The Truth about Jesus

Without hesitation, I confess that I worship (yes, I mean worship) Jesus Christ. My hope and meaning in life and death are inseparable from Jesus. I long for the day when every knee will bow to acknowledge the Lordship of Jesus. There are many good reasons for choosing allegiance to Jesus Christ.

C. S. Lewis summarized the dilemna many find themselves in regarding the identity of Jesus:

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic –on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg-or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”In the historical record about Jesus, we learn five significant truths concerning his identity:

1. Jesus is worthy of worship: ( Phil. 2:10-11w/ Isa. 45:23 & Rom. 14:11; Mt. 2:11; 8:2; 23:9; Jn. 5:23, 20:28-29)

2. Jesus placed his words on equal authority with the OT: (Mt. 5:21-22, 27-28; Mk. 2:27-28 w/Ex. 20:8-11).

Note: Jesus does not use the common Old Testament prophetic formula “Thus says the Lord.” He spoke with authority the words: “I say unto you” or “I tell you”.

3. Jesus claimed to exist before his earthly life:

Jn. 8:58 is one of the strongest claims to Jesus being God (his deity) from his own confession. Concerning His use of  “I am” (ego eimi), D.A. Carson wrote, “Moreover, the strong linguistic connections with Isaiah 40-55 are supported by obvious conceptual links: cf. ‘I, the Lord’, – with the first of them and with the last- I am he (Is. 41:4); “Yes, and from ancient days I am he’ (Is. 43:13).  Cf. Ps. 90:2. That the Jews take up stones to kill him presupposes that they understand these words as some kind of blasphemous claim to deity.”  (P. 358, The Gospel According to John, D.A. Carson.  Cf. Also Ex. 3:14-15; Jn. 8:59 w/Lev. 24:16; Jn. 3:13; 17:5; Mic. 5:2 w.Mt. 2:1-6; Lk. 1:30-35)

4. Jesus claimed oneness with the God the Father: (Jn. 10:30; 14:7-9).

5. Jesus’ equality with the Father (Matt. 13:41) is witnessed in five main areas:

(1) In Creation: (Gen. 1:1 w/Jn. 1:1-3, 10; Col. 1:15-17; Heb.      1:1-3)

(2) In Judgment: (Rom. 14:10, 12; Jn. 5:22; II Tim. 4:1)

(3) In Sovereign rule: (Mt. 28:19-20; Eph. 1:20-22; I Pet. 3:22; Heb. 2:8)

(4) In Forgiving sin: (Mk. 2:5-10) – This is especially instructive because it would have been a suitable opportunity for Jesus to correct the scribes if they misunderstood His words (see v. 7; also Jn. 19:7; Mt. 26:63-66)

(5) In reconciliation and salvation: (II Cor. 5:18 w/Jn. 14:10b)

6. Four key passages on the identity of Jesus Christ

John 1:1-3- The context firmly establishes the identity of the Word with Jesus Christ (cf. 1:14; Rev. 19:13). These verses present strong verification of Jesus identity as God (the Deity of Christ).  This truth is what distinguishes true Christianity from the many cults that deny the equality of Jesus Christ with Jehovah God.  One group that is guilty of this serious error is deceitfully called: “Jehovah’s Witnesses”. Their distortion of John 1 is an example of how people twist the Scriptures to their own destruction. They say that according to the Greek New Testament, John 1:1 should be translated, “In (the) beginning the Word was, and the Word was with (the) God and the Word was a god.” They teach this because the second use of God appears without a definite article. But, not only is their translation of John 1:1 incorrect and incongruous with grammatical rules, at least four other times in this chapter the title “God” appears without the definite article and they never translate it “a god”  (John 1:6, 12, 13, 18).  Further, in John 3:2, 13:3 one finds two appearances of the word “God” with the same construction as John 1:1 – but they do not translate it as “a god”.

In John 1:2 – Jesus equality with God does not dissolve his distinction from God the father.  This is the mystery of the Trinity.  He (the same) was in the beginning with God.  Christianity faithfully teaches that the Godhead eternally exists in three persons: The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit— and that these three are one God. Distinction of each does not dissolve equality and equality does not dissolve the distinction. From the beginning God said, “Let us make man in our image” (Genesis 1).

In John 1:3, we have a more emphatic emphasis. “Apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” If Jesus Christ is not eternal, he must have come into existence at some point in time. This would require him to be a creature. Yet, according to v. 3, (1) all things that are created are created through him. Therefore, (2) he pre-existed all created things. But that’s not all (3) he himself must be self-existence because he is not dependent upon anyone or anything for his existence. Therefore, Jesus Christ is none other than the self-existent God of the OT who calls himself “I Am that I Am.”

