The Sacred Essence, Luke 3:15-17, 21-22
Introduction
G. Campbell Morgan, the well known pastor of the last century of Westminster Chapel, near Buckingham Palace, was once approached by a soldier who said he would give anything to believe that God would forgive sins, “but I cannot believe He will forgive me if I just turn to Him. It is too cheap.” Dr. Morgan said to him: “You were working in the mine today. How did you get out of the pit?” He answered, “The way I usually do; I got into the cage and was pulled to the top.” “How much did you pay to come out of the pit?” “I didn’t pay anything.” “Weren’t you afraid to trust yourself to that cage? Was it not too cheap?” The man replied, “Oh, no! It was cheap for me, but it cost the company a lot of money to sink that shaft.” The man saw the light that it was the infinite price paid by the Son of God for our salvation, which comes to us by faith and not by anything that we can do.
This morning it is my desire to compel you according to the Scriptures and sound logic toward an assurance or a reassurance of the divine nature of the Son of God.
The weight and meaning of the sacrifice of Jesus is entirely contingent upon His being the Son of God, that is, the value of Jesus death for atonement of sin at the Cross of Mount Calvary is predicated upon His being able, worthy, to die in our stead. Since only God can forgive sin, the divinity of Christ is not a discretionary matter in Christian Theology; it is foundational, fundamental, and essential.
Transition
The title of this message is “The Sacred Essence.” Alternatively, I could have well titled it “The Divine Nature.” What is the essential make-up of Jesus? Who is He? Is He a divine man? Is He God in the flesh? Is He a sort of demigod, who achieved a sort of divine status, based on the merit of His good life? Who is Jesus? Why is worthy of worship? Where does He derive the power to save me from sin?
In philosophical terms, we are talking about the ontological essence of Jesus. That is, what is nature of Christ existence? In more practical terms, we will be talking about that most basic and fundamental of questions which Jesus posed to His disciples in Mathew 16:13, “Who do people say that I am?” To which Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Mathew 16:16 NIV)
According to the Webster’s Dictionary of 1828, the term essence is defined as follows: “That which constitutes the particular nature of a being or substance, or of a genus, and which distinguishes it from all others… Formal existence; that which makes any thing to be what it is; or rather, the peculiar nature of a thing; the very substance; as the essence of Christianity. Existence; the quality of being… A being; an existent person; as heavenly essences. Species of being. Constituent substance; as the pure essence of a spirit…”
So, we proceed to answer the question: Who is Jesus? What is the essential or fundamental essence or nature of being or true nature of Jesus the Christ?
Exposition
In seeking to answer the question, “What is the essential nature, the true essence, of Jesus Christ,” we are invariably embarking on a quest, a journey, of seeking for truth. We are embarking on an epic adventure to answer the most fundamental question ever posited, “What is truth?”
Just as Pontius Pilate asked Jesus in rhetorical fashion as he decided the fate of this divine man, in whom even he found no fault.
In 1937 the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s highest religious leader, died. A search for his successor, his reincarnation, began. When it was noted that the head of the corpse tilted eastward, his followers began to look in that direction. That and other hints from religious visions led them to a two-year-old boy in a remote farmhouse, and today he is the Dalai Lama.
We Christians are not left with such vague and nebulous guidance. We have the clear teaching of Scripture and the guiding presence of the Holy Spirit!
In John 16:13-14 Jesus says to His disciples, “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.” (NIV)
Can any man find the purity of truth in his own mental prowess or of his own intellect? The ancient philosophers of Greece, using incredible skills of the observation of nature and the use of mathematics came close.
Through the power of his enormous reasoning skills the pre-Socratic philosopher Parmenides discovered, in some sense invented, logic, and through the use of pure logic he deduced that all of reality, aletheia, proceeds from one divine mind; though he was raised in a culture of mythology and paganism.
Indeed, all of pre-Christian pagan religion, mystical spiritism, or philosophy contains some measure, though to varying extents, of Christian truth.
Why is this so? God has not hidden Himself and all of those who seek Him through reason, logic, observation of the human composition and condition, or through the cycles and process of nature, find Him; though He is only known fully in the person, work, and life of Jesus the Christ.
There are many scholars, academics, political leaders, religious students, and sadly even many Christian leaders, who look at the commonality of thought which is found in the world’s religions and deduce that all must be equally viable as common expressions of the same divine.
