Jesus and Submission
Notes
Transcript
The first sin of Adam in the garden was fundamentally disobedience. He bing a man, tried to make himself like God. He willfully disobeyed an order from heaven. It was a lack of submission to God.
When Jesus came, His beginnings were humble.
In a non-descript place somewhere in Bethlehem.
Shortly thereafter his family had to flee.
When they finally return it is to their hometown of Nazareth of which Nathaniel said, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth”.
Son of a carpenter
Possibly has family living int he isolationist communities of the Qumran desert.
If His beginnings were humble, His end is far from noble. Death on a cross made for criminals of the worst kind.
In a bout with irony, it is one of the least atrtactivv3e qualities of the life of Jesus that teaches the greatest principle about His ministry in the earth.
Dominion-through-submission
Paul would refer to Jesus as the man who set right what the first man messed up.
THE BAPTISM OF JESUS
Often used as a go-to passage by trinitarians.
Ironically the baptism of Jesus not only fails to justify the doctrine of the trinity but complicates it.
When all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also was baptized; and while He prayed, the heaven was opened. And the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven which said, “You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.”
Trinitarian perspective:
The Son is being baptized
The Holy Spirit is descending
The Father is speaking
Therefore the trinity is revealed
Relies heavily on inference
First what Luke describes is the Spirit of God revealed, a man approved, and a voice fromheaven speaking.
None of the gospel writers refer to the voice from heaven as God the Fahter speaking to God the Son.
A trinity has to be read into the text...
Consider the doctrine of the trinity for a moment:
God is three co-equal, consubstantial, co-eternal persons.
In Luke’s account there are not three co-equal persons revealed.
There is a voice from heaven offereing His endorsement or approval of the Son. God is a Spirit, so are there two Spirits of God?
???The third person of God as a visible Spirit descending upon the second person of God in the water and speaking as the first person of God from heaven.
An omnipresent spirit cannot be divided.
The New King James Version Chapter 4
4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.
ed for unity in the strongest terms possible, Paul now qualified its conditions, for unity is not an end unto itself. This unity could be achieved only on the basis of apostolic doctrine, which is outlined by a series of seven articles of faith. Regarding the designations of the one God, he called attention to the “Spirit” (v. 4) first, probably because he had just mentioned the “unity of the Spirit” in the previous verse. The “one hope” of the believer’s calling refers back to Eph. 2:18, where Paul stated that the “one Spirit” gives us access to the Father. The New Testament Christological term, one “Lord” (v. 5), refers to the Son of God. Significantly, Paul mentioned “one faith” and “one baptism” in direct connection with his reference to this one Lord. That Jesus is Lord is the Christian’s distinct confession (in Paul’s epistles, “Lord” often signifies Jesus in His exalted state; see especially Phil. 2:11, where He is universally acknowledged as such), and “the Lord Jesus” was the name invoked at baptism (Acts 19:5). There is not one faith and baptism for the Jews and another for the Gentiles. “One God and Father” (v. 6) speaks to the believer’s ultimate goal, to whom the roles of Spirit (Eph. 2:18) and Son (John 14:6) provide full and uninhibited access.
But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
If the Father and Spirit are necessarily distinct, then why are they so often not distinct?
Spirit that descended was a visible sign of the presence of an otherwise invisible God.
Like Noah’s dove - a sign of peace and salvation.
It is a message from the only true and wise God.
There are not two spirits of God (God the Holy Spirit and God the Father) revealed at the baptism of Jesus.
Rather , there is God who speaks from heaven, yet makes His presence known in the earth.
The deity of Jesus is not questioned by most Christian denominations. But His humanity is often neglected out of fear of offending His divine identity.
We should not have this fear....
If we teach that Jesus is God but ignore that Jesus is also man, we have only taught half the story!
Is He a man, or is He only a symbol of a man, the likeness of a man, or appear to be a man?
How one answers this question will greatly infulence how the see the scriptures...
He is fully God / and fully man.
