The True Identity of Jesus

Last week, Dan, Doc, Becky, Alex, and myself traveled to Petersburg, KY to the Answers in Genesis Pastors and Church Leaders Conference. The main focus of this conference was the inerrancy, infallibility, sufficiency, and authority of God’s Word. And while the Bible has been attacked from every direction imaginable, the most dangerous attack has been on it’s very foundation, Genesis chapters 1-3. Without a foundation, nothing can stand.

And just like Genesis is the foundation of the entire Bible, Jesus Christ is the foundation of the gospel message. Throughout history, since the time of Christ, He has been said to be only a Prophet, or a good moral man, or a Great Techer. In recent years, there has been a movement that preaches and teaches Him as some type of “life improvement coach.”

But to have a true relationship with Christ, to receive His gospel, Who he is, His true identity is an absolute truth that has to be gotten right. Without this truth, there is no foundation.

Jesus of Nazareth was a Prophet, He was the picture of moral perfection, and He was a Great Teacher. But to have one’s understanding of Him stop there, for that person, He will not be Savior. Jesus Christ is God.

And only when someone can understand Christ as who He is and understand His person, then His work, is the possibility that they can be saved.

The deity of Jesus Christ is an essential, non-negotiable tenant of the Christian faith. And it is His diety that we will see John show us with six definitive statements this morning in - Read-

John begins his gospel account with arguably the most profound statement ever made. At the surface level, we can read verse 1 in 6 or 7 seconds, but the pages and volumes that could be written concerning these 17 words would not be able to be counted. This gospel’s focus as a whole is to show the true identity of Jesus Christ, that He is God. And while the opening of John’s gospel could be easily understood by a child, his inspired words reveal a truth far beyond the ability of the greatest minds in human history to comprehend.

Verse 1:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God

I remember when I first read these words, , it was almost as if I could feel the power in them. And as powerful as this verse is in English, our language does not do these words justice. In the koine Greek, which is the language the entire New Testament was written in, the words of John here really bring out the rich, powerful meaning of this verse.

I. Christ is Eternal

A. “In the beginning” literally means “beginning without origin”- “was” means a continuous state of being or existence- “the Word” which is the Greek word Logos. And if we look down at verse 14 in this chapter, we see John identify exactly who the Word is:

:

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.

The Word, the Logos is Jesus Christ.

1. John names Christ as the Word 3 times here in verse 1. This had significant meaning for both Greek and Jewish readers in John’s day.

a) To the Greek philosophers, the logos was the impersonal rationale of all things, the stabilizing principle of the universe, the governing power behind all things.

· They understood it, in a sense, as the creative force and the source of wisdom.

· In the Greek culture, this term would have signified one of the most important principles in the universe.

b) But the Word, the Logos, was also significant to the Jews.

· The Word of the Lord was the theme that saturated the Old Testament, and was the expression of divine force and wisdom.

· It was God’s Word that established the covenant with Abraham, it decreed the Law and brought the ten commandments to the nation of Israel, by the Word of the LORD, God spoke through and to His Prophets, and it was the agent of creation.

c) So, John’s use of “the Logos” here would have a great effect on both the Jews and the Greeks to show the divinity of Christ using familiar trains of thought.

B. And reading the opening of verse 1 here can’t help but make the reader recall the opening verse of the Bible.

2. says “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

a) So, what John is stating here is that before the beginning, before creation, Jesus Christ was.

b) The Logos did not come to be, but at the point when all created things came into being, He already was.

c) Jesus Christ was pre-existent to time, He always was, is, and will be. He had no beginning, and has no end. He is eternal.

And this is John’s first definitive statement of the divinity of Jesus Christ, because only God is eternal.

II. Christ is in Divine Fellowship with God the Father

A. John goes on to say “and the Word was with God.”

And here again, the English translation does not bring out how truly rich this Greek expression is.

1. It means much, much more than simply that the Word existed with God.

a) In the koine Greek, this actually paints the portrait of two personal beings, two persons, face to face with one another in intelligent, meaningful conversation.

· So, John is actually saying here in these 5 words is that “Eternal Logos, Jesus Christ, is face to face with God the Father in intelligent, close, personal conversation.”

· Two persons of the Trinity of the Godhead, God the Father and God the Son in an intimate, unbroken, continuous state of fellowship.

