Jesus Christ

 

Why is it so important to find out about Jesus Christ? 

  • Jesus is the central figure in Christianity

What does the Bible tell us about Jesus Christ? 

  • Jesus Christ is the Son of God (John 1:1-2,14)
  • Jesus Christ is God the Son (John 1:1-2,14)
  • Jesus of Nazareth was fully God and fully Man
  • Jesus was born of a virgin
  • Jesus was indwelt by the Holy Spirit from birth
  • Jesus was tempted in all points as we are
  • Jesus lived a perfect life, committing no sin
  • Jesus died in our place, for our sins
  • Jesus was buried, but was raised from the dead
  • Jesus appeared to many after His resurrection
  • Jesus returned to His Father in Heaven, where He is making intercession for us
  • Jesus will return to rule, with the Church, on Earth, ushering in the New Heaven and the New Earth

What does the Bible say about Jesus that would cause one to believe He was fully human?

  • He was born as a human. (Philippians 2:7)
  • He got hungry, thirsty and tired.
  • He had to eat, drink and sleep.
  • He could be touched (1 John 1:1-2)
  • He had emotions such as compassion, amazement, sorrow and apprehension. (Matthew 9:36; Luke 7:9; John 11:38; Matthew 26:37).
  • He prayed to God, as humans need to.
  • He called himself a man and other people called him a man.
  • So the Bible makes it very clear that Jesus was fully human … but the Bible also makes it clear that He was more than just a man.

What does the Bible say about Jesus that would cause one to believe He was more than fully human?

  • Before Jesus became a man, He was God ( 1 John 4:2; John 1:1-2, 14 Hebrews 1:8)
  • Jesus was conceived in a supernatural way (Matthew 1:20; Luke 1:35).
  • Jesus claimed to be alive before Abraham was born (John 8:58). The Jewish leaders thought that Jesus was claiming something divine, and they wanted to kill him (v. 59). The phrase “I AM” is an echo of Exodus 3:14, where God revealed his name to Moses: “This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” Jesus used this name for himself.
  • Jesus was indwelt by the Holy Spirit from birth (Matthew 1:20).
  • Jesus believed that he was the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies. He was the suffering servant who would die to ransom the people from their sins (Isaiah 53:4-5, 53:12; Matthew 26:24; Mark 9:12; Luke 22:37; 24:46). He was the king of peace who would ride into Jerusalem on a donkey (Zechariah 9:9-10; Matthew 21:1-9). He was the son of man who would be given all power and authority (Daniel 7:13-14; Matthew 26:64).
  • Jesus said he shared glory with God before the world began (John 17:5).
  • John tells us that he existed even in the beginning of time, as the Word (John 1:1).
  • John tells us that the universe was made through the Word (John 1:3). The Father was the Designer, and the Word was the Creator who carried out the design. “All things were created by him and for him” (Colossians 1:16; 1 Corinthians 8:6).
  • God made the universe through the Son (Jesus).  Hebrews 1:2
  • Both Hebrews and Colossians tell us that the Son sustains the universe (Hebrews 1:3;Colossians 1:17).
  • Both tell us that he is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15), “the exact representation of his being” (Hebrews 1:3).
  • Jesus Himself recognized that only God was worthy of worship … Yet, He did NOT refuse to be worshipped. On several occasions, people worshiped Jesus (Matthew 14:33;28:9,17; John 9:38). Angels refuse worship (Revelation 19:10), but Jesus did not. Indeed, the angels worship Jesus, the Son of God (Hebrews 1:6).
  • Some prayers are addressed to Jesus (Acts 7:59-60; 2 Corinthians 12:8;Revelation 22:20). He is worthy of worship.
  • The New Testament gives elaborate praises to Jesus Christ, with doxologies that are normally reserved for God (2 Timothy 4:18; 2 Peter 3:18; Revelation 1:6).
  • He has the highest title that can ever be given (Ephesians 1:20-21). Even if we call him God, that title is not too high.
  • In Revelation, equal praise is given to God and to the Lamb, implying equality (Revelation 5:13).
  • The Son must be given equal honor with the Father (John 5:23).
  • Both God and Jesus are called the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and end of everything (Revelation 1:8, 1:17; 21:6; 22:13).

Who, then, could we say that Jesus is? 

  • He is a divine being who became flesh. (John 1:1, 14)
  • He was in the beginning with God (John 1:1-2);
  • He was the Creator of all, the Author of life (Acts 3:15).
  • He is exactly like God, has glory like God, and has powers that only God has. (Hebrews 1:3)
  • It is no wonder, therefore, that the disciples concluded that Jesus was God, even in the flesh … as the name Immanuel (God with us) highlighted (Matthew 1:22-23).
  • In light of the passages above, we can say, with confidence, that Jesus Christ was fully God, as well as fully Man.

What does the Bible tell us about what Jesus Christ did? 

  • He lived a perfect life, committing no sin …
  • He was “born under the law” (Galatians 4:4), “in the likeness of sinful man” (Romans 8:3).
  • He “shared in their humanity” (Hebrews 2:14-17).
  • He was tempted in all points as we are. (Hebrews 4:15)
  • He lived without ever sinning (Hebrews 4:15).
  • He was blameless, without impurity (Hebrews 7:26; 9:14).
  • He committed no sin (1 Peter 2:22); in him there was no sin (1 John 3:5); He knew no sin (2 Corinthians 5:21).
  • No matter how tempting the sin was, Jesus always had a greater desire to obey God because His mission was to do God’s will (Hebrews 10:7).

Why would some say that Jesus included us in His life?

What does it mean that Jesus died a substitutionary death?

What does the Bible tell us happened to Jesus after He died?

