Jesus is the God Man Pt. 1

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Introductions

I’m Luke Kirkendall

Amanda and I have been married for 21 years.

We have 2 boys, Benjamin and Eli Kirkendall

2 terrible basset hounds.

I served as a pastor at a local church for about 25 years before coming to FBC.

I now work for a company that provides IT support to mostly private and charter schools.

I was in TC from 2016-2019

I got my MDIV from Master’s Seminary this past May

Why are you here?

What is it that you are hoping to get out of this class?

Any questions that you have going into it?

I’d like to be aware of these moving forward.

My love for Christ

I remember one of my first Shepherds’ Conferences.

Lojza and I heard a sermon by Steve Lawson on Christ.

I remember hearing that sermon and being convicted because here was a man who loved Christ.

That sermon became a conviction of mine.

Jesus is the high point of Scripture.

He is Who the Old Testament anticipates.

He is Who the New Testament proclaims.

He is the Gospel.

He is the Good News.

Good News is not a command for you.

Good News is that something has been done for you.

This next 5 weeks will spend our time talking about this Good News.

For 5 weeks we will talk about Jesus.

My goals:

I hope you learn more about Christ.

I hope you grow in your faith.

I hope you find rest.

I’ll explain what I mean by that as we go.

I meet a lot of people who are tired.

They work hard.

They work hard during the week.

They work hard at church.

They work hard in ministry.

They work hard.

A lot of people are working hard so that they can prove and be convinced that they are really in Christ.

I want to show you a Savior Who’s burden is light.

You can take off your heavy burden and enjoy Jesus.

I hope you grow in your assurance.

Assurance is the confidence that Christ died for you.

Not everyone has this assurance, but I hope to be an aid to finding that.

I want this to become applicational, but in a different way.

Not in the sense that I’m going to tell you to go and become a better person.

I want you to better understand why you can trust Christ.

By better knowing Who Christ is and what He’s done, hopefully you’ll have more assurance

What’s in a name?

Names are important.

I wish I could say I was:

Named after Luke Skywalker.

It could have been Dr. Luke from the Bible.

Sadly, I was named after a different Dr. Luke.

I was named after Luke from General Hospital.

In the Bible names are important.

Discussion: From what you know about the Bible what does a name tell you?

A person’s destiny.

His nature

His future.

Are there any examples of names that have meaning you can think of?

Isaac has the meaning of laughter or joy behind it.

Sarah laughed when she was told she would give birth to a son.

And in her old age she laughed with joy when Isaac was born.

When Jacob was born he came out holding onto Esau’s heel.

His name means heel, or to be caught by the heel.

Hosea married an adulterous woman, who after engaging in adultery gave birth to children.

Their names were Jezreel, Lo-Ruhamah, and Lo-ammi.

These names each had meanings.

Lo-ammi probably the most brutal, “not my people.”

Names are important.

Names have meanings.

Jesus’ name has meanings.

Jesus’ names summarize His mission and Who He is.

I’ve been going through John lately.

I’ve been surprised how much of John has to do with the question of Who Jesus is.

People are always confessing Him.

They are stating Who He is.

Look in your Bibles to Matthew 16:13-17

Who is Jesus?

This is a question that needs to be answered.

You cannot be neutral on Jesus.

We cannot be ignorant on Him.

We must have our minds made up and set regarding Who Christ is.

Jesus

Iesous

Yeshua

Yahweh Saves

See this in Matthew 1:21 - Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

We see that His name declares something, Jesus will save His people.

Joshua

Christ

It’s not His last name.

It’s Greek for Messiah.

Anointed one.

Isaiah 61 was a passage understood by the Jews to be about the Messiah.

Isaiah 61:1 says “Because the Lord has anointed me ...”

Anointed is Messiah

Jesus identified Himself with that Messiah when he stood in the synagogue and read from it in Luke 4.

Lord

In Greek, the word kurios means master.

But in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, Lord is the word used for Yahweh.

