JESUS: Who Is He?                                                                      9-11-05

Luke 9:18-20 (Matthew 21:10)  Audio

In 1985 there began something known as the Jesus Seminar.  Scholars from around the world gather twice a year to discuss the life and teachings of Jesus.  But most in this group do not believe that every-thing in the 4 Gospels is accurate.  So they discuss, and then they vote on whether a particular item really belongs in the Bible.

They have concluded that only about 18% of what the Gospels record Jesus saying was what He actually said, and only about 16% of what the Gospels record Jesus doing was what He actually did.  So more than 80% of what we read in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John is inaccurate, this group of scholars say.  Their leader has said that in fact Jesus was probably the first stand-up Jewish comic, and says that it is time to reinvent Christianity. (USNWR 4-8-96, pg49)

Do you remember the old TV game show: To Tell The Truth?  It began in black and white in 1956 and ran for a long time.  There was a panel of celebrity judges who questioned a group of three people, all claiming to be the same person.  On the very first show, three people all said: “My name is Tony Costello.  I am a truant officer and I once sang backup for Frank Sinatra”.

Dick VanDyke, Polly Bergan, John Cameron Swayze, and Hildy Parks all took turns questioning these 3 people, 2 of whom imposters, and one the real deal.  Then they voted.  The votes were tallied and announced, and then came the line that became famous: “Will the real Tony Costello please stand up.”  And you saw which two were the imposters as the person who had been telling the truth stood up.

Their voting changed nothing.  If they all voted wrong, it didn’t change the fact that they were all wrong. 

“Will the real Jesus please stand up?”  The voting of scholars changes nothing. 

For the next year or so we will be looking at the inspired writings of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  If you will read 3 chapters a day, you can read all four of them in a month.  I have been doing that each month this year in a different translation.  And as I have read and re-read these accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus, I have sensed an urgency to preach from these accounts for the next several months.

We begin today with Jesus: Who Is He?  Next week it will be “Jesus, the Prequel”, or Jesus, BC (before conception).  Then we will look at His coming to earth, His mission, His claims, His prayer life, His miracles, His temptation, and then into His teachings, and finally His suffering and death and resurrection and promised return.

Who is this One Whose life and teachings are worth examining for the next year or so?  And why is He so loved by some and so ignored or even despised by others?

Some of you sit here week after week and you still do not know Jesus.  I want to help you to know Him – both to know about Him, and to encounter Him with your spirit – to experience Him in a personal way.  Knowledge about Him is not enough.  There are many today who have information in their head but no personal relationship with Jesus in their heart.  He wants you to have both.

Jesus often asked people questions.  And as I have studied those questions, He is rarely asking for information.  He is rather using His question to make people think.  That was the case in our Bible reading for this morning in Luke chapter 9 (read v.18-20).

“”Who do the crowds understand Me to be?”

The crowds today understand Jesus to be a religious leader, a good man who taught good things and set a good example.  The crowds understand Him to be one among many religious leaders who have walked this earth, all of them sent from God. 

But the Bible portrays Jesus to be much more than what the crowds understand Him to be.

THE BIBLE SAYS JESUS WAS FULLY HUMAN.

When Jesus came to this earth from His eternal home in heaven, He took upon Himself a human body.  Philippians 2:7 says that He emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Jesus’ body was just like yours and mine.  He needed sleep.  He got weary.  He needed to eat, to drink, to breathe air.  When they cut Him, He bled, and when they nailed His body to a cross, He died.

John wrote in 1 John 4 Many false prophets have gone out into the world. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God.

He wrote that because in the early days of Christianity there were those who taught that everything physical was evil; only spirit was good.  So for Jesus to be truly good, He could not have had a physical body.  “These are false prophets” John says.  “Jesus came in the flesh; He had a real human body.  To deny that is to follow a spirit that is not from God.”

I have heard debate over whether or not Jesus ever got sick, ever had a cold, or allergies, or headaches, whether He ever got an upset stomach from eating potato salad that had sat out in the sun too long.  I personally think He did – that His human body was just like ours and that He suffered at times in that body just like we do.

He was fully human.  But He was more than that.

THE BIBLE SAYS JESUS WAS FULLY GOD.

And here is where He is different from other religious leaders. 

The Prophet Isaiah had prophesied: For to us a child is born,

to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.

And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

I spent time one evening in a church member’s home with some Jehovah’s Witnesses who had come to visit them.  I asked if we could limit our discussions to Jesus, and they agreed.  They don’t believe that Jesus is fully God, and I do.  This verse in Isaiah 9:6 is where we started.  And I asked them if they believed this was about Jesus, and they said they did.  So I asked about this term “Mighty God.”

They took their Strong’s Concordance and showed me that this was a different term than “Almighty God”, Who is Jehovah.  And indeed it was a different word.  So I asked them if we could look at the other places this term “Might God” was used, a term that they agreed described Jesus.  And time after time we found that the Mighty God is Jehovah.  That pretty well ended our discussion.