This is plainly not the case as the uniqueness of Jesus Christ is unavoidable. He was conceived uniquely, He lived uniquely, He died uniquely, and is the only man in history to foretell His own death and resurrection, and then to do it! Don’t allow the modern culture to rob Christ, the Son of God, of His sacred reality.
Have faith in God and in the sacred Son whom He sent! Don’t allow them to rob you and I of genuine faith in the sacred Son of God who indwells us by the power of His Holy Spirit and offers love, joy, and peace, in a world of foolishness.
It is better understood that all of humanity gropes as in the dark seeking for God and that He is not hidden, to varying degrees men find Him, though once found, most reject His beauty for want of desire to accept His authority. This is precisely what the Apostle Paul speaks of in Romans 1:20-22.
Even with his great intellect and reason, still Parmenides, the father of logic, was unable to ascertain the pure meaning of truth, of ultimate reality. In the gospel account which bears his name, John to Jesus, the Christ, as the “Logos.”
This is a term invented, or at least popularized, by the philosopher Parmenides to describe the element of the “one mind” which communicates with creation.
Logos in the thought of Parmenides is the element or principal of ultimate reality which is perceivable. John the Beloved then borrows this Greek term to describe the manner in which God has spoken to His creation.
John refers to Jesus as the “Logos” in order to draw a clear distinction between the notion of Jesus as a mere man and make plain the case that He proceeds from the Father, that He is of divine origin, that He has a divine nature, and that He is no mere man from whence we learn wise sayings or good teachings.
Jesus is Himself God and God, in Christ, has reached out His hands to heal us in our brokenness! The hands which were pierced on Calvary’s Hill were the hands of God reaching into human depravity to forgive; human brokenness to heal; human estrangement from God to bring unity.
The things of which I now speak may seem lofty and esoteric to some, but the great reality of Christ Jesus is that the high and lofty things of God have been brought low so that the simplest person and youngest child may comprehend the truth that Jesus is of divine origins and possesses a divine nature.
It is for this reason that my heart may cry out with steadfast adoration and security, “Jesus loves me. This I know for the Bible tells me so!”
You see, in Jesus Christ the eternal has met with the temporal; God has descended into human flesh that we might commune with Him, live with Him, know Him, and much more than that, that we may be known by Him. In Christ, the sacred becomes easily touched, unambiguous; it lay bare for us to behold.
The sacred has taken on human flesh in the man Yeshua, Jesus of Nazareth, both fully God and fully man; a divine mystery yet plain for all to see; the beauty of God’s love for His creation incarnate, present, visible; known.
Conclusion
During the middle ages the supposedly wise doctors of the Church became horribly entangled in nonsensical pursuits and debates of the most ridiculous sort.
Here was among learned men such a rage for Aristotle that his ethics were frequently read to the people instead of the gospel, and the teachers themselves were employed either in wrestling the words of Scripture to support the most monstrous opinions, or in discussing the most trivial questions. Think of men gravely debating whether the angel Gabriel appeared to the Virgin Mary in the shape of a serpent, of a dove, of a man, or of a woman? Did he seem to be young or old? In what dress was he? Was his linen clean or foul? Did he appear in the morning, noon, or evening? What was the color of the Virgin’s hair? Etc.
Think of all this nonsense veiled in learned terms and obscure phrases! While human minds were engaging in weaving such cobwebs as these, no progress was made in real knowledge, and the gloom of the dark ages deepened into tenfold night. The modern Church is in danger of the same evil from another quarter.
There are many among us who obscure the truth of the Gospel by denying the necessity of the virgin birth of Jesus, the literal manner of His miracles, and the steadfast reality of His death and resurrection. These things are not peripheral components of the Gospel of Jesus Christ; they are the Gospel of Jesus Christ!
The true nature of Jesus, His essence or fundamental nature is divine. He is of divine origins, of divine character; He is the Son of God descended to make plain that which was previously veiled. Just a man lifts the veil of his bride to discover the radiance of her beauty, so too, the veil of God has been lifted in Jesus Christ to reveal the radiant beauty of God’s love for us.
In Luke 23:25 the Bible says that at the moment of Jesus death as Jesus hung on the cross, the veil in the Temple was torn in two. This was the veil that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Temple. At that very moment God declared to Humanity that the veil which separated the sacred realties of heaven from the mundane things of this world had been destroyed.
The Lord no longer makes His dwelling place tabernacles fashioned by human hands, but in the hearts of men; fashioned by His hands; redeemed by the nails that pierced the hands of Jesus. Amen.