Knowing this, Thomas’ confession in John 20:28 becomes special.

John 20:28 “Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!””

Son of God

Repeatedly called this by:

The disciples

Demons

Spoken of even by Jesus

John 3:18 ““He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

Psalm 2:7 prophesied his coming

Psalm 2:7 ““I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord: He said to Me, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.”

By the way, when we talk about “begotten” that does not mean create.

It means to send.

Do not make the mistake of equating begottenness with creation or starting point.

Last Adam

1 Corinthians 15:45 “So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.”

Adam was the first man.

He came representing all of mankind in the Garden.

His perfect obedience meant that those he represented would live forever.

His sin thrust all of us into sin.

Jesus is the last Adam.

He represented His elect.

Where Adam’s disobedience brought death.

Jesus, acting as the last Adam, brought life.

He obeyed on our behalf.

Son of Man

Daniel 7:13–14 ““I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days And was presented before Him. “And to Him was given dominion, Glory and a kingdom, That all the peoples, nations and men of every language Might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion Which will not pass away; And His kingdom is one Which will not be destroyed.”

He is God’s heir.

Similar to Son of God.

This is a description also of Jesus in Revelation

Mark 10:45 ““For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.””

Bread of Life

John 6

There was manna from heaven, which was a type of the antitype, or better manna.

The true manna, the true bread from heaven was and is Jesus Christ

Lamb of God

John the Baptist’s confession

John 1:29 “The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”

The language of Jesus being a lamb is found in the Bible.

Isaiah 53

Revelation 5

Emmanuel (Immanuel)

Matthew 1:23 ““Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.””

God with us.

Word

John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

Hebrews 1:1–2“God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.”

This is similar to Emmanuel.

God becoming Flesh.

Advocate

1 John 2:1 “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous;”

He is not just a mediator.

A mediator stands between 2 parties and looks for compromise.

He is our advocate.

He is stating our case before the Father.

This time though, Jesus is our righteousness.

The Good Shepherd

John 10:1-18

Any others?

I hope that we remember these names because as we progress in the coming weeks, I’d like you to remember these names.

I hope that names like Emmanuel mean something more.

Who is Jesus?

We must begin a basic understanding of Who He is.

Brandon Crowe in his book, “The Lord Jesus Christ” looked at various heresies concerning Christ.

The Lord Jesus Christ: The Biblical Doctrine of the Person and Work of Christ Extreme Christological Responses to the Reformation

The Socinians provide a stark example of how the person and work of Christ are related: to misunderstand the person of Christ means one will likely also misunderstand the work of Christ

The Socinians were 16-17th century heretics.

They rejected the Trinity and thought Jesus was a man, chosen by God to be the Son

What Brandon Crowe is getting at is that if you get the person of Christ wrong, you’re going to get His work wrong.

Jesus is the second member of the Trinity

What does that mean?

What is the Trinity?

One of the best resources to understanding the Trinity comes from the old Creeds.

The Nicene Creed

Athanasian Creed

Nicene Creed says, “the only begotten Son of God begotten of the Father before all the worlds God of God, light of light, very God of very God; begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father, by home all things were made.”

Eternally begotten

This does not mean created.

If Jesus is created then:

He is not eternal.

He would be mutable since He went from nothing to something.

Very God

What does it mean that He is God?

John 1:1–3 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.”

He has no beginning.

He has always existed.

The theological term is eternal generation.

He existed in eternity past.

He is of the same essence and substance of the Father.

Essentially, what the Father is, He is.

He is fully God.

He is completely God.

Jesus was not created.

The incarnation, Christmas, is not the beginning of Jesus.

Who believe that Jesus was created?

JW’s

Mormons

Muslims

Arians

They reduce Jesus to a part of Creation, rather than Creator

Jesus is very God

When we speak of Jesus we must say that He is very God.

Another way to say this is that He is fully God.

What proof do we have that Jesus is God?

Creation

Creation was not the start of Jesus.

John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

Notice that in the beginning the Word, Jesus was already present.

