Jesus is God

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

Preface

Who is Jesus Christ? What do you think he is? This is the single most important question you or anyone else will have to face. It doesn't matter whether you are a Christian or not. It is important because it is inescapable-you are going to answer it sooner or later, in this world or in the world to come-and because the quality of your life here and your eternal destiny depend upon your answer.

Who is Jesus? If he were only a man, then you can safely forget him. If he is God, as he claimed to be, and as all Christians believe, then you should yield your whole life to him, worship him, and serve him faithfully. If you had never answered this question personally or if you had assumed (perhaps without much investigation) that Jesus was only a man, then the Gospel of John is particularly for you.

A Biblical Doctrine

It is not only in John's Gospel that we encounter such teachings. These themes are found throughout the Bible. What is more, although they are very profound, they are taught in the most natural way and in a totally artless manner.

Let me take just three places where the Bible describes the nature of Jesus by means of two complementary verbs. The first example comes from the OT prophecy of Iasiah that reads: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is govin, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace”(Isa 9:6). This verse teaches that Jesus was to be One who was always God's Son but would become man at a particular point of history. Hence as a child he is born, but as a Son he is given. In <Romans> we read the same teaching that reads: “...regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was declared to with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead”(Ro 1:3-4). Jesus was made the seed of David according to the flesh, but declared always to be the Son of God. Finally, in <Galatian> we read: “But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law to redeem those under law”(Gal 4:4-5). As a Son, Jesus was sent. Hence he was always God. Nevertheless, he was made under law. He became man. So the Bible never hesitates to declare these seemingly contradictory twin truths.

We must not make the mistake of thinking Jesus as being merely a divine man or, on the other hand, of being merely a human God. He is the God-man. He is fully God and at the same time perfectly man. He is God with us, God for us, God in us. Why are these truths do important? Why is the humanity of Jesus Christ so important?

Able to Die

First, It is important because he is able to die (He is not a kind of die-hard). It is possible for him to die. This is easy to see. It is what the Bible says: "Because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, Here I am-it is written about me in the Bible-I have come to do your will, O God"(Heb 10:4-7). A body made it possible for Jesus to die.

In the beginning, in the eternal counsels of God, before there was nothing else nor a lost race of men, Jesus foresaw all human history and knew that he was to redeem the race. Thus, in the fullness of time, in the days of Roman empire, he assumed a body so that he could offer up that body as the perfect sacrifice for man's sin.

This is what we find throughout the Bible. The very name Jesus looks forward to an act of saving significance. For the angel said of Mary, “She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins”(Mt 1:21). Jesus himself spoke of the suffering that was to come(Mk 8:81; 9:31) linking the success of his mission to his death: “But I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself”(Jn 12:32). At several places in John's Gospel his death on the cross is spoken of as the vital “time” for which Jesus came and to which his ministry inflexibly proceeded(Jn 2:4; 7:30; 8:20; 13:1; 17:1).

Moreover, the death of Jesus is in a real sense the theme of the Old Testament also. The OT prefigures Jesus' suffering, and the prophets explicitly foretell it. Paul teaches that Abraham was saved by faith in Christ(Gal 3:8, 16). Finally, Jesus taught the downcast Emmaus disciples that the OT foretold his death and resurrection: “And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scripture concerning himself”(Lk 24:27). All-in-all, this death was the focal point of world and biblical history.

Able to understand

There is also a 2nd reason why it is important for the eternal Son of God to become man. The fact that Jesus took upon himself all that we are and know and experience also made it possible for him to be touched with the feelings of our weakness & infirmities. In this regard the Bible says as follows: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are-yet was without sin. So let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive marcy and find grace to help us in our time of need”(Heb 4:15-16). Jesus knew and experienced (in a way that we can understand) what it meant to be man.

We must remember that here there is no play acting; this is the real thing. There are no supernatural advantages for this man. No heavenly rescue party came down to deliver him from the power of evil man, and his agony was not relieved (mitigated) by any superhuman anaesthetic. We can only guess the sufferings and anguish he has gone through when he was crying on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” But the cry “It is finished!” cannot be one of despair. It doesn't even mean “It is all over!” It does mean “It has been completed”. And the terrifying task of doing God's will to the bitter end had been fully and finally accomplished.

It is this suffering that we have to know that Jesus experienced all that we experience- the weariness, disappointment, misunderstandings, and the pain of this life- and so is able to understand and help all those who are his own and are so tempted.

Able to Be Our Example

Third, by becoming man Jesus has also provided us with an example of how then we should live the life pleasing to God. Being what we are, this is the most important.

