By Pastor Greg
Several years ago, during a community worship service, we did not sing the second verse of A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. By the way, that’s the verse which mentions Jesus. And considering that there were people of different faiths participating in this service, I guess the leaders didn’t want to mention His offensive name. After all, one religious group has their beliefs about Jesus while the next believes something else. So rather than offend, it was apparently better to simply omit His name.
It seems that in today’s society the identity of Jesus is open to personal interpretation; a person can make up their own mind and develop their own theology of Jesus. After all, it seems no two people can completely agree on who Jesus really is. And honestly not much has changed. Even while He walked the earth, people were divided, just as He had said. Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I have come to divide people against each other! (Luke 12:51).
People have all kinds of opinions about Jesus. Some flatly deny that He was a real person (Atheists). Some think He was a god who looked like a man (Gnostics). Some think He was a man who became a god (this view is held by the Mormons). Some feel that He was simply another of God’s prophets; a man that grew up in Palestine who became God’s messenger (this view is held by some other religions, like the Muslims). Others agree that Jesus was divinely created (the virgin birth), and because of this He was a sinless man. The big change in His life came after He was baptized. Then, empowered by the Holy Spirit, Jesus began His ministry on earth. And as God’s sinless witness, the Father worked through Jesus to perform all those miracles. For example, God was the One who turned the water into wine and who fed the crowd of 5,000 (this view is held by some Christians). However, even this view diminishes who Jesus truly is. Jesus was most certainly more than a sinless man gifted by the Holy Spirit and empowered by God. He was and is “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” (Colossians 1:15).
One of the first things Paul points out is that Jesus Christ is neither Man deified nor God humanized. He was not a man who became like God or a god who looked like a man. He is far more than what some people have been trying to make Him. In Colossians 2:9, Paul will write “In Him dwelt the fullness of God”. In other words Jesus is fully God and God is fully Jesus. If a person wants to know what God is like they need merely to look at Jesus. “Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father”! (John 14:9). He is “the exact representation of His (God’s) nature” (Hebrews 1:3). And if this claim is true, then what we have learned of God, we would expect to see lived in Jesus. There should be harmony in their words and deeds.
In the Old Testament we see God healing the sick, feeding the hungry, forgiving sin, and displaying power over creation. Don’t we see Jesus doing the same? Consider the Story of the paralyzed man found in Luke chapter 5. Jesus looks at this man and forgives his sins. After this, the religious leaders in that room exclaim “Who does he think he is? That’s blasphemy! Only God can forgive sins!” (Luke 5:21). Actually, they were right. Only God can forgive someone’s sins. So Jesus, in order to prove that He was no mere man, turns to them and says, “I will prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins.” Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and go home!” (Luke 5:24). To John the Baptist Jesus points out that “the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the Good News is being preached to the poor” (Luke 7:22); a paraphrase of several Old Testament prophecies about the messiah (Isaiah 35:5–6; 26:19; 29:18–19; 61:1). Although some insist that Jesus never claimed to be God, truthfully He never left His identity open for debate.
As the second person of the trinity, Jesus possesses the same characteristics we see in God, yet they are contained in human flesh. Paul reminds us that “Though He was God, He did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. Instead, He gave up his divine privileges; He took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. When He appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died a criminal’s death on a cross”. (Philippians 2:6-8). Christ took on flesh, and chose to live according to the same limits you and I have. He grew weary. He got hungry and thirsty. He lived in a frail body that could be cut and wounded. He could bleed to death. But even thought His body was like yours and mine, that body contained the second person of the Trinity.
The second thing Paul points out is that Jesus is the “firstborn of all creation”. However, he doesn’t mean first in order as the Jehovah’s Witnesses claim, but first in authority or rank. The Greek word used here (prototokos) is not a noun, but an adjective. This early church hymn claims that Jesus was not created by God, but in fact existed with God before time even began. Even John the Apostle begins his gospel account reminding us of the same thing. “He was in the beginning with God” (John 1:2).
If it’s true that Jesus actually existed before time began, just not as flesh and blood, then is it possible that people met Jesus before He became flesh? Actually they did. When you read in the Old Testament that a person encountered The Angel of the Lord, they were really seeing the pre-incarnate Christ; Jesus appeared to them in the image of a man before He became a man. Theologians call this Christophany or sometimes a Theophany; where The Angel of the Lord appeared on this earth.
Unlike a regular Angel, The Angel of the Lord acted with authority, made decisions, and gave direction. In contrast, a regular Angel is simply a messenger. And by the way, after the birth of Christ, there is no reference in the New Testament to The Angel of the Lord appearing to men and women. After the crucifixion, people mentioned seeing the risen Christ, not The Angel of the Lord. By then He had a name.
Paul reminds us first that Jesus is the exact representation of the invisible God. What we know of God we can see lived out in Jesus. And secondly he reminds us that not only has Jesus existed eternally with the Father, but that He has been given authority over all creation. Paul says that Jesus wasn’t “born”, but that He chose to limit Himself and live like one of us in a sinless mortal body. And what that means is that for 33 years God Himself walked this earth. God took on flesh and became like us. And because of this, the world has never been the same.
This doctrine of Christ was important in Paul’s time, and it’s just as important today. It is vitally important that we understand Just who Jesus really is. English pastor J. S. Baxter summarized this best when he said “Fundamentally, our Lord's message was Himself. He did not come merely to preach a Gospel; He himself is that Gospel. He did not come merely to give bread; He said, "I am the bread". He did not come merely to shed light; He said, "I am the light". He did not come merely to show the door; He said, "I am the door". He did not come merely to name a shepherd; He said, "I am the shepherd". He did not come merely to point the way; He said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life".
Truthfully, Jesus never gave us the option of deciding for ourselves who we want Him to be. The character of Jesus is not open to personal preference or opinion. The only option He gave us was to either accept Him for who He is and be saved, or ignore Him and face judgment. “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” (John 3:18). Honestly, if Jesus was merely a good man filled with the Spirit and empowered by God, then I can understand why people get offended when Christians say “no one comes to the Father but through Me” (John 14:6). But if He is truly God in the flesh, then His words, His commands, His teachings, and His death need to have absolute sway over our life.
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