Who is Jesus?

Intro:

If you google Billy Graham’s most popular sermon you will get the result of his sermon called “Who is Jesus?” And there is a moment in it that I think captures the brilliance of his simple yet powerful way of speaking. During the sermon he bellows out in his great preacher voice “What was he? That’s the question! Jesus Christ, who are you!” And that is the question. Who is Jesus. It is one of the most, if not the most, important questions anybody can ever ask. Who is Jesus? It is one of the most important questions because how the questions in answered has eternal consequences. How ever you answer it begs even more important questions. If Jesus is who he claimed to be, what does that mean for the cross, what does that mean for us 2000 some years after the cross. But it all starts with the question, who is Jesus. That is the starting point of our faith. A common question asked at baptism is either “Who is Jesus” or do you believe that Jesus is who he claims to be? That is the starting point of the Gospel of John. Who is Jesus?

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In this prologue John introduces some important truths about Jesus that if you miss, you run into walls all throughout his gospel. If you miss in these 18 verses his announcement of Jesus as the son of God the Father but also part of the trinity as God, you miss the what makes the proclamation of Jesus so important in Chapter 8 when he says that “Before Abraham was, I am.” Someone once told me well all Jesus is saying “if you look at the Greek,” is that I existed before God. No, they have context in other languages too. The crowds new exactly what Jesus meant, which is why they picked up stones to stone him. They need to go back to this prologue. If you miss John saying in verse 12 and 13 that the children of God are born not of the will of man but of God you may hit a wall when you read Jesus’ words in chapter 6 that “no one can come to me unless the father draws them to me.” We see this repeated theme of Jesus as the true light, and how the world does not know him. How does the world not know or recognize the light which has come into the world and gives light to every many? Now the stories about blindness become more than just physical blindness and we can understand the depth of the words when Jesus tells the Pharisees that because they claim to see and yet reject him, they are still blind. We see the greatest miracles are Jesus opening peoples spiritual eyes and the greatest problem is not physical ailments but spiritual blindness to who Jesus is. The full glory of Jesus death on the cross is understood when we start with this truth in the prologue, that the son of God who is also God, died on the cross. There is so much here in this passage especially in how it relates to the rest of the gospel of John but there are three specific things I want to pull out.

The first is that Jesus is God.

John lives up to his name that Jesus gave him as a “son of thunder” in how he introduces his gospel. While the other gospels start at the birth of Jesus, or the birth of John the baptist, John starts with “In the beginning.” In the beginning of what? In the beginning of everything, all of it. Its purpose is to take our mind back to Genesis 1 and the creation story. That John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” We will talk more about John’s calling Jesus the “word” later but we can see clearly that John is referring to Jesus. The word is a “he” as John 1:2–3 “He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” Jesus was not made by God. Through Jesus, as part of the trinity, God created everything.

John is making it clear that through Jesus, everything was made. This is a characteristic of God. Only God is the creator of all things. It is clear here that Jesus is part of the trinity, as the son of God, and the Father through his son has created everything. I am not going to claim that this truth in entirely simple. There is a truth here that can be hard to wrap are head around because we worship an amazing God and not a puny simple God. But the important truth we need to take away from this is simple. That God did not create Jesus. We believe in Jesus as begotten, but not made. That difference is important. I do not want to necessarily get into the weeds of that right now because the important thing is that we understand there was never a time when Jesus did not exist. John knows that is an important truth to establish. Jesus was not created, but everything was created through him. We will return to that along with John’s use of calling Jesus the “word” closer to the end.

This is incredibly important as our starting point for who Jesus is. The rest of the things about Jesus, the things he did, the miracles, the teachings, and his death on the cross, they all matter to us because it was God who did these things, said these things, and it was God who died on the cross. If Jesus is not God, then a man died for our sins which is of no help to us in satisfying the holiness of God. Do you ever ask that? Why did Jesus die on the cross? Why can’t God just forgive us? God is love, but God is holy. He cannot just ignore sin. His perfect justice because he is perfectly Holy must be satisfied. The death of a good teacher on a cross does not satisfy the holiness of God. The death of a prophet does not satisfy the holiness of God. It must be the death of someone that is also perfect. Only the death of the son of God, who is also equal with God, satisfies the holiness of God.