A few days ago I had a chance to talk to a Christian friend of mine. He has been teaching the Bible for some time to a group of youngsters in his church. But now he finds himself getting tired and sometimes even angry with his students, because he thinks there is little change taking place in their thoughts and attitudes after all those years. He asked me why it was so. Well, as I have thought about it, I have come to feel that one of the major reasons is that they lack an adequate example of how a Christian thinks and behaves according to the Gospel. May be they have never had any contact with a strong and excellent role model.

Now what is true for the Christian ministry is true for other fields as well-business, law, medicine, scholarship, and so on-and it is true spiritually. Thus, Jesus became man to go through all sorts of situations with all sorts of people so that we might be provided with a pattern on which our life can be constructed. He is like a manual we turn to for help whenever we buy something new.

That is what Jesus is for us. He is our sampler, our example. We are supposed to write out the Christian life on him. It is interesting to find that the Bible uses the word for “sampler” or “copybook” when he says, “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow his steps”(1 Pet 2:21). In other words, by means of Jesus' becoming man God wrote the characters of love and righteousness large so that we might copy them by his grace.

Able to Sanctify the Value of Life

Finally, the fourth reason why the incarnation is important is that through it God sanctified (made holy) the value of life in a totally different way. Before the coming of Jesus, life in the ancient world was so cheap; this becomes even truer today where biblical values and principles are being deserted or ignored.

What makes life so cheap? Almost every day, we hear the reports of death; the death from war, traffic accidents, crimes, earth quakes, and so on. In fact, all these reports make us numb as to the value of life and as to the destiny of individual. How about legalizing abortion in many countries? The same is true, I believe.

What will offset this cheapening of human life? Only the values that Christianity brings! Christianity values life, first, because God gave it and, second, because our Lord Jesus sanctified it by assuming a full human nature by means of the incarnation. Jesus became like us.

Does that mean anything to me personally? It should make me thankful. It should lead me to bow down before the Lord Jesus Christ and worship him deeply as my savior. The incarnation is the second greatest truth in the Bible. The greatest is that this God who became man could also love us enough to go to the cross and die for us personally.

Prayer

Dear God, we come to you today with hearts full of new hopes and expectations for the coming new week. But let us know that those hopes can only be filled through you. We come to you to celebrate our Lord's resurrection. Help us to understand your words and have a new meaning of just how much you love each of us. You loved us enough to come to earth, go on the cross and to die for our wrongs, for our sins, so we could live with you forever. O' Father, help us not to just make empty resolutions but let us recommit ourselves to you. We ask this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the eternal life you have given us through our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you also for the liberty and freedom that you give us through our Lord because the law of the Spirit of life set us free from the law of sin and death. We pray that we hold to your words and teaching in order to enjoy the life you have promised-the more abundant life. In Jesus, we pray. Amen.

John's Thesis

It is not surprising, therefore, to find John presenting here an excellent thesis that Jesus is God. What do you do when you write a scientific paper in a university? You begin by setting out what you're going to prove, then prove it, and in the end you make a final statement saying, “See, I did it.” That is exactly what John is doing in his Gospel. At the end of his book, John says that he has written the book so that you and I might know that Jesus is God and that we might believe on him. At the beginning he says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning” (Jn 1:1-2). We know from verse 14, that the Word is Jesus, for in that verse he says that “The Word made flesh and made his dwelling among us.”

What do these verses teach about the divinity of Jesus Christ? Three things may be pointed out. First, he existed “in the beginning.” In other words he was preexistent. He is eternal. There are several ways the phrase “in the beginning” is used in the Bible. For example, in Genesis 1:1, it is used of the beginning of creation, namely the beginning of the “tri-universe” (time; space; matter): “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” But here it is used of “eternal”.

The 2nd statement is that Jesus was with God. Although this is a very subtle statement, it is an affirmation of Christ's separate personality. Here John wants to say that Jesus is fully God. Later on he reports Jesus as saying, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9). But John is also aware that the Trinity is involved here, that there is a diversity within the Godhead.

The final statement is that Jesus is fully divine, for John says, “and the Word was God,” or literally, “and God was the Word.” This means that everything said about God the Father can be said about God the Son. The Bible also says that “for in Christ all the fullness of God lives in the bodily form” (Col 2:9). This means that in Jesus dwells all the wisdom, glory, power, love, holiness, justice, goodness, and the truth of the Father. In him, God the Father is known.

Applications

Knowledge of God

At this point we need some practical applications. What does it matter to say that Jesus Christ is God? (1:1-2)

First, to say that Jesus is God is to say that we know the knowledge of God. We know what God is like. The counterpart of this statement is that apart from Jesus we really cannot know God. Is God the god of Plato’s imagination? We do not know. Is he the god of Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher? Is he the god of other philosophers? Is he the god of mystics? The answer is that apart from Jesus we cannot know. But if Jesus Christ is God, then we do know, because to know Jesus is to know God. There is no knowledge of God apart from the knowledge of Jesus, and there is no knowledge of Jesus without the knowledge of the Bible.