If you will honestly read the Bible, your conclusion will be that the writers believed that Jesus was fully God. 

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was with God in the beginning.  Jesus, the Word, was both with God and was God.  God is more than just the Father, more than just Jesus.  The eternal God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  One God, yet three persons – I can’t fully understand that, and neither can you.  To fully understand God we would have to be equal to Him or greater than Him, and we are neither.

John 1:18 No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.  The Williams translation: No one has ever seen God; the only Son, Deity Himself, Who lies upon His Father’s breast, has made Him known.

In John 20:28 Thomas calls Jesus “My Lord, and my God.”  If Jesus were not God, certainly He would have rebuked Thomas at that point.  But instead He chides him for not having believed sooner.

Jesus said things only God would say.

He said: Before Abraham was born, I am. (John 8:58)  His hearers knew what He was claiming.  They knew that Jehovah God was the I Am, and Jesus here was claiming that as well.  So they took up stones to stone Him for blasphemy.

He said: If you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins. (John 8:24)

He said: I and the Father are One. (John 10:30)

John 5:18 says For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.  “He kept saying God was His Father”… Wms. Tr. Didn’t just say it once; kept saying it.

Jesus did things only God could do.

He forgave people’s sins.  Luke 7:48 Then Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” The other guests began to say among themselves, “Who is this who even forgives sins?”

He did the same thing in Mark 2.  A paralyzed man was brought to Jesus by 4 of his friends.  They had faith that Jesus would heal their friend.  V.5 says When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”  Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”  Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things?  Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’?  But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins....” He said to the paralytic, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, “We have never seen anything like this!”

Who can forgive sin but God alone?  They were right.  And they knew that Jesus was claiming to be God in what He said and did here.

Jesus allowed people to worship Him.

The wise men who came to Bethlehem following Jesus’ birth, worshipped Him.  In the boat on the Sea of Galilee when Jesus calmed the storm, His disciples worshipped Him.  The blind man that Jesus healed worshipped Him.  Following His resurrection, the women clasped His feet and worshipped Him.  In Galilee following His resurrection, the gathered disciples worshipped Him.  Following His ascension His disciples worshipped Him.

If Jesus is not God, then all these people were wrong to worship Him, for the Bible clearly states that we are only to worship God: not angels, not men, only God.  And Jesus sinned in allowing people to worship Him, unless He is indeed God.  As a matter of fact…

God the Father had the angels worship Jesus when He was born.

Hebrews 1:6 And again, when God brings his firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all God’s angels worship him.

That passage continues: In speaking of the angels he says, “He makes his angels winds, his servants flames of fire.” But about the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom.  The Father Himself calls Jesus God.  That should pretty well settle it.

What are the ramifications of that?  What difference does it make?  If Jesus is God, then whatever He says is the Word of God.  It’s not up for debate.  It really doesn’t matter how we vote on it.  If He says that He is the only way to heaven, then He is the only way to heaven.  If He says you need to put your faith and trust in Him and follow Him or you will spend your eternity in a place of suffering, then you had better put your faith in Him and follow Him.

In the weeks ahead, as we look at Jesus’ commands, they are absolutely authoritative, because He is God.  As we look at His promises, as we look at the principles for living He gives us, as we look at His warnings, His claims, His stories – this is God speaking to us and we had better pay attention.  We ignore Him at our own peril.

Not only does the Bible say that Jesus was fully human, and fully God, it also says…

THE BIBLE SAYS JESUS WAS A FRIEND OF SINNERS.

Yes, He is God, but He wrapped Himself in a human body and came to earth to befriend us.  He came to be your Friend.

Matthew 11:19 records that Jesus was accused of being a friend of tax collectors and sinners.  The Wms. Tr. says “An intimate friend”.  He ate and drank with them, and was criticized for it.  They gathered around Him to hear Him, and He was criticized for that.  He was not a man who surrounded himself with religious people and never rubbed shoulders with those who were living in sin. 

But while Jesus wants to be your Friend, He loves you too much to leave you in your sin.  He called people to leave their sin and to come and follow Him.  He befriended people in order to call them to faith in Himself.  He wants to be your Friend in order to give you eternal life and change your life on this earth for the better.

Have you allowed Jesus to be your intimate Friend, and to change your life? 

“Who do the crowds say I am?”…“Who do you say I am?”   When Jesus asked His disciples the first question in Luke 9, He was asking about public perception.  But when He asked the second question, He was not asking about public perception, but rather about personal faith.

Who is Jesus to you?  Is He the Founder of Christianity, a great religious philosopher, or is He your personal Friend, and your Savior, and your Lord?  Your answer will determine where you spend eternity.

PRAY

Salvation invitation

Heb. 3:1 Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess.