and for all. Ever-existing God who is the author and creator of the multi-universe, as we know now, does not plan about a temporary solution to the maligned and sinful nature of the human heart. On the contrary, His plan was to reconcile mankind to Him for all eternity. He did love the world so much, albeit that was His own creation, that He wants the human species not to perish but to live for ever and ever. The back-drop of His grand stage was His pure and divine love without any shade of contamination. It is a love which defies human understanding, a love which the Creator wants to offer to the human beings who, in all honesty, do not deserve - a transcendental love that can come only from the Almighty God.

The stage that God created is even far more grandeur than that of any Shakespearean plays. He created a scene for the stage that had never been enacted before in the whole wide world, neither did anything like that happen ever since. It was unique in its setting, ubiquitous in its focus and uncompromising in the portrayal of the purpose to human audience. That is our God – almighty, omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent- the creator of the multi-universe with all things living and non-living in them. He is the sovereign God – all authority, majesty and power belong to Him. He designed the multi-universe, he created it as a master architect, and he has been sustaining it with His ingenious sustaining capability represented by His mercy and grace. He wanted His people on the planet earth to live a life which He ordained and commanded them to live.

In planning for the grand stage God wanted to show the world that He is sovereign, supreme and supernatural. No human being can fathom His supernatural ways and can understand His divine plan and purpose. Therefore, the immortal and invisible God made sure that His plan for salvation of all human beings and the enactment of the grand stage could never be repeated. The final outcome of the super play at the grand stage would be a success story which would inspire, encourage and stimulate every human being to find a unique and single pathway for the salvation of their soul.

God was extremely displeased with the attitude of human beings who were created in His own image. Because, sin entered the world through our first homo sapiens Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden - the creation hinterland, as a result of their disobedience to God and their temptation and lack of self-control. So it is imperative that as descendants of the first human beings ever created on earth, we all are born as sinners in strict spiritual terms. Since then, all human beings have become self-reliant, independent, ungodly and totally oblivious of God’s presence in their everyday lives. The sovereign God who created the multi-universe including humans had found Himself alienated, ignored, side-lined, despised and even ridiculed. In actual fact, the way that men and women of the modern world have chosen to live is not the way that the creator God had intended them to live.

Men and women of today have become more self-possessed, self-occupied, worshipping as it were, their own idols – career, bank balance, pride and their own success. This is the ‘I-problem,’ everything is centred around ‘me’ – the self. This is the ‘me generation’ that we all are living in. The materialistic world has engulfed the minds of every human being pushing God to the edge. There is no place for God even in their imagination. It is hard to believe that a created human being does not want to know about the creator, let alone making him the only focus for everyday worship for their sins, misgivings, transgressions and iniquities, and for their countless blessings that they enjoy every moment, every day.

God in His compassion could not bear to see how human beings had been wasting away their lives in simple pleasures on earth, far away from the presence and radiance of the Father who cared rather than dwelling on the hope of eternal salvation in the kingdom of God. His enduring love and compassion was such that He had to make a master plan to save His people. The master planner wanted to create a scene on the grand stage in which one and only one sacrifice must be made in which all God’s wrath would be laid upon and be removed for ever making the sinners free from the bondage of sin. God’s wrath was for the rebellious nature of the human beings He created. He found them depraved in their moral character, arrogant in their Godless attitude and proud in their worldly treasure hunting.

If you were to solve a serious problem like sin in human heart, then you must be one of them to live like them in order to experience the daily struggles, agony and ecstasy and the arrogant and sinful behaviour of the humans. So our master Playwright – God the Father devised a three-act play for His grand stage.

ACT I

He would come down to earth from his heavenly Kingdom to take human flesh as a human baby. Then He would make the baby grow up to his adulthood with all God’s attributes, power, majesty and authority bestowed upon him. To create a person with divine purity God planned that the baby would be born of a virgin mother by spiritual power, that is, by the Holy Spirit.

