Jesus is divine
From Jesus' own words, the testimony of his friends, voices from heaven and words of the evil spirits themselves - we have a single common theme - Jesus is divine. He is God. But what does that mean? And that's where we will pick up our study night...what does it mean when we say Jesus is God?
When does Jesus appear on the scene as God? Is it at the moment of his birth? Is it when he is baptised and the Holy Spirit descends upon him? Is it when he rise from the dead? This is such basic Christian knowledge that I ma fearful of starting so simply but experience has taught me over the years that many people lacking any kind of systematic biblical preaching have some very woolly ideas about what we actually believe. And so it seemed to me that we should start tonight at the very beginning and state quite clearly that Jesus pre-existed as God. That is he was God before he was born in Bethlehem.
Consider Micah 5v2 but not please in the Good News Bible where the translation is forced and unsound. Rather listen to it in the RSV, "But you O Bethlehem Ephrathah who are little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days." Compare that then with John's great opening statement, "Before the world was created, the Word already existed..... from the very beginning the word was with God, through him God made all things, not one thing in all creation was made without him" And to this little cairn add the words of Jesus. And remember that the phrase I AM is the name of God, "I am telling you the truth, Jesus replied, Before Abraham was born I AM." What claims are made for Jesus. What claims he makes for himself. In his great prayer on the night of his arrest, he spoke plainly and was heard to say, "Father! Give me glory in your presence now, the same glory I had with you before the world was made.......for you loved me before the world was made."
So as we mine away at this seam we find these golden nuggets. All the truth we could ever want to possess about Jesus is here to be found into words of scripture. Jesus is here seen to be the eternal and everlasting one. Whose life has no beginning and no end. This is what we mean when we talk of Jesus as God.
While Jesus was here on earth many things were noted about his behaviour in his public ministry. But in particular I want to draw your attention to fact recorded in scripture that Jesus taught with authority. Do you remember it...."he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes." He also of course exercised authority over the demons who obeyed him without question. Even the devil believes in God you see! It is only the spiritually blind who fail to see Jesus as God! And of course these hints of real power were confirmed in the days after the resurrection when Jesus said quite clearly, "all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me."
You know when you think that Jesus was God, when you think that he created us, when you think of his power and insight and then when you dwell for a moment on how his chosen people treated him and NOW today how we treat him once can only marvel at the patience of God. What love he must have for us as wayward children to put up with us. Human patience would have run out long ago.
Although Jesus was human in every way he was also completely divine and that is part of the great mystery of Christ. We will never wholly comprehend this matter and we are foolish to try too hard. What we can do is what we are endeavouring to do this week, which is too look at the texts and be aware through them of the truth about Jesus.
Because he was God, Jesus knew what was going on around him in a very different way to anything that can experience. He knew for example who would follow him and who would not. He knew that Judas would betray him. He knew when he was to die and he knew how. As it was appropriate to the furtherance of the kingdom Jesus made these things known. For example in John 6v64 we read, "But there are some of you who do not believe. For Jesus knew from the first who those were that did not believe and who it was who would betray him." Jesus could see into the very hearts of all those who came to him. He knew those who were evil and those who had real potential for good.
And all these facets of the divine that we are exploring haven't in some way departed from Jesus. He still knows us better than we know ourselves. He looks deeply into our hearts. As we engage in prayer he knows all that we have been and all that we will be. He exercises his authority in love over our lives. He guides us in our reading. He leads us towards those parts of scripture we need to understand most. He gives us open eyes to read and ears to hear his divine word.
Jesus knew from the very beginning what he would suffer and what would happen to him. Indeed this was known before the first atom was created. What love here is found. Jesus knows that he will be rejected. He knows he will be crucified. He does it all for love of us. To open for us the way to heaven. How much there is to be thankful for! And in his infinite patience and love he tries to prepare his disciple for what just come to pass. In Mark 8v31 we read, "And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly."
He told them this many times. He told them it clearly. And yet they did not take it in. That is one of the most frustrating aspects of the gospel - isn't it. To those of us who love it with all our hearts it seems so inconceivable that people don't take it seriously. Yet that in itself ought to alert us to the reality of the deep rootedness of sin in human lives. How blind we are. How little we take in.
We have digressed now in some small way from our initial question - what do we mean when we say that Jesus was divine?
Let's think over it again. As we saw yesterday there are so many scriptural references to the divinity of Jesus that it is not possible to to look at the Bible with honest eyes and remain unconvinced of the claims for divinity. As we explore a little deeper we see the depths of these claims. Jesus did not become divine. Jesus is and was and forever will be the pre-existent, eternal and almighty God. he didn't just suddenly appear in history 2,000 years ago. So far we have seen something of his divinity at work in the fact that people noticed his authority not only in his teaching but also in his dealings with evil spirits. He demonstrated so often his intimate knowledge of people and of what was about to befall him.
But there is more, there has to be hasn't there? How can what we have said so far be enough. We must tomorrow explore His Lordship, His Pre-Eminence and His Dominion.
What is already apparent in our study however is that Jesus needs to be taken seriously and whatever picture of him we may have formed in our minds, we should be making certain this, corresponds with the reality of Jesus.