“The God-Man”
January 24, 2010
To the Dalai Lama, Jesus was an enlightened guru, likely a fully enlightened being. To the Mormons, Jesus is an exalted man who made his way to godhood—just as we can; some versions of New Age mysticism have this view of Jesus in common with Mormonism. To the Jehovah’s Witnesses, he was a man, the first created being by God the Father—but not God come in the flesh.
And then, we can look at two “equal, but opposite” views about God popular in our society today. One is the viewpoint that one Christian researcher attributes, sadly, to a significant percentage of today’s young people: deism. To be more specific, Christian Smith and his researchers, having interviewed over 3000 teenagers (many who were professing Christians), identified the worldview as “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism”, consisting of the following tenets:
1. "A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth."
2. "God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions."
3. "The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself."
4. "God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when God is needed to resolve a problem."
5. "Good people go to heaven when they die."
Needless to say, this is not the God of the Bible. Neither is the opposite, increasingly-popular Near Eastern conception of God: pantheism, which sees in everything “God”. Focusing on a “god” that is immanent as opposed to a God that is distant and uninvolved (a la Deism), pantheists see the divine as being simply one aspect of everything that can be seen or experienced. You’re divine, I’m divine, all God’s children are…god! Interestingly, as N.T. Wright points out, both of these bogus conceptions of God lead via different paths to the same conclusion: anyone making any distinctions between religious faiths is intolerant, divisive, and arrogant, particularly if one claims that his particular brand of faith is the only one. But as Wright says, “few who embrace one or the other of these beliefs…stop to consider how remarkably arrogant and imperialistic these rejections of the supposedly arrogant and imperialistic religions really are.” By embracing the viewpoint that they have discovered what all the religions of the world have missed—that really, all the religious viewpoints in the world are ultimately and underneath the same—these “tolerance advocates” give away the arrogance of their own position.
But I digress: we as Christians proclaim that God is manifest in the flesh in the Person of Jesus Christ, that when we see Jesus, we are not only seeing some ethereal “essence” of God, but we are seeing very God of very God Himself. Everything we believe is predicated upon this; without it, any professed “Christian” faith is mere counterfeit.
TossUp
How do you answer the person who says, “I can accept that Jesus was a good man, but I cannot believe He was God”?
The Big Idea:
Jesus is fully God in every way.
As last week, we can’t possibly say nearly all that needs to be said on this subject; there could be many more points made, and much more material given under each point! Look with me at John 14:8-11.
I. What Jesus Claimed about Himself
Quick: what do all of these folks have in common?
• Jayne Seymour
• Peter Sellers
• Elizabeth Taylor
• Sharon Stone
• Larry Hagman
• Gary Busey
• Tony Bennett
• Burt Reynolds
• Chevy Chase
• George Lucas
• William Peterson
They join with Ozzy Osbourne in claiming to have “near death experiences”. Osbourne claimed to see “a white light shining through the darkness, but no…angels, no one blowing trumpets, and no man in a white beard.” Then there are those who claim NDEs, but instead of seeing Jesus, they claim to have seen another individual, and there are so many of these folks that one man, Raymond Moody, was prompted to write a book he entitled, Elvis After Life. Thank ya, thank ya very much… but that’s not what Jesus said; He claimed something wholly other than a “near death experience”.
A. He Said He Came Down from Heaven
Jesus said in John 6:38 – “I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me.” He claimed to have existed there prior to coming to earth, the original Alien. This world was not His home, He made clear. Now this set off quite the reaction; if you read the rest of John 6, you will see that making statements like this would have caused Him to royally flunk Church Growth class. People said, “we know this cat, where he comes from; he lives down the road a little ways; we know his parents, and he’s a construction worker, for goodness’ sake! Where’s he get off saying that he came down from heaven?” And a lot of people called “His disciples” hung up their sandals on this one. They couldn’t grasp the idea that before He was born, Jesus existed. But what is the Scriptural witness?
Consider Galatians 4:4, the wording there. “…when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” Jesus was born in a certain way, to a Jewish woman, but He was sent by God.
Also consider II Corinthians 8:9, which teaches us that Christ Who was rich, for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might be made rich. What can this mean but the pre-existence of Jesus prior to His coming to earth? We talked last week about the fact that Jesus came to earth on occasion—remember our word, “Christophany”?—and this necessitates that Jesus existed prior to His being born. He was clearly more than a mere human being! Now, our JW friends insist that Jesus was God’s first created being, taking precedence and pre-eminence over all the rest of God’s creation, and there’s a passage from Colossians 1 that they misconstrue to attempt to prove this. How might we answer this? With our second truth:
B. He Said He was God
“This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God” (John 5:18). The passage we read together earlier, from John 10, includes Jesus’ statement that “I and My Father are One.” And then, of course, there is the John 8 passage where Jesus says clearly to the religious leaders that “before Abraham was, I AM”, a reference to YHWH God, God having used that term to define Himself to Moses in the burning bush in the desert. Those represent three of many instances when Jesus claimed Godhood for Himself. To try to get around these constitutes hermeneutical gymnastics; the Scripture is clear for those without a preconceived theological position.
