Its All About Jesus. We Have No Other Message

In reminding us that God's Son is superior to the angels, the writer to the Hebrews quotes seven OT passages as proof. Two of them are about angels, the others are about Jesus and His glory (Hebrews 1:5-13 ESV)

Consider how he quotes Psalm 2 and then refers to Psalm 89:3-4, 26-27

For to which of the angels did God ever say, "You are my Son, today I have begotten you"? Or again, "I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son"? - Hebrews 1:5 ESV

In the second Psalm he sees Jesus firmly established on Zion, the holy city of Jerusalem. In his eyes the whole story of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection was foreshadowed in this psalm. The apostles Peter and John ascribed the psalm to David in their prayer after they were released by the Jewish rulers (Acts 4:24-26). But they insisted that David wrote about Jesus. And even though the Sanhedrin forbad them to speak or teach about Jesus, they would continue to do so.

"Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard." - Acts 4:19-20 ESV

This then is the major point of the entire letter to the Hebrews—and a lesson for all of us who call ourselves Christian. The entire Scripture, Old and New Testaments, is about Jesus! He is the eternally begotten Son, sent by His Father to set us free from the power of sin and the devil. We must speak about Him. He is the center of our message. We have no other. Jesus Himself declared,

You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, - John 5:39 ESV

Yes, we have nothing else to teach, nothing else to preach, nothing else to talk about if we do not preach and teach about Jesus, God's Son. Everything flows from and back to this message about Jesus and His cross.

The angels are mighty beings, but none of them compares in glory, majesty and power to God's Son. This, as you may know, was a huge point of controversy in the history of the church. It still is among some, like Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Muslims and others who claim to honor Jesus, but deny His deity, deny that He is God's eternal Son.

The Nicene Creed addressed this question with what they prayed was a clear statement about Jesus being God.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.

The Messiah promised in the OT is Jesus! He is no mere creature. He is the eternal Son of God. His entrance into this world of men was through the blessed Virgin Mary, but His conception was not through the normal means of the union of a man and his wife. It was rather by the wondrous working of the Holy Spirit. He who was begotten in the Father's endless Day, has humbled Himself to now become one with us.

Here then is the mystery and wonder of Jesus, the Messiah, the Christ. He is both God's Son and the Son of Man. Yes, He was and remains truly a man crucified under Pontius Pilate. He did indeed suffer and die on that Roman cross on that hill near the outskirts of Jerusalem. He was indeed buried in the grave loaned to him by Joseph of Arimathea. But He rose from the dead on the third day after His death and now rules in and over all things as Creator and Redeemer.

But of the Son he says, "Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions." And, "You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, and the heavens are the work of your hands; - Hebrews 1:8-10 ESV

He concludes this first chapter with a final reference to the ministry of the angels. We'll take a one more look at that ministry next time before moving on.

Confusion About Christ's Ascension

The vast majority of Christians around the world subscribe to the Apostles and Nicene Creeds. But within them there are some troubling differences. The Ascension of Christ is one. The Apostles' Creed reads,

"On the third day he rose again from the dead.  He ascended into heaven and sits upon the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence He will come to judge the living and the dead." 

The words sound familiar, even to those of us who never repeat these words in public worship as most liturgically oriented churches do each week. Jesus ascended and sits upon the Father's right hand. That's what the Apostle writes in his letter to the Ephesians. The right hand is not a place, but a position of authority and power and dominion.

I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. - Eph 1:16-21 ESV

That settles it, right? No argument, right? Not quite. Questions remains about Jesus' human nature. Is Jesus present everywhere to rule over all things also in his human nature? The answer to that question was hammered out by the church and preserved in the Athanasian creed. Here's what that creed says about Christ,

It is necessary for eternal salvation that one also faithfully believe that our Lord Jesus Christ became flesh.
For this is the true faith that we believe and confess: That our Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son, is both God and man.
He is God, begotten before all worlds from the being of the Father, and he is man, born in the world from the being of his mother -- existing fully as God, and fully as man with a rational soul and a human body; equal to the Father in divinity, subordinate to the Father in humanity.
Although he is God and man, he is not divided, but is one Christ.
He is united because God has taken humanity into himself; he does not transform deity into humanity.
He is completely one in the unity of his person, without confusing his natures.