B. And I want us to think about this, Jesus Christ left his heavenly glory and the intimate face to face communion with the Father.

a) Chapter 17, verse 5 of this gospel, Christ prays “And now. Father, glorify Me in Your presence with the glory that I had with You before the world existed.”

b) But Paul tells us in his letter to the Philippians that Christ willingly “emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond servant, and being made in the likeness of men…He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross.”

So, John makes his second definitive statement of Christ’s deity. The Word is a person, not an emanation from God the Father, not an attribute of God the Father. He is a person, He is God the Son in communion with God the Father.

III. Christ is God

A. But John’s opening verse reaches its peak at its end. Not only has laid out the pre-existence, eternal nature of Christ, and that He is a distinct person in intimate fellowship with God the Father, John writes “and the Word was God.”

1. These four words, this short simple statement, is the most direct and the most explicit proclamation of Jesus Christ’s divinity in the entirety of the Bible.

a) And notice, John is not saying that Jesus is “a god” or a “lesser god.”

· John is saying that the Eternal Logos, the governing power of all things, the absolute essence of reason and rational thought, He who always was in intimate fellowship with God the Father, He is God.

· Sharing the same character, the same nature, the same essence, the same divinity as the Father.

b) In chapter 10, verse 30, Jesus said “I and the Father are one,” stating that He is one in essence and nature with the Father.

· The writer of Hebrews tells us in 1:3:

3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

· Paul tells us in :

9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily,

So, here John makes his third definitive statement of Christ’s deity, a direct declaration of Christ’s divinity.

IV. Christ is the Eternal Logos ( Christ is the Word)

A. And to emphasize these 3 profound truths in his first verse, John underscores their significance in verse 2. He writes:

2 He was in the beginning with God.

1. In the Greek, the word “He” gives the picture of John pointing at Christ, “This One,” this Jesus Christ, He was in the beginning with the Father. He is the pre-existent eternal One! He is in intimate fellowship with the Father! This One, Jesus Christ, is God!

a) He is telling the Greeks that this One, the Logos, is the person Jesus Christ, the God-man; not an impersonal force or principle; not just “a god” or a man that was in some sense divine, He is God.

b) He’s telling the Jews, that the Logos is Jesus Christ, the incarnation of divine power and revelation. He is the promised Messiah in the Old Testament, initiating the new covenant, revealing the truth about God to man. This One, Jesus, is the incarnate Word of God, God’s final word to mankind. says:

1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son,

c) And John is telling us this morning, Jesus Christ is the Eternal Pre-Existent Word, who is the second person of the Triune nature of God, and He, Himself, is God, sharing the same nature, character, and essence of God the Father and Holy Spirit. The truth of His deity and equality in essence with the Father and the Spirit are non-negotiable tenets of the Christian faith.

V. Christ is the Creator

In verse 3, John gives us the fourth definitive statement of Christ’s divinity. He writes:

3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

A. Jesus Christ, by His signs and wonders constantly proved that He was God during His earthly ministry.

1. He healed the sick, opened the ears of the deaf, gave sight to the blind, cast out demons, and raised the dead.

a) But the supreme miraculous work Jesus performed was performed long before these.

b) It was the supreme sign that above any and all else validated that He is God.

2. “All things were made through him,” He is the Creator. All things.

a) Paul wrote in his letter to the Colossians, 1:16:

16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

b) Christ created the angels, He created the universe, the space it fills, and the physical matter that all things are made up of.

· “without him was not any thing made that was made.”

3. He created space, time, energy, and matter. But the most fascinating thing to me is that He also created the information that makes it all operate.

a) The mathematical precision that governs the planet earth alone is beyond the comprehension of the human mind.

b) Our days, our seasons, the earths complex codependent ecosystem, the hydrological system, it all operates in a complete and ordered cycle, and it’s all self-sustaining.

c) Let’s think about the awe-inspiring intelligence of our Creator. In :

7 then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

d) This breath of life, this was the information that is the very essence of physical life.

· The genetic coding is the specified information that makes the human body, down to the single cell, operate.

· And this information is found in all living creatures, each kind with its own specific coding.

e) Much like a computer, when He formed Adam out of the dust of the ground, his body was like empty hardware, and the breath of life Christ breathed in him was the essential software he needed to operate.