One of the saddest stories in the Bible concerns this theme. Is is in John's Gospel. Toward the end of his ministry, Jesus explained carefully that he was going away from his disciples but that he was going to prepare a place for them and would one day return. The disciples were depressed at the thought of his leaving them. He went on to say that if they had really know him, they would have known the Father (the Heavenly). At this point Philip, one of his disciples, asked him, “Lord show us the Father and that will be enough for us”(Jn 14:8). In other words, he was saying, “If I could just see God, I would be satisfied.” How sad! The disciples had been with Jesus for almost three years and now were nearing the end of his ministry. Still they had not fully recognized that Jesus is God and that they were coming to know God thru him. Jesus then had to answer by saying, “Dont you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?”

Folks, if you want to know what God is like, study the life of Jesus Christ. Read the Bible! Whatever is written in this book of Jesus is true. What is more, if you read them, you will find the Holy Spirit of God, who is the Spirit of the truth, will interpret and explain them to you.

Always Like Jesus

The 2nd practical application of the truth that Jesus is God is that God was always like Jesus. Sometime we tend to think of God as just and holy and stern and avenging; and we tend to think that Jesus somehow changed God's attitude to men. But the Bible knows nothing of that idea. In, particular the Gospel of John tells us that God has always been like Jesus.

Does Jesus hate sin? Yes! So does God. Does Jesus love the sinner? Yes! Therefore, God loves him also. What Jesus did was to open a window so that we might see the eternal and unchanging love of God. In fact God so hates the sin and so love the sinner that in eternity he planned the way in which he would redeem the race. We read the OT and find God saying, “There must be an atonement for sin.” What is an atonement? It is a kind of substitute. We read the accounts of Jesus' life and death, and we find God saying, “There is the atonement for sin.” We come to our time and as we read the Gospel we find God speaking to out hearts and saying, John the Baptist pointing to Jesus and saying, “That was the atonement for sin.  Believe it and be saved.” God has always been like Jesus.

An Acceptable Sacrifice

Third, the truth that Jesus is God means that his death on the cross was significant. It means that in this way he himself became the one sufficient and acceptable sacrifice for man's sin. Folks, let me ask you a question: Who can satisfy holy and perfect God? I don't think that you are foolish enough to claim that you could. Well, you may claim that you would die for another man's sin. Even if you do that, the only sin you die for would be your own because we all are sinners. The Bible says that there is no one righteous, not even one (Ro 3:10). But Jesus, being God himself, is sinless and he alone can satisfy not only the holy demand of God but also all the needs of our heart. So when he died, he died for the sins of others, in their place; he removed the burden of sin forever from those who believe on him.

“Who is This?”

This is John's thesis. We gonna see the evidence as we go on reading the Gospel. But even here we must raise the question we began with from the beginnig: What do you think of Jesus Chirst? Who is he?

This was the question that was raised all through Jesus' earthly ministry. When Jesus rode into the city of Jerusalem on a donkey on what we call Palm Sunday, the people turned to one another and asked, “Who is this?” (matt 21:10). The disciples asked the question after Jesus has stilled the storm on the Lake of Galilee: “Who is This? Even the wind and the wave obey him!” (Mk 4:41). The king Herod asked, “I beheaded John the Baptist. Who then is this I hear such things about?” (Lk 9:9). When Jesus forgave the sins of the paralytic, the scribes and Pharisees asked themselves, “Who is this fellow who speaks blesphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Lk 5:21).

This the question. Is Jesus only a man? If he is, you can afford to forget him. Or is he God? If he is, then he demands your belief and your total allegiance. Do you believe that Jesus is God? You should be able to say like doubting Thomas, “My Lord and my God.” To draw back from making that confession is to perish. To believe it is to enter into eternal life.

Prayer

Dear God, we come to you today with hearts full of new hopes and expectations for the coming new week. But let us know that those hopes can only be filled through you. We come to you to celebrate our Lord's resurrection. Help us to understand your words and have a new meaning of just how much you love each of us. You loved us enough to come to earth, go on the cross and to die for our wrongs, for our sins, so we could live with you forever. O' Father, help us not to just make empty resolutions but let us recommit ourselves to you. We ask this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the eternal life you have given us through our Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you also for the liberty and freedom that you give us through our Lord because the law of the Spirit of life set us free from the law of sin and death. We pray that we hold to your words and teaching in order to enjoy the life you have promised-the more abundant life. In Jesus, we pray. Amen.