The is the great dividing line. This is the line in the sand. How do you answer “Who is Jesus?” Satan knows this and has worked since the death of Jesus to undermine Jesus as God. The belief that Jesus is not God is rooted in Satan and evil. There things that many Christians disagree on. Some say “why are there so many denominations?” Well to be honest the existence of denominations doesn’t bother me at all, I think its great that we are not killing each other. I am Baptist. I am also reformed. There was a time that the reformers killed the Anabaptist's for not baptising infants and only baptising believers who confessed to being believers. I am happy we have different detonations and we are not persecuting each other but instead we for the most part all work together to spread the gospel. Matt is Methodist. I am Baptist. Cool. A church that does baptism different that my church may interpret some scripture differently than me, and we can lovingly disagree, but on of the big questions that we must answer the same if we are to both be Christians, is Who is Jesus? The answer being he is God. Son of the Father as part of the trinity.

Mormonism believes that Jesus is a “spirit child” of God and a brother of Satan and his divinity is inherited and not shared in as John is saying. They deny the trinity and therefore they deny this scripture. Jehovah witness believe Jesus was created by God as a less than God type deity and when he became flesh and was on earth that he was just a human and not God in flesh. In fact this first verse is one of the verses they changed in their Bibles. So if they come in here and bring their Bible called the “New World Translation” they changed the first verse in John to “a god.” Islam that he is a prophet but not God. Buddhism that Jesus is a great teacher. These are all lies that originate in Satan to deceive people into believing Jesus is less than who is really is, which is God. The son of the Father. Part of the trinity that is the Father, son, and Holy Ghost.

Why would Satan want to deceive people into believing that Jesus is less than God? Why is this so important? Because look at John 1:12–13 “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” You cannot be a child of God and deny the deity of Jesus and the trinity. When you stand before God in his perfect holiness, the thing keeping you from being consumed by the holiness of God is the blood of Jesus Christ. If that Jesus, that blood, is anything less that God, it cannot save you. Do not put your life and your soul into the belief of a “less than Jesus.” Do not stand before God the Father and deny the Son as God or the Holiness of God will both consume you and damn you. This is important. When those 12 men were baptized this past Saturday, the first question of any baptism I have seen, is Who is Jesus? or do you believe in Jesus as the scriptures describe him? And then you are baptised into the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Think about Jesus crying tears of blood before his Crucifixion. He was so stressed that he cried blood which only happens under extreme stress. He even prays Matthew 26:39 “And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”” Other martyrs have gone to brutal death exhibiting less stress. Others have gone to be crucified and burned at the stake that were at peace with their death, were happy to be martyrs. There was even a strange time in Medieval history where if you were martyr the Catholic Church would make you a Saint so there was problem of people throwing themselves into situations hoping to be killed for their beliefs. So why was Jesus in such anguish? Was is just the physical pain on the cross? Jesus, as part of the trinity, experienced God pouring his wrath out on him. This is something we cannot fathom and something Jesus experienced so that those who trust in his name do not have to. When Jesus cries out Matthew 27:46“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”” The trinity is not broken up, but Jesus who for eternity has experience the pleasure and peace of being one with God now experiences the wrath of God. Now we see the love of God. God did not pour out his wrath on a teacher, or a prophet, or a lesser deity that he created. He poured his wrath out on Jesus, his own Son, who is also God and part of the trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If we do not understand this first part of John where Jesus is declared God and part of the trinity, we may not fully understand the significance of the cross.

Philippians 2:10–11 “so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Everybody will at some point bend their knee and acknowledge Jesus as God. The question is when? If you bow down, not so much physically, but you bow your heart and your life down to Jesus and acknowledge him as God in this life, his perfect blood will satisfy God’s perfect justice and holiness and when you stand before God, God will not see your sins but will see his perfect son. Which is amazing. But for those who stand before God without the blood of Jesus, Jesus as God, God’s holiness demands justice. You will experience God pouring out his wrath on you. I do not like to talk about hell, but I love you all too much not to. What makes hell so terrible is that you are separated from the presence of God, in terms of his love and peace. But you are not just somewhere else where God has forgotten about you. You are experiencing the wrath of God poured out on you for eternity. I can say this honestly. I do not care what you have done. How wicked, vile, or gross your crime was or wasn’t. There is not a soul alive or that has ever been alive that I want to experience that. Please. let us acknowledge Jesus as God and Lord of our lives.

