FROM MATTHEW, MARK, and LUKE
MATTHEW
52. Lord of the Sabbath
In Genesis 2:1-3, the God of creation ends His initial work, “and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it...”
4,000 years later, a Man stood upon the earth and proclaimed to the Pharisees and anyone else who wanted to hear, “The Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day.” (Matthew 12:8)
Again we must say, the Man is either very presumptuous, or He is God.
53. Speaker of Imperishable Words
In the midst of speaking to His disciples one day, Jesus makes this strong statement: (24:35) “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but My words shall not pass away.”
Mere mortals don’t talk this way. He must be the same God referred to by David in Psalm 119:89, “Forever, O Lord, Thy word is settled in heaven.”
54. Omnipotent One
“Omnipotent” means, “having all power.” We think of God Almighty in Heaven as this One. Well we should. But see His Son make this statement, and you will enter once more into the mystery of Godliness: (28:18) “All power is given unto Me in Heaven and in Earth.” That's a lot of power. That's infinite power.
Truly He emptied Himself when He became a man. Here we see Him re-filled with the glory He had with the Father from all eternity. Not just a resuscitated corpse, this resurrected Jesus. God in all His power and might.
MARK
55. “The Lord”
Jesus needs a colt. He is about to ride into Jerusalem, fulfilling prophecy. His instruction to His disciples:(11:3) “...ye shall find a colt tied, whereon never man sat: loose him, and bring him. And if any man say unto you, Why do ye this? say ye that the Lord hath need of him...”
As the Yahweh of old, Jesus was known as “the Lord” to His followers. They seemed to accept that pretty well.
LUKE
56. “God”
Here Jesus has cast out devils from one possessed. He is being asked to leave by the residents of the area. But a lone figure positions himself next to Jesus, wanting to go with Him. It is the one formerly possessed. Jesus tells him, 8:39, to “Return to thine own house, and show how great things God hath done unto thee.”
The man knew it was Jesus who had delivered him. Jesus here equates Himself with God.
FROM JOHN
57. Formerly Unseen God
“No man hath seen God at any time.” (1:18) A simple enough statement. But can God ever be seen? Oh yes, the verse continues: “the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.”
Here the Father and the Son are seen as one entity, partially seen, partially unseen, all Mystery! But the meaning is clear: we can see God by seeing Jesus!
Philip (chapter 14) said that if Jesus could just give the disciples a glimpse of the Father, they would all be satisfied. The startling response: "I've been with you all this time, and you have not known Me, Philip? Philip, He that has seen Me has seen the Father!"
58. “Equal to God”
5:18. Here the Jews get a piece of the puzzle. Jesus had been working on the Sabbath. When challenged by the Jews, Jesus simply answered, (5:17) “ My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.”
That did it. “Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill Him, because He not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God.”
They began to see a glimmer of truth. When they realized just how equal He believed Himself to be, they would put Him on a cross!
Interesting to me in this passage is the fact that the mere connection of a father to a son implies equality. Jesus was not saying He is the Father. He simply called Himself a son, and immediately the Pharisees knew what the conclusion was. If you have someone's DNA, you are equal in substance to that person.
59. Knowable as the Father
The Pharisees want to know where Jesus’ “Father” is. His reply, 8:19, “Ye neither know Me, nor My Father: if ye had known Me, ye should have known My Father also.”
Stirrings. Search for stones. But they can’t kill Him now, “for His hour was not yet come.” And why so angry? Once more He had just called Himself God! He had just suggested that to know One (the Son) is to know the Other (the Father)! He repeats this declaration to His disciples (14:7).
60. Glorified One
13:31 “Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in Him.” Whenever Jesus is glorified, God is glorified. Can this be said of any other human?
61. Greater But Equal
John 14-17 is a treasure trove for those who wish to bask in the sunshine of the God-man, exulting in His Deity. It's all over this final discourse before the tragedies erupt in Jesus' life. Consider:
14:13. Whatever you ask, I will do. How could anyone but God say that?
14:16-18. The promise of the Spirit. That Spirit will be with the disciples forever. Jesus will not allow us to be "orphans." He Himself will come to us. You heard it right. The Spirit will come to us. The Divine Spirit. But Jesus also will come to us. Jesus is hereby proclaimed not only one with the Father, but one with the Spirit. When Jesus comes inside of you, so does the Spirit. When the Spirit comes inside of you, so does Jesus.
And that's not all. 14:23. Anyone who loves Jesus will receive another Heavenly visitor. Jesus' Father will love such folks, and "We" will come to them and make our home inside of them!
You remember "We," don't you? The same "we" that said, "Let us make man in our own image." Father. Son. One.