Indeed, that was exactly what God did. The God of all authority and divine power took the human form as a baby in the womb of Virgin Mary and was born in Bethlehem in Nazareth. This was the first act in the play that could take breath away from any human being. Although Mary was pledged to marry Joseph, she was not married when she conceived. Angel Gabriel appeared before Mary and broke the good news that she was going to have a baby through divine blessings of the Almighty God and the baby would be called Jesus – who saves. Even his birth could not take place in a normal household surroundings, but it happened in a squalid and smelly stable. The baby had all the attributes of the creator God, yet he had the spiritual birth with Mary as his earthly mother and Joseph as his earthly father. The baby was the Lord Jesus Christ whose spiritual father was the creator of the multi-universe, yet he accepted humility to have the lowly birth. He would later show the world that to be the King of Kings he started his life journey at the nadir of pride.

This Jesus was with God before the creation, he was with God’s majesty and power during his short life on our planet and he is now with Him in the eternal Kingdom of God. It is no surprise then- Jesus completes the circle of life, death and resurrection to a new life in him. So the first act of the master play in the grand stage began with a helpless and vulnerable baby Jesus born in a manger amidst farm animals with their characteristic smell, wrapped up only in swaddling clothes and shepherds looking after their flock in the surrounding grazing farms. The Magi from the East came to worship the baby with their expensive gifts because Jesus was the long waited Messiah - the King of the Jews for these wise men. The shepherds made their way to visit and worship Jesus too. King Herod, however, was not very happy at the news of the birth of whom people called King of Kings, because of his power and status which he had been enjoying so far. The news tormented him beyond measure. He immediately ordered his soldiers to kill all the babies under two year old in Bethlehem area. So the drama took a different turn. Under the direction of the angel Mary and Joseph decided to flee to Egypt taking baby Jesus with them. You can only imagine the states of the baby and parents on a donkey back through the dangerous and desert road from Bethlehem to Egypt. They stayed there until the death of King Herod.

The name Jesus was given by God, spoken to Mary by the Holy Spirit of God that she should call him so. Jesus means who saves – he was the only begotten son of God. The Saviour of the humankind who has all the glory, honour, power and authority was not born in a royal palace. Instead, he decided to be born of his run away parents in a stable in a remote village in Israel called Bethlehem. The Master Playwright wanted to shock the entire world by creating the first act by having Jesus at the centre of the grand stage – the protagonist. The news of the birth of the long-awaited Messiah spread like a wild fire. From the local shepherds to the wise men from the East, the news was a blessing they all had been longing for.

After the death of Herod, Jesus and his parents returned from Egypt, went to the district of Galilee and began to live in a pretty little town called Nazareth. As Jesus grew up in a carpenter’s house he began to develop the qualities to understand the scripture. While he was 12, much to the astonishment of Mary and Joseph, he sneaked out from his parents’ company and sat down in a synagogue to listen to the preachers. Indeed, his remarkable understanding of the God’s word and his authority to deliver masterful speeches to the crowds in general commanded careful attention of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law. However, instead of giving Jesus the rightful credit for what he had been teaching to receive the eternal kingdom of God, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were very displeased and angry. It was precisely because Jesus rocked the traditional boat of the Jewish religious beliefs and their long-held rituals. For the Pharisees, Scribes and the teachers of the law it was a religious shock wave, a religious tsunami which shook their comfort zone.

According to the Jewish people their ideal and expected Messiah would have been a kingly person adorned with every royal attributes, majesty and power. Instead, a vulnerable boy from Nazareth had been preaching with great authority claiming that he was the Messiah and only through him people can come to the Father God and receive eternal salvation. Jesus performed multitude of miracles, healed sick people, raised people from the dead, walked on the water and made water into wine. These signs and symbols did not penetrate the impervious hearts of the Jewish leaders, teachers of the law and the Pharisees. Convinced that Jesus could not be the Messiah they were looking for, they tried to trap him calling him all names under the sun. They branded him a prince of Satan and an outright liar, a conspirator, an impostor, and a blasphemer. They conspired and looked for any trace of mistakes and wrong-doing on Jesus’ part to trap him and arrest him to hand over to the Roman Emperor.