Now, it could be, as I’ll point out later, that Jesus is merely speaking grandiose falsehoods—but it rules out the idea that Jesus is a good man, but not God in the flesh—because if He said He was God, and wasn’t, then He’s a liar, hardly a good man. We might ask if the idea that Jesus is a liar comports with everything else we know about Him: His character, His compassion, His good deeds, His patience in suffering; all of these and many more give testament to His character. So He could be lying when He claimed to be God, or He could be telling the truth, but either way, He cannot be what so many claim that He is: a good man, but not God. That’s an impossible, unworkable scenario, and to suggest it is simply to be ignorant of the facts as they present themselves. Next, note
II. What Others Said about Him
A. People
The reaction of people to Jesus’ statements make it clear that they knew what so many today miss: Jesus was indeed claiming to be God in the flesh. This was why the Jewish leaders sought to crucify Him: He made Himself to be God; this was the alleged crime for which Jesus was put on trial. People understood Him to be saying that He was God! Second, we read the words of
B. Paul
Philippians 2:5-11 is one of the signal passages of the New Testament, and in :6, Paul declares of Jesus that He was in the very “form of God” and had “equality with God”. “Form” is a word that in English can take several meanings, but the closest to Paul’s idea is when someone says, “he’s in fine form today”. Paul speaks primarily of Christ’s pre-incarnate position; He was of the very nature of God. The second word, where we get the word “equality” from, is the Greek isos, from which we get the term “isosceles triangle”. An isosceles triangle is one with two equal sides. Jesus is equal to God; that’s what Paul is saying.
He echoes this in Colossians 2:9 – “in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily”. And then there is the testimony of
C. John
The book of John is a treatise written to inculcate clearly this truth: Jesus is God come in the flesh. The entire book brims and breathes with many allusions to this fact. He begins his book this way: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God….and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:1,14). Further, reference John 12:37-41: “Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, 38 so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” 39 Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said, 40 “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.” 41 Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him.“
For a Jew of John’s time to speak in such a manner was unmistakable, though the significance may be lost on us. God dwelt in glory unspeakable; to use that terminology of seeing One’s glory, was to speak of God—and yet John uses it of Jesus. But getting beyond words to deeds, let’s notice next
III. What Jesus Did
Some of the things that Jesus did could only rightly be done by God Himself. Now of course, Jesus could have been an impostor pretending to do the things He was saying that He did—but we’ll get to that. First,
A. He Forgave Sin
Mark 2:1-12 records Jesus forgiving the sins of a paralyzed man. Luke 7:36-50 records the story of Jesus, reclining at the table of Simon, finding a woman washing His feet with her tears and wiping them dry with her hair. He says to her, “your sins are forgiven.”
Jesus understood Himself to be and to do in significant measure what in Jewish understanding the Temple did. He referred to His body as the temple which, when destroyed, would be raised up again in three days (John 2), and He said that, interestingly, with the Jerusalem temple as backdrop (as He had created a ruckus by physically booting out the moneychangers). It was in the Temple, or in times when the Jews were scattered among the nations, toward the Temple, that Jews would receive forgiveness of sins through the offering of sacrifices. He not only told people, “your sins are forgiven”, but He came declaring that in Himself was the offer of forgiveness that the Temple pointed toward, that He was the flesh-and-blood fulfillment of that which the Temple signified: forgiveness from God and restored worship of God. Worship and forgiveness centered on Jesus, not Jerusalem.
B. He Accepted Worship
Jesus, in responding to Satan, used these words: “worship the Lord your God, and Him only” (Matthew 4:10). Jesus made it clear that worship was reserved only for God; this comported with the Jewish understanding that reserved worship for God alone. Now note:
• After Jesus walked on the water, as is recorded in Matthew 14, the disciples worshipped Him, saying, “Truly, You are the Son of God.” Question: what kind of man accepts worship? Either a blasphemer, or God come in the flesh!
• The resurrected Christ met the skeptical Thomas in order to graciously give to Thomas the proof that he had requested. Thomas had said, “unless I see in his hands the nail marks, and put my fingers in and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.” And so Jesus invited Thomas to do just that. But it didn’t take that; upon seeing Christ and hearing Him make the invitation, Thomas fell to the ground and proclaimed, “Adonai! Elohim!” Translated, “Lord and God”. The Jehovah’s Witnesses attempt to sidestep the clear implications of this by suggesting that Thomas was using the name of God loosely in amazement—but this will not do, and is frankly offensive to suggest; no pious Jew would dare allow the name of God to so easily and thoughtlessly escape his lips. But notice Jesus’ response: He willingly accepted this worship. Question: what kind of man accepts worship? Either a blasphemer, or God come in the flesh!