Colossians 2:9 (cf. Jn. 14:10b; II Cor. 5:18; col. 1:19-20). “Some recent exegetes have objected to the traditional exegesis of this phrase claiming that the deity of Jesus Christ is not to be interpreted in static, ontological categories such as those of “substance” or “essence”, but in soteriological and eschatological thought forms that refer to God’s working in Christ.  It is true that in the immediate context the notion of fullness as being imparted to the readers is in view (so v. 10).  However, the reception of salvation, described in verse 10 as being filled in him alone, becomes meaningful only if he is the one in whom the plenitude of deity is embodied.  If the fullness of deity does not reside in him then the Colossians’ fullness would not amount to much at all — the very point Paul is making over against the errorists’ teaching on fullness.  Further, a functional Christology presupposes, and finds its ultimate basis in, an ontological Christology.”  (Harris, in NIDNTT, 3, 1193).  (pp. 111-112, WBC Colossians, Philemon, Peter, T. O. Brien).

Philippians 2:5-6 – When Paul wrote of Christ being “In the Form of God,” he is acknowledging the equality of Jesus with God.Directing our attention to the immediate context for understanding the meaning of the word “form” (morphe). “Here in Phil. 2:6 we are greatly helped by two factors. In the first place, we have the correspondence of morphe theou with isa theo. Kasemann, as we have noticed, was absolutely right in emphasizing that being “in the form of God” is equivalent to being “equal with God.” To go beyond this equivalence and inquire whether morphe tells us precisely in what respects Jesus is equal with God (in essence? attributes? attitudes? appearance?) is asking too much from one word … And it moreover follows that the Philippians passage, although not written for the purpose of presenting an ontological description of Christ, is very much consonant with the trinitarian formulas of the fourth-century church” (pp. 115-116, W.E.C. Philippians, Moises Silva).

Hebrews 1:1-3, 8- 1:2 – The priority of Christ to all creation. His pre-existence and co-existence with the Father.

1:3 - He is the radiance of God’s glory - “Who does not see,” asks Athanasius, “that the brightness cannot be separated from the light, but that it is by nature proper to it and co-existent with it, and is not produced after it?”  (Encyclical Epistle to the Bishops of Egypt and Lybia, (AD 356) 114), (cf. Ex. 24:15-17; Mk. 9:2ff; Jn. 17:5; Acts 9:3; 22:6; 26:13; II Cor. 3:18; 4:6).

1:3 - He is the exact representation of God’s nature. (cf. J. 14:9; II Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15). B.F. Westcott wrote, “He is the expression of the ‘essence’ of God.  He brings the Divine before us at once perfectly and definitely according to the measure of our powers.” “Of the two expressions, ‘the radiance of his glory’ and ‘the very stamp of his nature’, the former, which implies the consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, is balanced by the latter, which implies the distinctness of the person of the Son from that of the Father, and both designate the function of the Incarnate Son who, as the Light and the Truth (Jn. 8:12; 9:5; 14:6), is the Revealer of God to mankind” (p. 44, Hebrews, Philip Hughes).

Application to your life:

God does not offer Jesus as an option to be considered. Humanity is obligated by God himself to respond. If a person chooses to be indifferent to Jesus, it will equal rejection of Him. On the other hand, if you turn to Jesus to save you from your sins and be your Lord in life, you have this promise from Jesus: “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away …For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:37-40). If you reject Jesus – according to his own word – there is no other way to eternal life (see: John 14:6).

“The biblical presentation of Jesus refuses to remain nicely confined to any of our containers. One picture after another of Jesus in this long line of nontraditional portraits fails before one question dear to the hearts of all faithful Christians: ‘What about the Cross?’… Why would anyone crucify the reasonable Jesus of the Enlightenment?  Why would anyone crucify the dreamy poet of Romanticism? Why would anyone crucify the Law-abiding, mild-mannered rabbit of revisionist Jewish scholarship? Why would anyone crucify the witty, enigmatic, and marginal figure of the Jesus Seminar?” A Jewish scholar says, ‘Theologians produced the figure they could admire most at the least cost.’ But the Cross stands amidst each such easy path, each attempt to avoid the heart of the matter and the cost of discipleship. The Cross remains a stumbling block for all who encounter this Jesus. He is perhaps not the person we want, but he is surely the person we still – desperately – need” (Allen)

Steve Cornell