For his powerful ministry of repentance, belief, justification and eternal salvation, Jesus needed a strong team of followers. In his preaching tour of the surrounding area of the Sea of Galilee, he called on a few ordinary men to follow him. These people who happened to come from different backgrounds and trades believed in Jesus’ teaching and followed him as their Master, Teacher and the Lord. Suffice it to say that they were as weak as us in their faith, as frail as us in their human nature and as desperately vulnerable as us in Jesus’ prophesies at times. As human their faith wavered oftentimes, as human they questioned their master about his plan of redemption, as human one of them denied that he was a disciple of Jesus when it came to crunch, and one of them betrayed Jesus and handed him over to the Roman authority. Yet, Jesus chose twelve ordinary men in his team to push forward the divine plan of eternal salvation for all mankind. They became his disciples – God ordained people of believers who played important roles in the grand stage that the Creator God had planned and designed according to his purpose. Not only does this demonstrate the leadership quality and tremendous team building personality of Jesus, but also his sharp focus on his ultimate goal – TO RECONCILE MAN TO GOD, come what may.

ACT II

So began the second act of the super play on the grand stage. With his twelve (so far) devoted disciples the Shepherd Teacher started his ministry in full swing. His was a radical idea of redeeming all the sinners before the Creator God, and thereby establish a New Kingdom with the people of the New Creation- those who had repented of their sinful attitude and behaviour toward God and had accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour. This revolutionary teaching of Christ Jesus fell on the deaf ears of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law and they became even more hardened in their hearts and plotted to make the God-man Jesus a criminal under the Roman law. In this act, one of the disciples called Judas Iscariot, tempted by mere thirty silver coins from the chief priest, decided to betray and hand over Jesus to the Roman soldiers. This emphatically demonstrates the vulnerable situation Jesus was in, even amongst his own trusted disciples let alone the whole Jewish community. As a God-man Jesus, however, knew about this plot and told all the disciples including Judas Iscariot beforehand.

Jesus unfolded the news of what was going to happen to his life on earth in the upper room of a Jewish neighbour. He wanted to enjoy the last supper there with all his disciples around them. He told them that his heart was troubled because he was about to be betrayed and handed over to the high priest. He named the betrayer as Judas Iscariot to the utter astonishment of the other disciples. He also affirmed that Peter would be denying him three times before the cock crowed, He broke unleavened bread, gave thanks to the Heavenly Father and told them to divide amongst them and eat. This bread represented his broken body. After that he took the cup, gave thanks to God the Father and told the disciples to drink from the cup. The cup represented the shed blood of the new covenant between believers and the Creator God. This blood was poured out for all the people who repented and believed in him for the forgiveness of their sin. The disciples did not make any sense of what was going to happen to their Master and the Lord. They discussed the mystery of his teaching, pondered over the immediate future and understandably, began to be anxious about their life-long Friend, Master, Teacher and the Lord. Even Jesus showed the signs of trouble, sorrow and apprehension reflecting through the mirror of his humanity.

The Master Playwright set the scene of Jesus’ betrayal and arrest at Gethsemane - a higher place at the Mount of Olive. This the Magnetic Mount where Jesus delivered his discourse to thousands of followers on redemption plan for all people and the eternal life. Jesus took his disciples there, told them to keep watch over him and went to pray on his own as he frequently did to be close to his Father God. Burdened with the thought of his betrayal and eventual arrest, Jesus was overwhelmed and pleaded with his Father God to take the cup of suffering from him if it was possible. Having said that, he asserted that it was not his will but the will of the Father would prevail demonstrating his true obedience to the Creator God. Soon a large crowd with their swords and clubs arrived at the scene. They were sent by the chief priest and the elders. The betrayer Judas Iscariot was with them as planned beforehand. When they were nearer to Jesus and his other disciples, Judas Iscariot darted toward Jesus, greeted him as Rabbi and kissed him with the kiss of betrayal. The soldiers knew that the man whom Judas Iscariot kissed was Jesus - the God-man.

Immediately the soldiers seized and arrested Jesus. When one of Jesus’ companions drew his sword and cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest, Jesus told him to put his sword back in its place. He told everyone there that all these things had taken place according to the word of the Scripture – the writings of the prophets. An innocent God-man who preached the gospel of eternal salvation was thus arrested by the Roman soldiers to find evidence to brand him a criminal so they could put him to death on a crucifix. When Jesus was brought before the high priest and the entire Sanhedrin, two men came forward to say that Jesus claimed to be able to destroy the temple of God and rebuild it in three days. The high priest asked Jesus if he was the Christ - the Son of God. Jesus told them that he was indeed the Christ and in the future all men would see him at the right hand of the Almighty God in heaven and he would come down on the clouds of heaven to take his believers to his side to live with him for all eternity.