And to say that Jesus is fully man is a statement that must be taken seriously.
When Luke wrote, he said that a voice from heaven declared:
The New King James Version Chapter 3
“You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.”
A co-equla person need not seek approval, acceptance, or pleasure of antoher co-equal person of God.
Nor would one co-equal person of God speak to another as His child or His subordinate.
He need not offer his endorsement, to do so would suggest authority He does not possess.
In both cases, co-equality is disrupted.
So, what is happening at the baptism of Jesus?
It is neither the revelation of an implied trinity;
nor an internal contradiction in the Bible.
It is the entry of the Son of God into His ministry as the Redeemer of the world - not though His death - but through His life.
And we must learn to see Jesus Christ through both lenses - His life and His death.
We’re experts at dissecting and expounding upon the merits of His work; how he fulfilled the Law of Moses, revealed prophetic truth, and was the embodiment of God’s Word.
But when we speak of His life, we point to its merits without always se3eing the length and breadth of the matter - How that Jesus reversed the curse of Adam from the beginning of His ministry until today.
Why was He baptized?
He commited not sin.
"Are you coming to be baptized by me, when I know that I am the one who needs to be baptized by you?”
Fulfilling all rightiousness required submitting to John’s message of repentence.
For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.
A co-equal cannot be obedient to another co-equal person of God.
But a perfect man can be.
A perfect man must be.
If Jesus is not approved in the eyes of God, then not only is He not a perfect man, He is also not the Messiah.
A voice cried from Heaven and declared, “THis is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
Endorsement from the Father does not signal a trinity, but it does disclose the perfect humanity of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
But Jesus answered and said to him, “Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he allowed Him.
Submitted to God because Adam was not.
Jesus connects the ministry of Jesus to the story of Adam in his own way after detailing the events of His baptism.
And the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven which said, “You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.” Now Jesus Himself began His ministry at about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, the son of Heli, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the son of Janna, the son of Joseph,
the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalalel, the son of Cainan, the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.
Luke begins his geneology by telling us that Jesus is the Son of Gop in whom God is well pleased, and he ends it by reminding the reader of the son of God in whom God was not well pleased.
The father - son language of the Bible is not there to reveal the trinity, but to reveal the obedience, submision and accptance of Jesus Christ as a man.
It is the birth of His public ministry and first step in reversion the curse of Adam.
THE TEMPTATION OF JESUS
Led by the Spirit
Constantly and consistently led by the Spirit of God.
Now when the tempter came to Him, he said, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.’ ”
Introducing Doubt - Hath God said?
Insecurity
Same strategy
Even entertains the logic....
By contrast Jesus immediately recalls the Word of God in defiance. “It is written”
Then the devil took Him up into the holy city, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down. For it is written: ‘He shall give His angels charge over you,’ and, ‘In their hands they shall bear you up, Lest you dash your foot against a stone.’ ” Jesus said to him, “It is written again, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’ ”
Seeing that Jesus uses the Word of God, Satan also uses it… out of context of course.
“Hasn’t God said this?” was the first question the serpent asked Eve. And it still deceives many today.
Taking one verse… partial information....
Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, “All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’ ”
Will be as God....
The devil has no new tricks.
Ironically the devil tried to offer the Lord something that already belonged to him...
All the earth is His and the fulness thereof....
Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone.
If the second person of the trinity was tempted then it contradicts everything we know about Jesus and it contradicts James...
And it confounds reason....
And so it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
Submitted in all things:
More than 20 times, it is recorded that Jesus performed a miracle, followed by a request to the recipient that they go and tell no one what happened.
Then Jesus put out His hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing; be cleansed.” Immediately his leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus said to him, “See that you tell no one; but go your way, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.”
Pilot asks whether He is the king of the Jews.
“Thou sayest”
Now as He was going out on the road, one came running, knelt before Him, and asked Him, “Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?” So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God.
Trinitarian perspective
Oneness perspective
He is a submitted man. Jesus is submitted to God in a way that mankind has historically not been submitted to God....