Colossians 1:15 - Who Is The Son? Pt. 2

Park Meadows Church

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Good morning, everyone. It's been a good service already. So, let's get right into the

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Word of God this morning. I believe we're going to talk about the deity of Jesus Christ, not much better subject than that.

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So, let's pray. Lord, thank you so much for our service already. Thank you for calling

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Ben to be a gospel preacher and for putting in his heart to be here in this church and bless his ministry here,

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Lord. Thank you for Matt's leadership over our music program and for everyone that helps with that.

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Thank you for our deacons, our elders, and all of our individual parts of this body, each one special, each one with special gifts.

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And so, help us to be a light across this country. Bless Tradeway and all the people that work there that help us spread the gospel to maybe millions of people across the country.

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And Lord, we just ask you to bless that as well and protect us and give us the right words to say to each individual.

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We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's see.

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We've got some of our lights fixed. Does everybody notice how brighter it is? The baptistry now matches the glory of God's light out there almost.

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We've got to put four more new ones of those in Monday and then those will be right. And we really appreciate it.

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I think they're going to put little lights in all those and maybe we can clean those up a little and get them sparkly again and then we'll be ready to go.

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Then we can argue over the color of the carpet after that. All right. We're in the book of Colossians and man, last

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Sunday was amazing, wasn't it? It really was. But how many of you think it's nice to have a rest today and just have us home, folks?

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You know, we need that. We need just us. And I've said it a million times, but sometimes my favorite

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Sundays are just when it's us. I've got to get over that if God's going to make the church grow, but I'll get over it.

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But I do like it. Yes. Yes, sir. Well, I know he's not in here so we can talk about him, but since he was a little boy, he said he thought he was called a priest.

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He's sort of forgotten that now, but I haven't. So we'll see. Maybe the Lord will notify

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Emily first or something. Yes, he is. He is very special with people.

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He just has a knack for loving people and everybody sees it. He's very special.

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Thank you, Virg. I'm glad he was able to come over. Well, in Colossians chapter one, we spent, you know, the first 12 or so verses talking about recently, talking about God the

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Father. And that led up to this book about to start talking about Jesus Christ more specifically and who he is.

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And that's kind of where we are right now. So if you remember last time we covered one point,

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I think, on who Jesus is, and that was in Colossians chapter one, verse 13. And I'm going to add verse 14.

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So let's look at those with me. I'll read them and we'll go from here. Who has delivered us from the power of darkness and has translated us into the kingdom of his dear son.

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That first who is God the Father. We know that from the context up in verse six and some other verses up higher where we see that it's talking about God the

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Father. So he translated us into the kingdom of his dear son. But what we learned there about the son of God is he is called his dear son.

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And if you remember last time in the Greek, the word dear is not really the word dear in English.

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It's really the word agape in Greek, which means love. So it means his loved son.

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And that's with a special godly type of love. So Jesus is the loved the son is how it reads literally in Greek.

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He is the loved the son. And it's important that in Greek it has the little article thee in front of it, because it doesn't mean he's a son of God or a loved one of God, the loved son of God.

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And so that's the first thing we learned last week about him. Now, if we add verse 14, it says in whom we have redemption through the blood, even the forgiveness of our sins.

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So that adds a little bit to it. So I would word it this way. Last time we said Jesus is the king of God's kingdom, right?

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He is the king of God's kingdom, because it says in verse 13 that he placed us into the kingdom of his dear son.

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So Jesus is the king of all kings. He's the king of God's kingdom. And he is

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God's the loved son. And then I would add this. He is the savior of the world.

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And I get that from verse 14. He is the savior of the world. So we know those things just from a couple of verses, and we haven't even gotten to the main verses yet.

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So that's kind of what we talked about last time. So if we look at verse 13, it says,

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Colossians 1 .13, who has delivered us from the power of darkness. Now remember that that who is

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God, the father, we get that from Colossians 1 .3 and 6. But what's interesting, it's about to change to a different who.

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So let's watch it. Who that's God, the father who has delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the kingdom of his dear son, who so in verse 15, the who there is talking about the closest noun to it, which is the son.

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So now we're talking about the son of God. And this is where we really get into a lot of what this book says about Jesus Christ and who he is.