 Eastern Orthodox Christians, Lutherans and Roman Catholics and some others teach that Christ is present now everywhere and at all times,  both as God and as man. The Reformed churches, following the lead of John Calvin, view Jesus' ascension as His return to heaven, some sort of place with a spatial component. There His human nature must remain until the Last Day. But those of us who understand that Christ's two natures are ever and always united in one person do not view heaven as a place and so have no problem with Christ being truly present with His body and blood in the Holy Supper.

There are some Christians who reject both positions, arguing that Christ has but one nature, not two united into one person. They say we have confused things with our definitions.  So Dr. Ronald W. Leigh argues and concludes,

Jesus was neither exactly like the Father in all aspects, nor exactly like other men in all aspects. Thus, in order to describe the characteristics of Jesus accurately we must base our description on the explicit New Testament statements of the characteristics of Jesus rather than on some assumed content of the concept "God" . . . 

In short, not only must we let the New Testament description of Jesus speak for itself, unhindered by previously fixed ideas about the nature of God and of man, but we must also let the picture of Jesus given in the New Testament help determine our understanding of the nature of God and of man. . . The nature of Jesus is determinative for our understanding of the essence of the nature of man, as well as for our understanding of the essence of the nature of God

 Well, I hope I've not confused you unduly. I personally embrace the Lutheran—and historic—position. And I rejoice that Jesus, both God and Man, is my Savior, that He meets me in the Holy Supper and will return on the Last Day to take me and all who believe in His name to be with Him forever.

Who Ever Is Jesus Christ?

"My church is a lot more open-minded than yours!
"What do you mean?"
"Well, we teach that Christians, Jewish people, and Muslims all pray to the same God. You talk as if Jesus were the Savior, the only path to God."  

"Muslims believe that Jesus was a great prophet. Jewish people believe that Jesus was a gifted yet unorthodox rabbi. Buddhists regard Jesus as an enlightened person. Scholars acclaim Jesus for his remarkable ethics. Jehovah's Witnesses describe Jesus as an exalted, divine being. Mormons teach that Jesus Christ became a god."

So begins the section about Jesus Christ in the 2010 book I downloaded from Amazon last week. The book is called The Lutheran Difference. You might want to check it out. It discusses in detail in what ways Lutherans differ from other Christian and non-Christian groups. The book is organized around the Nicene Creed. As the introduction says, the name Lutheran is shorthand for saying, I agree with Martin Luther whose teaching has been well-known for over 500 years. The book goes on to show from the Bible how Lutherans differ and why. Since I've been writing about Jesus in particular during the past several weeks, I thought it well to continue by using this book as my reference.

One word in that Nicene Creed has caused much controversy. It is the Greek word ousios. We translate the word into English with our word substance or being. The Nicene Creed describes Jesus as being homo-ousios, that is of the same substance or one in Being with the Father. So one English translation of the creed describes Jesus in this way:

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.

I mention this to point out that there was much controversy over the years about the person of Jesus. Just who is he? Is he truly God? How can there be three persons and yet but one God? So the teachers argued back and forth for many, many years. The details of that controversy are spelled out in the link above to the Wikipedia article. Ultimately the teachers of the church developed the Nicene Creed in order to declare what they understood to be the teaching of God's Word. Millions of us since then have embraced that Creed as our own confession of faith.

Now mind you, not everybody likes the term homo-ousios. It certainly is not a Bible word. It is a Greek word cooked up by some and tossed back and forth with many nuances. There are times when many of us wonder whether the term detracts from the awesome mystery. Maybe we're trying too hard to explain something beyond human words, a mystery foretold by the prophet Daniel, among other O.T. prophets. He wrote like this in an inspired attempt to describe what he saw and experienced.