Now the plot thickens. John 14:28 is quoted by those who wish to challenge this mountain of evidence of the Deity of Christ. Jesus says here, “...My Father is greater than I.”
When the overwhelming sense of Scripture points one way, and a lone passage seems to point another, it is probably best to explain the one passage than explain away the many others. Paul will do the explaining of John 14:28 in his letter to the Philippians, 2:5-7: “ Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, Who, being in the form of God [ a pretty straightforward way to put it! ] thought it not robbery [“ a thing to be grasped,” in Greek ] to be equal with God. [He was/is God, but was not living in the privilege of One Who is God] but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men [hence God with us, one of us, but actually God! Oh , glory to Him!]”
So for those 30 plus years we know of as the “Incarnation”, the en-fleshing of God Almighty, Jesus saw the Father as “greater”, since He had deliberately stooped down to our lowly status, so that He could walk with us. His Father was greater than Him because He had chosen to be less than His Father for that short period.
John 17:5 should be the last nail in the coffin of those who wish to take God-ness from Christ. Jesus prays to His Father, “Glorify Thou Me [more presumption unless He is God and deserves glory!] with Thine own Self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was.” !
What a prayer! Jesus says, I was sharing glory with you before, I will again. But now, I deliberately tear away from that glory to save these poor earthlings. What a Mighty God we serve! And His Name is Jesus!
62. Owner of All Things
16:15 “All things that the Father hath are Mine...” 17:9-10 “I pray for them [disciples]: I pray not for the world, but for them which Thou hast given Me; for they are Thine. And all Mine are Thine, and Thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.”
What can we say? God owns it all, including all believers. Jesus lays claim not only to the same possessions, but the glory that goes with it!
John is truly filled with the wonder of Jesus’ God-ness. We’ll visit him again later.
FROM PETER
ACTS
63. Lord of All
It’s Peter preaching now, to Cornelius, Gentile convert. (10:36) “The word which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ: (He is Lord of all)”
Jesus is not a usurper. God, the Almighty, has not stepped down off His Throne. God , the Almighty, is Jesus.
I PETER
64. The Spirit of the Prophets
Do I need to prove to my readers that it was Jahweh, the Covenant God of Israel, who sent and spoke through the prophets? No? Good.
But there is a piece of information that we are not given until the Apostle Peter shares it with us in his letter, 1:10-11...listen carefully:
“Of (your) salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently...searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify...” But wait. There’s more to the mystery. Peter continues (II Peter 1:21) “For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.”
The Old Covenant prophets were filled with the same Spirit that fills us! That we may have guessed. But did you know that the Spirit of Jesus Christ was in those prophets?
No surprise now, perhaps. Yahweh, Christ, Holy Ghost. All One.
FROM PAUL
ACTS
65. The true Name at Baptism
There is only one in whose Name we should be baptized. Notice how the fullness of Scripture defines that Name. In Acts 19:5 we see how some believers who had been baptized unto John the Baptist, are re-baptized, at Paul's urging, “in the name of the Lord Jesus.”
Not believing that the baptizers were disobeying the command of Jesus, we must assume that baptizing “in the name of Jesus” is no different than the formula Jesus gave: Matthew 28:19... “Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”
Put those stones down. I am not denying the personality of Father and Spirit, only trying to point out the essential Oneness of the Godhead.
The name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Is it not Jesus?
I CORINTHIANS
66. The Lord From Heaven
Who is the Lord of Heaven? Every Bible-reader knows it is Yahweh, Elohim, Adonai, and so on. But He has another name!
15:47 “The first man [Adam] is of the earth, earthy: the second Man [Adam] is the Lord from Heaven” !
Who is Adam being compared to here? None other than Jesus Christ the Lord!
Yahweh, Elohim, Adonai, Yeshua. All the Same!
COLOSSIANS
67. Image of God
1:13-15. “(God) hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son...Who is the image of the invisible God...”
When you look into a mirror, you see your image...
68. Fulness of the Godhead
2:9-10 “For in ( Christ ) dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily [in a bodily form]. And ye are complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and power.” 3:3 “...your life is hid with Christ in God.”
Everything in God is in Christ. Everything I need from God I find in Christ. Christ is God.
I TIMOTHY
69.God of the greeting
1:2 “...Grace, mercy, and peace, from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.”
This may seem a bit trivial after the astounding facts I have shared so far, but check out the greetings to the epistles and you will quite often find “God” and “Christ” mentioned in the same breath. It’s as though the writer is saying, “I can’t send you a letter from God without sending you that same letter from Christ. Because of the Incarnation, we think of two. Because of the Godhead, we are brought back to One. And both countings are correct!