The high priests, the teachers of the law and the whole Sanhedrin assembly accused Jesus of making blasphemy against God, because Jesus claimed to be the Messiah and thus, he deserved to be put to death. They got their evidence which they were desperately looking for all the while and Jesus could be branded as a criminal who deserved the ultimate punishment - death by crucifixion. When Jesus was brought before Pontius Pilate - the Governor, the scene took another twist. According to the custom the governor could release one prisoner at the feast. There was another notorious prisoner called Barabbas at the time Jesus was accused of the criminal offence of blasphemy. Pilate asked the crowd which one between these two should be released. Such was the anger and hatred of the crowd toward Jesus, they told Pilate that Barabbas should be released and Jesus be crucified. Although Pilate’s heart was troubled, he accepted the majority verdict and ordered the soldiers to take Jesus to be crucified. Such was the opposition to Jesus’ teaching of the truth about the kingdom of God that the wishes of the chief priests, the elders and the entire crowd prevailed.

Meanwhile the gripping scene continued. Judas Iscariot returned thirty silver coins to the high priest because he could not bear to see his Lord mocked, jeered, spat at and flogged by the cheering crowd. His conscience pricked him deeply. He woke up to the stark reality that he had been involved in the conspiracy with the high priests and the elders to bring an innocent man not only to disrepute but to find him guilty of blasphemy and conspiracy and to condemn him to death. He found himself in a state of desperation for betraying his own Master, friend and Lord for mere thirty silver coins and hanged himself.

The crowd got excited and began to shout ‘Crucify him. Crucify him.’ The whole atmosphere became vitriolic. The Jewish people wanted to get rid of Jesus for good for a long time. Now that time had arrived. Pilate’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium, stripped him, put a scarlet robe and a crown of thorns on his head. They then took the robe off, put his own clothes on, struck him with a staff and began to mock him saying ‘Hail, king of the Jews.’ Jesus was then taken to a place called Golgotha where he was crucified with two other robbers, one on either side of him. The crowd jeered saying ‘Come down from the cross if you are the Son of God.’ The elders, chief priests and the teachers of the law threw insulted Jesus saying ‘He saved others but he cannot save himself.’ and ‘He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if He wants him.’

The soldiers mocked him piling up more barrage of insults saying ‘If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.’ Further insults came pouring in even from the robbers on the crucifixion. One of them shouted ‘Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us.’ The other robber pleaded ‘Jesus remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ Even at the terrifying point of death on the crucifix, Jesus took compassion on him and replied with divine authority that he would be in paradise with him that day. In order to display their anger and hatred toward Jesus, they hanged a notice above him with the words - ‘THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.’ That was a prominent reminder to all the people present there that that was the end of Jesus’ life who claimed to be the promised Messiah and Saviour Lord of the sinners.

Suddenly it was all quiet in the twilight hours of the day. A cloud of darkness blanketed the entire region, the burning heat and the shining of the sun faded away. Miraculously the temple curtain was torn into two from top to bottom. A big earthquake tremored the earth, tombs broke open and dead bodies rose to life. The centurion and other onlookers exclaimed that truly Jesus was the son of God who came to save sinners.

Jesus endured the vilest and the most humiliating torture on the cross for the whole world. He became the ransom for the debt we owed to the Almighty Father for the transgression of the people. His hands and legs were nailed to the cross, his body was pierced releasing blood that cried out to declare that it was his blood which was shed for many to wash away their sin. Jesus made all the people sinless by his shed blood and thus made them righteous in the sight of God. That is the very purpose for which he came down to earth. His redemption plan is now complete. Jesus gasped for a drop of water but no where to find. His body became too weak to take breath. He breathed his last with a loud voice ‘Father into your hands I commit my spirit. It is finished.’ No human being had ever suffered such an