• And Luke records, in the next-to-last verse of his gospel, that at Christ’s ascension into Heaven, the disciples worshipped Him. Again, no negative word of condemnation for such worship!
Jesus made it pretty clear that only God was deserving of worship—and then He Himself accepted it. And by the way, other New Testament writers ascribe worship to Jesus:
• Hebrews 1:6 – “When he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God's angels worship him.” 7 Of the angels he says, “He makes his angels winds, and his ministers a flame of fire.” 8 But of the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.”
• Philippians 2:10 – “Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father.”
And, of course
C. He Performed Miracles
Which we’ll get to next. So here’s the story: we’ve got a Man Who made some incredible claims—outrageous, blasphemous claims if He were merely a man—so why should Jesus be believed?
Anybody can say he is God. “Daddy”, this nutjob in south Florida we referenced last week, makes that claim. Various emperors and kings have claimed divinity. Crackpots galore have made messianic claims. Why believe them? Anybody, if they’re nutty enough to claim to be God, can say to their followers, “worship me”, and accept the worship of others. I mean, if you bought the idea that I was actually God in the flesh, it wouldn’t seem to be a hard sell-job to take the next step and say, “hey, you really believe I’m God? Fall down and worship me!”
And anybody can claim to forgive sins. I could say, “_____, your sins are forgiven. Go and sin no more.” But the question is, why should anyone believe me? In fact, we have thus far discussed words, claims made by or about Jesus. And talk, as they say, is cheap. A man can squawk and sit in a cage and claim he’s a parakeet, but that doesn’t make it so. How do we know that the claims Jesus makes of Himself; how do we know that the claims others make of Him, are in fact true?
Let’s answer that by revisiting the Mark 2 account of forgiving the sins of the paralyzed man. Jesus recognized that it was easy enough to say, “I forgive your sins”, that while that would be considered a blasphemous statement, there was no real way to prove or disprove that statement. I could say the same—big deal, right? Well…that’s why we have to look at the whole story. Look at Mark 2 with me.
Jesus is preaching to a group of people inside a home in Capernaum, when all of a sudden there is a commotion on the roof, and presently, bits of thatch and clay begin falling all around, and the dust is something awful. Finally, emerging through the roof is a desperate man, helped to
Jesus by his four buddies. Now, I’ve had some sermon distractions before, but crying babies and fits of coughing are no match for a hole in the ceiling! But the shock of the demolition project pales in comparison with Jesus’ next words. Scripture says that what Jesus saw was “their faith”, that of the four men and the paralyzed one—and on that basis, He pronounced, not healing, but forgiveness of sins! The reaction from the religion boys was swift—who can forgive sins, but God?
But Jesus backed up His claim. His miracle of making the paralyzed man’s legs capable of walking was the proof He offered of His ability to forgive sins. It’s as though He’s saying, “sure, talk is cheap—but I will walk the talk by healing this man, performing a visible, undeniable miracle in order to corroborate everything else I’ve said, to back up my claim to be able to forgive sins.” And the man got up and walked at Jesus’ command—confident of Jesus’ forgiveness of his sins. And this leads to our conclusion:
IV. What Confirmed the Truth: Signs and Wonders
What so many folks miss today is that there was a clear purpose to Jesus’ miracles; they were not merely done in order to help folks—though of course they did that—but there was a purpose behind them. What did the miracles constitute? God-ordained proof of the identity of Jesus as God come in the flesh!
Peter at Pentecost (Acts 2:22) describes Jesus thusly: “Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst.”
John 2:11, of the first recorded miracle of Jesus, turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana, “This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.”
Nicodemus’ testimony is recorded in John 3: “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Our responsive reading this morning was from John 10, where Jesus calls on the questioning religious leaders to believe, if not the words, then the works He had done, in order that they might know that He is in the Father and the Father in Him. And then, the passage we read at the beginning of the message, from John 14, records Jesus saying the same essential thing to His questioning disciple Philip.
Here is the proof: though any man might be able to say all manner of things, Jesus backed up His words with signs and wonders, miracles done for the expressed purpose of demonstrating Who He was: God come in the flesh, capped off, of course, by the miracle of the resurrection. God vindicated Jesus, His only Son, as the Sent One, the Messiah, God incarnate as Jesus claimed, through these miracles.
So we can take the lines that various people give us as their definitions of Jesus—illogical as some of them might be, contrary to Scripture as others are—or we can place our trust in the conclusion that an honest study of Scripture points us toward: Jesus is fully God in every way!
TalkAbout
Why is it critical to our faith that Jesus is God? Answer it this way: “if Jesus were not God, ______________________.”