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So in verse 15 says who that's his dear son, who is the image of the invisible

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God, the firstborn of every creature. Now, some of what we have to talk about today is somewhat technical and next

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Sunday, the Lord willing, I won't be here next Sunday though, will I? Okay.

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When I get back, the Lord willing, we will get into something that's less technical, where we go into some scriptures that talk about the deity of Jesus Christ.

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When you ask who he is, we know that he's fully man, because he was born of a virgin in the manger and walked with men for 33 years, right?

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And when he ascended into heaven after the resurrection, he was still fully man. He's a glorified man though now, isn't he?

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Like we will be when we die or get raptured, we will, our bodies will be changed and we'll have a glorified body, which

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God says is as different as the moon is from the sun. I mean, you can stare at the moon, can't you?

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I like to stare at it with a telescope. Who else likes telescopes? I'm the only three of us. Okay.

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Yeah. Several of us actually about four or five of us. You can stare right at the moon, but you don't dare try getting a telescope without a special lens anyway, and staring at the sun, because what would happen?

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In about six seconds, you would go blind for the rest of your life. So do you see there's a difference in glory between the moon and the sun, right?

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Paul used that as an example to show you the difference between the body that you're living in right now.

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And depending on like, if what age you are, if you're, you know, basically beyond teen years, something hurts, right?

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Like your body, it starts roughly about the year of 30 years old from there on, it starts degrading slightly every year.

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And gradually you stop playing basketball. Sooner than that, you stop playing football, which

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I don't know, I was 35 or something in the last football, tackle football game I played. And it was waited too long because I got hurt in that game a little bit, not bad.

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But then eventually you just switched to golf, non -contact usually.

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You hear somebody say four, you better duck, right? But so we began to degrade, but the glory of this body is like the moon compared to what this body and your body will be like after we're glorified, it'll be more like the sun.

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Do you see the difference? Now that's hard to contemplate, but it's that different, but you'll still be you.

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God will make that glorified body out of the same material this body is made out of.

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He will put it all back together. He will drop off the fleshly part in the bad sense.

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The part of us that pulls against God will be gone. That part of our mind will be cleansed away where we don't have anything pulling against God.

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We'll just pull with him, towards him forever. And the difference in that body in this one is like the difference between the sun and the moon.

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So thanks be to God for that, right? For any of us past 30, we're glad that's going to happen someday.

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And really it's like a friend of mine was saying last night at your party that, you know, things are getting so bad in the world now.

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We should, for our kids and grandkids, we should just be praying, come quickly, Lord Jesus, right?

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So anyway, so we see here that this son is the who of verse 15.

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So let's read it together. It says, Jesus or his dear son, who is the image of the invisible

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God, the firstborn of every creature. Like I said, this will get a little technical.

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And then when we get into the next batch, it won't be, hey, come on in guys. Thanks for making the drive.

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I'm also glad someone heard you at the door. We try to lock out bad people after,

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I don't know, 10 or 15 after. Good to see you. So we're in Colossians chapter one, verse 15.

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Now, so let's take a look at this, who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.

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Now, some people have a little bit of problem with the last phrase in verse 15, the firstborn of every creature in the

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English. And I'm not saying it's a bad translation. I love the King James. I think the translators, multiple group of men who translated this were godly and prayerful people and did a great job.

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It's the most accurate English Bible in the world and always will be, I think, until the Lord comes back and the truest to the original

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Greek and the Hebrew of any English Bible. But it is an English translation.

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The Bible wasn't written in English. It was written in Hebrew in the Old Testament, Greek in the

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New Testament, obviously. So it's a little cumbersome there maybe, especially considering it's old

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English, but it says the firstborn of every creature. I think when we take a look at that in Greek, it's going to clear some things up.

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It doesn't, some people make that sound like, in fact, Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons use it to try to teach that Jesus was created, that he was either born or created and therefore he is not

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God. And this verse doesn't say that. We'll see that as we get to it. But anyway, the first part of it says he is the image of the invisible

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God. And it's kind of interesting that God put that in the same verse. So now they got a contradiction. If they want to believe that the last part means that they have a contradiction in one verse, because the first part says he is the image of invisible

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God. Well, let's take a look at that for a minute. This word image, and this is kind of interesting because from the time of my youth as a minister, which goes back 45 years now, senior pastor for 35 at least years, but as a minister, 45 years,

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I would look at this word icon in the Greek, and that is the Greek word for likeness, where it says he is in the likeness of God.