"I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed. - Dan 7:13-14 ESV

This mysterious son of man in Daniel's vision is given authority and dominion that rightly only belongs to God. All peoples, nations and languages serve him. This appears to be why Jesus favored the title Son of Man. He used it again and again to describe himself. Examples:

• the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. -  Matt. 8:20 
• the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. - Matt. 9:6
• the Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath - Matt. 12:8
• the Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather of of his kingdom all causes of sin - Matt. 13:41
• they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom - Matt. 16:28
• Tell no one the vision, until the Son of Man is raised from the dead - Matt. 17:9
• The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men - Matt. 17:22
• Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man - Matt. 24:30

As you can see, again and again and again Jesus took to himself what Daniel described: dominion, authority, glory, and equality with God the Father. His is an everlasting kingdom that shall never pass away nor be destroyed. This is what the creeds attempt to say in whatever language they use.

Lutherans—and millions in other Christian traditions—embrace that confession, that credo. More about this next time, especially since we believe our eternal destiny rests upon getting this right.

 

Jesus, One With The Father, Begotten Not Made

In my last post we began to look at Jesus' hard saying in John 6. We pick this discussion up today.

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh."
The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"
So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever." - Jhn 6:51-58 ESV

Jesus' saying or teaching was stiff, unbending and difficult. Many of his disciples couldn't accept it. It simply made no sense. They joined with the others who were not his disciples to complain about what Jesus said, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"

Lets start with Jesus' saying about his flesh and blood, "Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink."

At the beginning of his Gospel, John writes, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14). Prior to that John tells us that the Word was God! And that everything was made by Him. In other words, this Word is not a creature of God. No indeed. He IS God. And yet . . . "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us."

This was a great controversy among us Christians in centuries past about Jesus. Just who is he? The whole thing surfaced in a huge fight in the fourth century after Christ's resurrection and ascension. An Egyptian clergyman by the name of Arius taught that Christ is the Son of God, but he did not always exist. Rather, he was created by God the Father. He based this on Jesus' discourse with his disciples prior to his suffering in which he pointed out that his Father was greater than he.

You heard me say to you, 'I am going away, and I will come to you.' If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. - Jhn 14:28 ESV

Obviously this does not appear to square with John's introduction about the Word being God and becoming flesh and blood like the rest of us. So the controversy waged on and on until the church fathers had to get together again and again to solve it—or at least agree as a majority about what the Scriptures teach about Jesus. Various forms of Arianism—the teaching that Jesus is a creature—continue among so-called Christians to this day. For instance, Mormonism, the religion of American presidential candidate Mitt Romney, teaches that Jesus is a creature, conceived by the physical union of God the Father and Mary. They further teach that Jesus is our elder brother who progressed to become a god. By following his example we too can become gods.

The majority of the church's teachers and pastors came to an agreement toward the end of the fourth century in a gathering in Constantinople, the capitol of the Roman empire. There they agreed on the wording of the Nicene Creed, the most universal of all the Christian creeds, accepted by the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox churches, Lutherans and most protestant churches. That teaching is that Jesus is begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.

This teaching comes from the first chapter of John's Gospel as noted above. There we read that the Word became flesh and blood after all things came into being through him.  He is not a creature, but  the only-begotten (monogenēs - Greek) of the Father (John 1:14). That's why the creed says, begotten, not made. To say he was made would suggest that Jesus is a creature or some kind of demi-god as the Mormons teach. 

So back to the hard saying and the question, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" The point made by the church is that Jesus is indeed a man—and will always be a man. BUT! He is also God, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made (see also the Athanasian Creed). So the saying is harder than it first appears. We are dealing with the God-Man, Jesus, the Word made flesh. 

We'll probe this hard saying some more next time. 