The Eternal Logos, Jesus Christ, was the creative agent, whom through all things came to exist. The work of creation is the work of God.

VI. Christ is the Redeemer

In the beginning of verse 4, John gives us his fifth definitive statement of Christ’s divinity.

A. Not only is Jesus Christ the source of physical life as the Creator, He is the source of spiritual life as the Redeemer. He writes:

4 In him was life,

Since the Fall of mankind in the Garden of Eden, mankind has been cursed with spiritual death by sin. Paul write in :

just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned—

1. And this is our “bad news.”

a) All of mankind has sinned against God. And no doubt, someone here this morning might be thinking “Hey, I’m a good person.” Well by human standards, this might very well be true.

b) But to be good in God’s eyes, a person must be good and only good. From birth until death, one would have to be perfect in thought, in word, and in deed.

c) And that is impossible. There has never been, is not, or ever will be a man or woman that is good in the eyes of our Holy God.

· And the wages of sin is death, meaning in our natural state, mankind is spiritually dead, separated, in enmity with God.

· Totally corrupted and enslaved by the flesh.

· God, because He is holy, cannot tolerate sin. In fact, His holiness demands that His wrath must be poured out on it. That penalty is eternal torment in Hell.

· And mankind has no way to provide restitution for this penalty. The only restitution the God will accept is sinless blood.

d. Why does God require blood?

· , God tells us:

11 For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that makes atonement by the life.

· And tells us:

without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

2. But John writes “in Him was life.” This is the “good news”!

a) God is holy, and by His nature, He must punish sin, but also by His nature, He loves those that He created in His image.

· And because of this love, He wants to show them mercy.

· By His righteous nature, He must give man a chance to pay restitution for their sin. But man has no way in of himself to provide sinless blood.

· So, God provides what man cannot, He provides Himself, Jesus Christ. He willingly came into this world, the Creator entered His creation, manifested in the flesh, lived a sinless life,

· , Peter writes:

22 He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.

And verse 24:

24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.

· Jesus, Himself, said in 14:6 of this gospel:

I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

It’s only through Christ that spiritual life can be gifted.

B. And John goes on to say:

and the life was the light of men.

1. That light is the effect of eternal life through Jesus Christ.

a) , John writes:

God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

· God is not a light, He is light. He is the source of light.

· It’s the manifestation of His glory, it’s the entirety of His divinity as it’s revealed to His creation.

b) And it’s this light, His light that emanates in and through those who have been re-born through Him, through his person and His work on the cross.

· Even the smallest candle in a dark room shines bright and makes the darkness flee. Christ’s love, truth, and holiness shine in those who have accepted His gift of life.

2. And it’s this light in verse 5 that shines in the darkness of the fallen, lost world. It’s the light that illuminates the path and guides the way to life. John writes:

and the darkness has not overcome it.

a) Satan rules the dark realm of darkness, he rules the lost world, and he and his demonic minions know Christ all too well.

· In , when Christ cast them out, the demons cried:

“What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?”

· :

41 And demons also came out of many, crying, “You are the Son of God!”

· records that a demon pleaded:

“What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God.”

b) Not only did the demons know Jesus Christ is God, they understood the judgement that awaits them.

· Throughout history, Satan and his legion of demons have tried to overcome the light and thwart God’s redemptive work for mankind.

· In the Old Testament, Satan tried to destroy the nation of Israel, the nation from which the Messiah would come.

· He tried to kill Jesus in His infancy by prompting King Herod’s slaughter of the innocents, killing all the male children, aged 2 and younger, in the region around Bethlehem ().

· He tried to tempt Christ into sin in the wilderness at the beginning of His earthly ministry ().

· And his final attempt, he prompted those witnessing Christ’s crucifixion to taunt Him into coming off the cross, leaving His work unfinished.

· The brilliant, pure light of Jesus Christ cannot be overcome by the darkness.

· In , John writes:

“the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining.”

Conclusion

Jesus Christ, the Eternal Word, the Creator, is God the Son. Anyone who rejects this truth cannot be saved. I will close with the words of Jesus, Himself. In chapter 8 verse 24 of this gospel, Christ said “…For unless you believe that I AM He, you will die in your sins.”