The Trinity 18 The Deity Of Christ 7 Series

The Trinity 18

The Deity of Christ 7

The Attributes of God

3/10/13

This past week there was the start of a what the History Channel defined as an “Epic mini-series” called “The Bible”. I did mention last Sunday that if you did watch it, do so cautiously. I personally did get to watch some it this week, well actually I watched about 5 minutes total. I watched a part of the section on Abraham, then a part dealing with Moses. It was for me, anyway, too painful to watch.

I don’t want to stand up here and make anyone feel bad for watching it. If you are watching it strictly for its entertainment value I guess that is one thing, but if you are watching it for some theological value, that is quite another. The parts that I watched certainly contains elements that were not only foreign to the Bible, but contrary.

Let me tell us this, if you want to know what the Bible teaches, read the Bible, don’t wait for the movie or epic mini-series. One of the problems with what is on the History Channel is that a lot of folks who watch that will come away thinking there is all kinds of stuff in the Bible that just is not there. Personally, and this is just me speaking, I believe it will do more harm then good.

You see by calling it “The Bible” they give the impression that what they are showing is in the Bible. I would be much happier if they called it something like, “Stories based on the Bible, with stuff taken out, and stuff thrown in.”

For so many folks it will be much easier to watch a TV program then to take the time to read through God’s Word.

My point is this, and it goes along with our study into the Trinity. Just because they call this series “The Bible” does not mean that it will be true to God’s Word.

And as I said at the beginning of our series, just because someone calls God, God, just because someone calls something Jesus, does not mean that they worship the God of the Bible. Calling something by some name does not make it so.

In our study of the Trinity we have been looking at the deity of Christ. As stated we have broken it down to six categories, which are; 1. The Pre-existence of Christ as the Son of God 2. The Deity of Christ in the OT 3. Names of God ascribed to Christ 4. Attributes of God ascribed to Christ 5. Works of God ascribed to Christ 6. The worship of Christ

Today we will be covering the attributes of God that are ascribed to Christ. May we understand that the attributes that we will be looking are attributes that belong to God alone. These are not qualities that belong to man, they do not belong to angels or any of the heavenly hosts - they belong exclusively to God. Therefore if that are ascribed to Christ, then Christ must be divine.

The first attribute I want to look at is the eternal nature of Christ. We spend sometime in looking at the pre-existence of Christ, which of course also demonstrates His eternal nature.

Before we look at some passages I just want to stress that an eternal nature is not something God can bestow upon a creature. Just by the very fact something is created precludes it from being eternal.

God can give us eternal life, but that is not the same as an eternal nature. As Christians our eternal life, goes in one direction, that is forward. There is point it begins.

But God’s eternity, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, goes both ways, back and forward. There never was a time when He was not, nor will there be a time when He is not.

Let us turn to a couple of passage to reinforce this.

Turn over to John 1:1-2; “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” We discussed these verses when we looked a the prologue of the gospel of John.

But I want to emphasis to you what they say about Jesus, who is the Word, eternal nature. We see here just how important this doctrine is to John. He begins his gospel with it’s declaration. In the beginning was the Word. That is to say that there was never a time when the Word was not. No matter how far back you push this “beginning” the Word is there. You can go back to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. The Word is there. You can go back to Moses, the Word is There. You can go back to creation itself, the Word is already there. John’s point is that there was never a time when the Word was not.