 

Jesus Is The Image Of God

Last evening my wife, some friends and I attended a dinner and a movie at The Houston Club. After a fine meal we viewed Mao's Last Dancer, the story of how an acclaimed Chinese ballet dancer defected to the United States here in Houston back in 1981. It was a moving, emotional story and is based upon the autobiographical account of the dancer himself, Li Cunxin. He believed that as a citizen of the United States he had much greater freedom to develop and practice his art. He is now retired from the ballet.


The Epistle appointed for Christ the King Sunday, the final Sunday of the Church Year of worship, Colossians 1:13-20, speaks of how we Christians escaped from the power of darkness and were transferred to the domain of the Lord Jesus, the beloved Son of God. All this began, Paul writes, when we were baptized and the Spirit worked faith in our hearts to believe in the forgiveness of sins. Paul then goes on to make some astounding claims for Jesus Christ. Permit me to make a list.

1. He is the image of the invisible God
2. He is the firstborn of all creation
3. Through him all things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, thrones, dominions, rulers and authorities—all things were created. 
4. For him all things were created. 
5. He is before all things
6. In him all things hold together
7. He is the head of the body, the church
8. He is the beginning
9. He is the firstborn from the dead
10. He is preeminent in everything 
11. In him all the fullness of God dwells
12. By the blood of his cross all things, whether on earth or in heaven, are reconciled to him and at peace. 

This is a rather astounding list, a list that does not exhaust all that the Apostle says about Christ in this marvelous letter to the believers in Colossae and to us. Were we to examine each of these statements in the light of the rest of God's revelation we'd have enough to write for the next two years—and more. So let me lift up but the first, the image of the invisible God. Even that I can but point to, for there is so much wrapped up in it. I have no room here to explore with you all the implications. 

Let's look at Genesis 1:26 where we read of the Creator saying, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." The Greek Old Testament word for image, icon, is the same Greek word Paul uses in Colossians. The word for likeness is homoiousin. Both words are claimed for man in the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians 11:7 a man is called the icon of God. In James 3:9 the apostle says mankind was made in God's likeness. So what, if any, is the difference between image or icon and likeness. And what does it mean that Christ is the image or icon of the invisible God?

Perhaps a couple analogies will help. Take out a coin or a bank note from your pocket. On them you find the image or icon of a President of the United States, say Washington, Lincoln, Franklin or Jefferson. Why? Because the coin or the bill has behind it the power of the United States. Its value is drawn from the resources of that country and guaranteed by the same. The image points to all that.

Closer to the heart of the matter is the fact that a child is the icon or image of her parents. She carries their DNA and in most cases their rights as a citizen of a particular country. Her being is  derived from her parents. Of course, she also bears the likeness of her parents. One may say she looks very much like her mother or her father. However, likeness is not the same as image. One can look like others and yet not bear their image. 

Do you begin to get it now? Do you see why Jesus is called the icon or image of His Father in Colossians 1:15? He is not merely like the Father. He is the image of the Father. He has received from the Father power, glory, preeminence and fullness. He is very God of very God. He is not created or made. This is why the church has resorted to the word begotten rather than made. All power and authority reside in Him. By Him were all things made and without Him nothing exists. He is the image of the heavenly Father.

This Son of God was made man and was born of the Virgin Mary. He who is true God from all eternity is also true man, with flesh and blood and lineage. By the shedding of His blood this One of priceless worth has paid the price of all men's sins.

In days gone by the church had a huge quarrel about all this, reaching all the way back to the years following 250 AD and beginning in the city of Alexandria with a clergyman named Arius. Arius and those who followed him were greatly influenced by Greek philosophy. To say that Jesus bore the image of the Father did not make sense. It was, they said, irrational. Instead they taught that Jesus and the Father were not together eternally and before the creation of all things. They denied the Trinitarian teachings of the church.  The Nicene Creed came out of this long controversy, a quarrel that continues in one way or another to the present day as people ask who Jesus was and is.

On this final Sunday of the Church Year we affirm with great enthusiasm that Jesus is the very Son of God, the image of the eternal Father.