Jesus is our Hope

John 1:4–5 “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Jesus is God, and because Jesus is God, Jesus is life and John is saying that in Jesus is life. Jesus in his ministry says John 11:25 “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.” Jesus is not withholding life from us. Life is emitting from him. Life comes from him. He is the light of the world. Jesus brings light because he brings our hope of life. Darkness cannot overcome light. Evil is no threat to God. Sometimes as Christians we live as if evil can still thwart the plans of God. We live as evil and Satan is a threat to God but because of Revelation we know how the story ends. In the Rocky movies, or any boxing or fighting movie, there is the same sort of plot pattern. The fighter is engaged with his opponent and there is this point where the main character, be it Rocky or whoever seems like they are going to lose but they come back and win the fight. And we know how the movie ends so we know Rocky is going to win. That is not the story of God. There is never a moment where God is not in control. There is never a moment in the fight between good and evil where evil has even a chance of victory. There is nothing that Satan or any force of evil does that God does not not permit. Remember in Job, there was not a single thing that Satan did that God did not permit. We have nothing to fear, not just because we know how the story ends in Revelation, but because God is in control at all times. Darkness cannot overcome light. Evil cannot overcome God. If you believe that God is not in control you do not believe that God is all-powerful. If you do not believe that God is all powerful you do not believe in the God described in the Bible.

John 1:9–11 “The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.” The light that gives light to all men came into the world but the world did not know him. His own people, the Jews, did not receive him as God. They did not crucify him just because he claimed to be the Messiah. Jesus was not the first to claim to be the Messiah. They killed him because he claimed to be the son of God and said “I tell you before Abraham, I AM!” Clearly putting himself on the same level as Yahweh. He referred to himself as the “son of man” which ties to a Daniel prophesy about the Messiah who is also God. Why did the world not recognize the source of light that shines light to all men? Light is of no help when you are blind. What makes us blind? John 3:19 “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.” We are fallen. Our fallen nature is a serious problem. It is not just an inconvenience to us that keeps us from being as good as we like. It blinds us. We cannot even recognize the light that is Jesus because we love darkness. The remedy? The remedy is to be born again.

John 1:12–13 “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” This is our hope, right here. We can be children of God. But look as verse 13, we are born not of flesh, so this makes is clear we are talking about a spiritual birth and not a physical birth involving a womb and pregnancy and all that. This is a spiritual birth, not of the will of man but of God. Guys that is a powerful truth. You cannot will yourself to be a child of God. You cannot decide to be a child of God on your own strength, it is by the will of God. What does that mean for us practically? If you want to be a child of God, pray. If you are sitting here, and you think “I don’t know about this Jesus stuff,” whether you don’t know if you need God, want God, or whether you can accept that Jesus is God.” Please. Pray. God open my eyes. If you are real. If you are who you say in the Bible you are. Lord open my eyes, let me see you as you really are. There are stories in the gospel of Jesus giving the blind their sight. That miracle Jesus is still doing everyday but it is spiritual blindness that he is healing. Physical blindness makes our life harder, no doubt. Spiritual blindness is what will damn us. Spiritual blindness is the biggest problem any human can have. Far beyond any physical ailment. Humble yourself before God. Pray that God opens your eyes so you can behold the light of Christ that brings everlasting life. How do we get everlasting life? We are told in John 1:12 “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,” Romans 10:9–10 “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” If you want to be a child of God, you can do it today. Believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and celebrate that you have seen the light. Just like the words of Amazing Grace “I once was blind but now I see.”

John 1:16–17 “For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”

When you see the light of Jesus and receive the life that is in Jesus, we receive grace upon grace. The love and grace of God is infinite. He does not run our of grace. We do not get a dose of grace when we accept Christ and then are expected to figure out the rest on our own and try to live a better life and sin less on our own strength. He supplies grace upon grace. Grace that saves. Grace through our addictions. Grace through our backsliding. Grace now and more grace in the future as we continue to live until the day we die and stand in his presence. Moses gave the law. The law is great at revealing to us that we are sinners. But morality cannot save us. Grace saves us, and grace comes from Jesus. Not once, not just at the moment of conversion, but infinite grace.

John 1:6–8 “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.” ” There is this sort of odd mention of John the Baptist, not the writer John, but of John the Baptist. And it almost feels random. I think part of the reason is to separate a prophet from Jesus to make it clear the Jesus is not a prophet. A prophet points to hope. Jesus is the hope. It also describes our role as Christians and even though we are not prophets. I am not a prophet I can tell you that. This is our role. We bear witness to the light. Some of you guys are doing that everyday. Whether by word or with your life and how you act you are saying “I have seen the light.” We reflect the light that is Christ. Matthew 5:16 “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” We are not the source of the light. Jesus is the source. We reflect the light to others and it is all for the glory of God. Whether they accept it or reject it, it is for the glory of God.