What is the significance of Jesus’ resurrection? 

  • By coming back to life, He made it possible for us to live forever.
  • By His resurrection, He saved us. (Romans 5:10)

What does the Bible tell us happened after Jesus’ resurrection?

What does the Bible tell us Jesus Christ is doing today? 

  • He serves as our High Priest. (Hebrews 4:14; 8:1)
  • He serves and ministers on our behalf. (Hebrews 8:1-2, 3-6)

What does the Bible tell us Jesus will do in the future?

Why was it so important that Jesus be fully Human as well as being fully God? 

  • If He were not fully human, He could not represent us before God and die as our substitute, in order to pay the penalty for our sin.
  • If He were not fully God, His death could only pay the penalty for His own sins … He would not be able to pay the penalty for all sin.
  • Our salvation depends on the reality of Jesus’ humanity.
  • His role as our intercessor, our high priest, depends on His experience as a human (Hebrews 4:15).
  • Even after His resurrection, Jesus had flesh and bones (John 20:27; Luke 24:39).

 

The Birth of Jesus

The Genealogy

Turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew 1. Matthew is a gospel written specifically to Jews. There are many things in Matthew that would have only been of interest to the Jew. One of those is Matthew’s desire to show that Jesus was in fact the fulfillment of prophecy, and what the Jews were expecting was fulfilled in Jesus. That’s why Matthew starts with the genealogy because if he is going to show that Jesus is the Jewish hope, if he’s the messiah, then one of the things he has to prove right off the bat is that he is a physical descendant of king David. That is why he starts with the genealogy to get that taken care of. There is one thing that is interesting at the end of the genealogy in Matthew 1:16, and you won’t see it in the English, but it says, “and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary of whom Jesus was born who is called Christ.” In the Greek, that “of whom” belongs to Mary and not to Joseph. If you were reading this in Greek it would stop you, and you would go that’s odd. Cause all the other genealogies have been tracing through the dads. You remember in Luke’s genealogy its says, “and he was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph.” Both of the genealogies in their own way raise a little flag that there is something different about Jesus, and that’s what Matthew goes on to discuss; he is setting the stage.

The Angel’s Announcement to Joseph

We then get into the story of Joseph’s dream and this is all in terms of setting the stage for who Jesus is. The angel comes and tells Joseph that his fiancée is pregnant. Understand that in that culture, the engagement was the legally binding ceremony and if you were going to break off an engagement you had to get divorced. It’s a little different than our culture. He finds out that his fiancé is pregnant; he is considering divorcing her, and then verse 20 says, “but as he considered these things, behold an angel of the LORD appeared to him in a dream saying ‘Joseph son of David,’”—that’s an important phrase isn’t, it? Joseph is in the direct lineage of David—“‘son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you will call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins,’” which is what the name Jesus means. “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord has spoken by the prophet,” then he quotes Isaiah 7:14, “behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel”—and Matthew helps us understand a little more—“which means God with us.”

There are a lot of things going on in those few verses. Part of what the angel is doing with Joseph is trying to explain that his finance is pregnant by power of the Holy Spirit. In the process, he starts telling us of Jesus’s character, not just his existence, but critical things about his character. His purpose for coming is to save people from their sins. He is the fulfillment of the Isaiah 7:14 prophecy, where Isaiah prophesied that a virgin would have a baby. Matthew picks that up and says that is a prophecy about Jesus. Even in calling Jesus Immanuel and then emphasizing that that means he is God with us, you quickly get the idea that there is something very unusual going on with this baby, not just a virgin conception you want to call it. There is a very special function, a very special baby being born, so the stage is being set.

If you go over to Luke one, Luke does the same stuff, but he fills in the picture a little more for us. What they are trying to do is not just to say that Jesus will be born, but to tell us who Jesus is and what he is about. In Luke 1, starting in verse 31, the angel says, “behold and you shall conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will call his name Jesus. He will be great and be called the Son of the Most High” (the son of God), “and the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there will be no end.”

The angel is pointing out two additional things here that Luke tells us. The one is that Jesus is also going to be the fulfillment of the promise to king David of 2 Samuel 7:14. There, God promises David that after he dies he will raise up one of his physical decedents (hence the genealogy in Matthew), and that that descendant will sit on an eternal throne and rule there forever. So Mary is being told that her baby is going to be the fulfillment of one of the greatest promises and one of the greatest hopes in all the Old Testament. Mary is told that this baby will be the fulfillment of that prophecy, and in fact as the story goes on, Mary says to the angel, “how will this be because I am a virgin,” and the angel answers her “the Holy Spirit will one upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the child that will be born will be called holy, the son of God.”

In the birth narratives you have some very significant indications of who Jesus really was, he just wasn’t a supernatural birth, there is something else going on. It’s not just that he is a very special baby, but that there are functions that he is going to do that are even beyond him being a human.

 

 

That’s the end of the Sermon on the Mount and we’ve spent a couple of sessions on it. Much of the rest of Matthew we’ve already discussed in the context of Mark. There are some things in Matthew that are not in Mark, but the bulk of it we’ve already covered.

 

  1. Matthew 5:43 : Matthew 5:21
  2. Matthew 5:43 : Lev 19:18; Matthew 19:19
  3. Matthew 5:44 : Luke 6:27, 28; Rom 12:20; Exodus 23:4; Job 31:29, 30; Psalm 7:4
  4. Matthew 5:44 : Luke 23:34; Acts 7:60; 2 Tim 4:16; 1 Pet 3:9
  5. Matthew 5:45 : Luke 6:35; Eph 5:1; Phil 2:15
  6. Matthew 5:45 : Acts 14:17
  7. Matthew 5:46 : Luke 6:32

 

 

 

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