70.God of the Mystery of Godliness
3:16. “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.”
Here is one of the classics on the Deity of Christ. Of course, the “scholars” have jumped on it, informing us that the word “God” is not in all the ancient manuscripts. So this is just telling about some remarkable human being...
No. Paul said “without controversy” and He meant it, present disputers aside. As you have read through this book, it should be obvious that the Deity of Christ does not rest on this one passage! But it is not necessary to surrender this verse; in fact, in the light of all the other Scriptures, the King James rendering here is the only one that makes sense.
What do we mean by the mystery of godliness? This is the same “godliness” that is listed as a quality of the Spirit-filled Christian. It comes from a Greek word that means literally “well-revered” or “worshipped.” Great then, is the mystery of that which is holy and worthy of worship to us as believers. (The quality of godliness, then, is a reverential nature)
Whether you put the word “God” next or not, that which follows is worthy of our worship! A person who was manifest in the flesh. Humans are never considered to be manifest or revealed in the flesh. We’re just flesh! But GOD was revealed, made, flesh for sinful man. That fits.
That Jesus would have been justified in the Spirit is no great mystery, if He is a human, who like us, needs to be justified. But if God is somehow “justified” by His own Spirit, now that is a mystery!
Seen of angels? You and I and all humans have been seen of angels. But what a mystery that the One Whom no one can see was seen! Mystery!
Preached unto the Gentiles? What mystery is there for a mere mortal man to be announced to heathens? But if God, whose special love for the House of Israel is proclaimed throughout the Old Covenant, if God Himself is now being preached to Gentiles, we have a mystery here!
“Believed on in the world?” No mystery . Jesus the man was believed on by His disciples. But to say that God, whose abode has always been considered Heaven, was believed on in the world, creates something to ponder.
And “received up into glory” is the crowning confusion of this mystery. How could God, who lives eternally in glory, be “received up” into glory. I think the word “God” is safely kept in the text. Oh, without controversy!
FROM JOHN (again)
I JOHN
71. Simply ONE
That’s right, John, keep it simple for us. (I John 5:7) “ For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.” With a statement like this, we want to say with the disciples, “Now speakest Thou plainly, and speakest no proverb...” (John 16:29)
These 3 are 1. Not to be understood. To be believed!
72. True God
John, in typical zest for this topic, ends his first epistle thus: (5:20) “And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life.”
Jesus, the true one, is the true God.
REVELATION
73.God of the Visions
At the beginning of the feverish activity of this book of Revelation, John sees one that he claims is like “the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and His eyes were as a flame of fire; and His feet like unto fine brass...and His voice as the sound of many waters.” Later Jesus identifies Himself more clearly by stating, “I am He that liveth and was dead.” (1:18)
But others in the line of prophets have seen similar men. They did not call them “Jesus,” but we always assumed they were God. For example, Daniel’s “ancient of days.” (Daniel 7:9) “...the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool...”
Then there’s Daniel’s “certain man,” found in 10:5-6 “...and behold a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz; His body also was like the beryl, and His face as the appearance of lightning, and His eyes as lamps of fire, and His arms and His feet like in color to polished brass, and the voice of His words like the voice of a multitude.”
The same Divine Being .
74.Equally Praised
You will notice a praise service going on in chapter 5, verse 13. “And every creature which is in Heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.
Same equation here. We can’t stretch so far as to say that there are two separate entities here, both receiving these adulations. Neither can we deny the dual character of the One God. Marvelous mystery!
75. Alpha & Omega
We can do no better than to end with these famous words from Jesus. Or are they from the Father? Even the “red-letter" suppliers of my King James Bible get confused on this one!
Clearly it is Jesus calling Himself “Alpha and Omega” in the first chapter of the book, verses 8 and 11. By the time we get to chapter 21, and the same words are spoken, the editor shies away from his red letters when he comes to verse 6. Here the context speaks of “God”, the God who shall “wipe away all tears”, and “make all things new”, and “give to him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.” This One says “I will be his God, and he shall be my son,” to that same thirsty one.
But no red letters! I ask you, Who is the “Alpha and Omega”? All you have to do to find out is go to chapter 22, where , in the brightest of red letters , in verse 13, following a verse that says “Behold I come quickly,” is the statement, I am Alpha and Omega...”
The inconsistency is understandable, but hardly justifiable. This God of the New Jerusalem is none other than Jesus Himself! And if every word that was ever spoken by this God known as Jesus were to be colored red, would not the entire set of Holy Scriptures have to be of this hue? The Book is “God-breathed”, is it not?
To be God-breathed means to be Jesus-breathed.
I think you’ve probably got the point by now.