Jesus can be known

John 1:14 “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” This use of the word is interesting because why not just say “Jesus?” Why not just say “In the beginning was Jesus.” Well John is describing the trinity, which is not the easiest thing to do because it is hard for us to totally wrap our minds around the trinity because our God is truly an amazing God. So the word, is God speaking out, it is God manifesting himself in his son, Jesus, in creation. Here is the takeaway from this complexity. God is a God who wants to be know. He is glorified in being known by his creation. He is not an impartial detached God who is distant and unconcerned with human affairs. He is not a God who created everything and is somewhere far far away with no desire to be known as if he just set the world in motion and is now unconcerned about it. Our God wants to be known. Not because he needs to be know, but because (as DA Carson puts it) that is the character and nature of God. In the beginning was a God who is glorified by being known and worshipped and has manifested himself in the Son, Jesus.

Jesus became flesh and dwelt among us. This term “dwelt” in the original language means more than just “he was here,” which he was here in the flesh. But that he “tabernacled” with us. Why is that important, that Jesus “tabernacled” with us instead of just “he was here in human flesh?” Because it is a call back to Exodus when God was only able to be accessed through the tabernacle. And John says “we have seen his glory.” This is a reminder of Moses who requested to see God and could only see a portion of him. No man is able to see the full glory of God or God’s holiness and glory would consume them. But Jesus has made God accessible without the tabernacle. We do not need to go through a Moses, or a priest, or even a pastor to get to God. We go through Jesus.

John 1:18 “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.”. There are only a small number of examples of people getting to see glimpses and portions of God. Now through Jesus, God can be personally known. Jesus says in John 6:46 “not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father.” And then in John 14:9 “Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” This does not mean we have seen the Father God in his full Glory seated in heaven. We, as physical humans, cannot see and behold fully the Father and all his glory. But we, through Jesus, can have a personal relationship with God. We can worship him and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Things that not all believers had access to before the coming of Jesus. So what does all this theology mean to you, personally? God wants you to know him. He desires that you known him, and that through the death of his son Jesus, you worship him and have a relationship with the God of the universe. I love the Bible. I love how simple and complex it is. It is so simple a child can understand how to be saved. You can explain it to a child as ABC. A. Admit you’re a sinner. B. Believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord. C. Commit to following Christ daily. So simple and yet we could spend the rest of our lives just trying to understand everything there is to know about these 18 verses.

So lets get down to business. Do you see that Jesus is God. That your only hope of eternal life is in Jesus. And do you see that God wants you to know him, wants you to see him spiritually with spiritual eyes, that God is not distant but wants to walk with you. He is the creator of the universe and yet he wants to walk with you through your addiction, through your incarceration, through everything you face from this day onward until the day you die and stand before him. If you are a believer: Lets praise God that he is a God that is not distant. Not limited. That he became flesh and dwelt among us and died on a cross to satisfy a debt of Gods perfect justice that we could never pay. If you are not a believer. Do you want to know the God who created the universe and is control of all things, do you want to know him today? Do you accept Jesus as God, of both the universe and God of your life? Then admit you are a sinner. Believe that Jesus is Lord. Commit to following him daily, even when you fall, when you back slide into old habits. Remember we all still sin. But also remember those sweet words. Grace upon Grace. Never ending Grace. If you want to talk with us please come do so after I pray. Whether you are a believer or not, if you’re willing, bow your head and pray with me.

Lets Pray.

Lord you are the creator of all things. You are an all powerful and all knowing Holy God of both perfect love and justice. Lord we praise you that it is your desire to be known and to be worshipped and Lord we want to know you more and more everyday. Lord we praise you that even though we are sinners, because of the blood of Jesus you see us as Holy. Lord we praise you that you sent your son so that we can know you, we can pray to you and call you “Father,” and we commit our lives to you. Not by our own strength and will power but through the grace and power that comes from you. I thank you for these brothers Lord. Encourage them. Open their hearts and eyes to see how much you love them. That every single struggle they have and every burned they bear you know Lord and you want to walk with them through it Lord. We praise you and give you all glory of every victory in our lives. AMEN.