This was not the start of Him, but the start of creation.

Eternal

In addition to John 1 there are many other passages that teach us that Jesus is eternal.

John 8:58 “Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.””

Colossians 1:17 “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”

Revelation 1:8 ““I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.””

Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

Immutable

This means that something cannot change.

Any part of creation is mutable.

You and I - mutable.

The angels - mutable.

Anything that went from not existing - to existing is mutable.

We must be clear here, the divine nature of Jesus is immutable.

His divine nature never changes.

Hebrews 13:8, which we already read affirms that - “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

Sustainer

Colossians 1:17 “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”

While sin is actively trying to destroy all life, Jesus is the sustainer.

He holds the universe together.

The world is falling apart.

Entropy is real.

Things are going from organized to disorganized.

But Jesus sustains life.

He holds everything together.

He is sovereign.

You could go through the attributes of God and if Jesus is divine, then He has all the same attributes.

We’ll talk more about this next week, but when you go through the Gospels and you read of Jesus doing something miraculous, this is an example of His divine nature.

What happens when someone thinks Jesus is not divine?

What happens to ones theology about Jesus when He is not understood to be very God?

Can you provide examples of cults and their bad theology of Jesus?

Muslim theology

Jesus was not the creator.

He was an example of submission to Allah.

He was ultimately a part of Allah’s creation.

Mormon theology

God is not Triune.

Jesus is the first spirit-child of God and the heavenly mother.

He is like who we can be like.

Jesus is a part of creation.

This means that all things did not come through Jesus as explained in Colossians 1.

Jehovah’s Witnesses

They are basically modern day Arians.

These are the opponents of Athanasius and the First Council of Nicea.

They believe that Jesus was the first created being by God.

He was the beginning of God’s earthly creation.

He was not the creator of the world, but a part of creation itself.

The Old Testament and the Son

Jesus was present in the Old Testament.

Maybe a better way to say it is the Second Member of the Trinity was present in the Old Testament.

He was always divine.

Genesis 1:26 “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.””

This doesn’t not mention the members of the Trinity.

What do we see though?

A plurality within the Godhead - Let Us make man in Our image. …”

The Angel of the Lord

Fun fact:

When you see The Angel of the Lord in the Old Testament this is the Son.

It is not the Father.

We cannot see God because He is Spirit.

John 1:18 “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.”

So if God is present and seen, it must be the second member of the Trinity.

This is something that Calvin taught.

Examples:

Genesis 18:1-33

Before the birth of Isaac, God appeared to Abraham.

This would have been the Son, preincarnate.

Genesis 32:22-32

Jacob wrestling with God.

Joshua 5:13-15

This was before Jericho

Joshua fell down and worshipped before the angel of the Lord.

Judges 13:1–17

The announcement of Samson

The Angel of the Lord appeared.

A sacrifice was made.

His name was too wonderful.

Questions?

Application - What does this matter?

Why do we need a fully divine, fully God Jesus?

What happens when you know that Christ is fully God?

How do you view Christ differently knowing this?

He is worthy of worship

Hebrews 1:6“And when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says, “And let all the angels of God worship Him.”” ,

The angels worship Jesus.

When we ponder who Jesus is, it should provoke worship within us.

Consider these words:

"All Hail The Power Of Jesus' Name" - 1779

1 All hail the power of Jesus' name! Let angels prostrate fall. Bring forth the royal diadem, and crown him Lord of all. Bring forth the royal diadem, and crown him Lord of all!

2 O seed of Israel's chosen race now ransomed from the fall, hail him who saves you by his grace, and crown him Lord of all. Hail him who saves you by his grace, and crown him Lord of all!

3 Let every tongue and every tribe responsive to his call, to him all majesty ascribe, and crown him Lord of all. To him all majesty ascribe, and crown him Lord of all!

4 Oh, that with all the sacred throng we at his feet may fall! We'll join the everlasting song and crown him Lord of all. We'll join the everlasting song and crown him Lord of all.