Sermon Tone Analysis

Today we come to another way that God has revealed Himself to people in a special and specific way.

God has revealed Himself especially, not just through nature, conscience or history, but explicitly to people through three main ways:

Direct communication from God

God in Jesus or the Incarnation

Scripture

Last time we found that God had revealed Himself by communicating directly with individuals and so we come to our second one:

Revelation of God in Jesus - The Incarnation

The Jews were looking forward to the day when God’s special one, the Anointed One, the Messiah was revealed but didn’t recognise it when He came.

The Kings from the East, the shepherds, Simeon and Anna in the Temple and John the Baptist were a number of those who recognised who had come in the flesh though it is a wonder whether they knew whether the One who had arrived was God in the flesh – Immanuel – God literally with us:

And this is the great mystery that Jesus is very God and very human.

Jesus was here to reveal God.

He is the sum total of the revelation of God, His will, His nature, His person, His character.

To look at Jesus is to look at God. God has revealed Himself in the person of his Son.

People can have all sorts of ideas about God through general revelation: we know something of His creation so He must be Creator; His working through history so He must be the Sustainer and Controller; through the conscience revealing He is the ultimate lawgiver and judge but we cannot know God truly unless we come to Jesus first.

God has in these last days spoken to us through His Son.

Without Jesus we are destined to know God very poorly rather than know Him richly.

Without Jesus we cannot know God only know something of Him.

But in, and only in, Jesus can we know God.

No one has seen God at any time.

Yet here was God in the flesh present with them.

Jesus came to make known God.

Not only to make Him known but to declare that He Himself is God.

Note that Jesus is everywhere – He was on earth AND in Heaven in the bosom of His Father.

We see that God’s characteristics are given to Jesus.

All things were made through Him we have just read so He is the Creator.

Scripture elaborates on this in:

These verses also show that He is the Sustainer, the One who is in Control.

And more than that He is THE image of the invisible God.

To say that He is the image of God is to say that in Him the nature and being of God has been perfectly revealed, that in Him the invisible has now become visible.

This is the one of the core passages so let us look at this one together:

Clearly Jesus is God.

Jesus has other attributes of God.

He is the life, that He has life in Himself – that is He is self-sustaining, that He is the same yesterday, today and forever, that He is the truth, He is love, holy, eternal, everywhere, He is with you always, has all knowledge for He knows the thoughts of men, has all power in that all authority is given to Him.

There can only be one Almighty – there cannot be two – for one will always be stronger than the other.

So this is evidence that Jesus and the Father are One along with the Holy Spirit yet three persons.

We know that because of our consciences we can work out that there is a lawgiver to whom we will have to give an account of ourselves.

All worship and honour belong to Jesus as we see in the following verse about Jesus being judge:

The disciple Thomas came to this revelation in:

There were those in the Gospels who bowed to Him and worshipped Him and He received their praise.

He and the Father are one.

The invisible now visible.

All this proves that Jesus is God and that He and the Father are One.

Jesus Christ is the true God.

The revelation which He made of Himself was the manifestation of God.

The words of Christ are the words of God.

The works of Christ are the works of God.

The love, mercy, tenderness, the forgiving grace, as well as the holiness, the severity and power manifested by Christ, were all manifestations of what God truly is.

We see, therefore, as with our own eyes, what God is.

We know that although infinite and absolute, He can think, act, and will; that He can love and hate; that He can hear prayer and forgive sin; that we can have fellowship with Him, as one person can commune with another.1

Communion with God starts with communion with Jesus.

That we can know Him is the ultimate goal.

There were amazing times of revelation and sometimes people like Peter would gain a glimpse and realise this can be none other than God in the flesh.

The peoples were amazed at what He could do with the miracles with the forgiveness of sin.

Peter, James and John witnessed his glory on the Mount of Transfiguration.

How could they not know who was walking among them?

John beheld his glory…and knows full well that God has been made known in Jesus.

There are those who say we cannot know God but this is untrue.

However it is true that we cannot know all that there is to know about God but that does not mean we cannot know Him.

He has chosen to reveal Himself to us in Jesus.

And Jesus has revealed Him to us.

When we read the stories of Jesus these are the stories of God.

He had revealed Himself at times in the Old Testament as the Angel of the Lord or as a man or as a commander but He, in Jesus Christ, was living a life in the flesh among them.

God with us.

This God, our God, suffered and died for people.

He died for the whole world past, present and future and in all places.

He, God, came to earth, took on flesh and paid the price for you and me.

Jesus is the manifestation of the love of God.

God is love.

God could not draw nearer, nor could He disclose more clearly the wonders of His Person, the perfections of His purpose, nor the depths of His love and grace, than He has done in the incarnation, which in the scope of its purpose embraced the life, teachings, example, death, and resurrection of the eternal Son, the Second Person of the Godhead

God has spoken to us through the prophets but now He has spoken to us by His Son.

The prophets were just human messengers but Jesus is not just a messenger.

Jesus death, resurrection and ascension shows us that God is speaking to us.

Jesus has purged our sins and now sits in glory awaiting the day when He will return in glory and every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

God has revealed Himself in and through Jesus showing us who He is and what He is like.

When we look at Jesus we are looking at the Father.

Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God because He IS God.

Next time we will come to the last of the special revelations of God: Scripture