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And if you just look, most of you have a Strong's Concordance. Like if you look it up in Blue Letter Bible, or if you use even

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Lagos would be the first choice would be Strong's, or if you own the book, the Strong's Concordance, which is a great book and always has been since it came out years ago, decades ago, it simply defines it as a likeness, a statue, a profile, or a representation, a resemblance, or an image.

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And if you really look at the little word that icon comes from, I've told you so many times, it's like if you had a stamp with an image on the end of it, and you put it on top of some leather and hit it real hard, it would put that image in the leather.

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Well, that image in the leather would be the same image that's on the stamp, wouldn't it? And I've taught that that's what this means, because that is what the surface level in the

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Greek of this means. But you can also get Greek dictionaries that are this thick, where it might actually have two pages in tiny print on this one word.

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And sometimes, at least if we're in the ministry, we have to study a little further. Sometimes you guys don't have time because you're making a living for your families and all that too.

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But we have to study a little further sometimes to really get the true meaning of some of the Greek words.

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And sometimes you can go back to what we call profane Greek, which means, you know, like Iliad and the

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Odyssey, some of the books written in Greek, and see how they use those words. Well, what's interesting, and that's good to do,

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I believe in doing that, but biblical Greek is even different. So sometimes you will see a word and see what it means in Greek, and then you look at how it's used in the

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Bible and is not used to mean that. It means something different in Bible Greek, because of how the

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Holy Spirit used the word in the Bible. And you can tell by the context and the many times it's used, it has a slightly different biblical meaning than in profane

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Greek. Does that make sense? So it requires a good deal of study sometimes to deal with the words. And you have to start with the words if you're going to teach or preach.

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So I have found just this year that, and I have to blame maybe laziness in my youth for not seeing this sooner, but the word really doesn't really mean, the usage of the word here doesn't really mean like a stamp, stamping something onto something else, and it looks like that.

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It doesn't mean that. And so let's talk about what it does mean. Now, I went into a book called

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Eliot's Commentary for English Readers, and he says this, this is all important clause, this all important clause needs the most careful examination.

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And I can see why. And he goes on and says, we note accordingly that the word image, like the word form in Philippians two, six through seven, but also in this verse here in chapter one, it is used in the

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New Testament, now listen to this very carefully, to mean this, a real and essential embodiment of something.

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Now, do you see how that's a little stronger than a stamp or an image? So image in English is kind of a weak word for this, embodiment is a better word for it.

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Now, words are important. Some of you may be thinking, well, that kind of means the same thing, and it kind of does.

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That's why I'm okay with the translation, but I think this is a better word, a real or phrase, a real and essential embodiment as distinguished from a mere likeness.

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Do you get that? So the word itself on the surface level can just mean a likeness or a stamp of something that looks like the other thing that was on the end of the stamp.

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It can mean that in profane Greek, but in biblical Greek, and I'm going to give you some examples here in a minute that'll show you how this word is used in other places in the

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New Testament, and it doesn't just mean a likeness. What it means is a real and essential embodiment of something.

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All right, so keep that in mind. And that actually is distinguished from the idea of a likeness.

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You can contrast the two, they don't mean the same thing. So this is a better, I think,

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English translation. So here's some examples. In Hebrews chapter 10, verse 1, it says, the law having a shadow of good things to come and not the very image of the things.

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In other words, not the very embodiment of the things is a better translation there.

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In 1 Corinthians 15, 49, it says that the image of the earthy and the image of the heavenly.

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Now this is in that portion of scripture where it talks about the sun and the moon and the difference of our glorified body from this body.

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This is the passage it comes from. But look at the use of the word image here. When it's talking about the human body, the difference between us now and how we will be one second, a nanosecond.

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I like that word better, right? A nanosecond after you were glorified, after the rapture or your death, if that comes first.

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A nanosecond later, the difference between that glorified body and the one you have now is talking about that.

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And what it says is the image, it uses this word icon or image, the image of the earthy and the image of the heavenly.

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And so what we see here is that it doesn't just mean an image of your earthly body because it's talking about your body, the real thing.

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It's talking about the embodiment of your body. Do you see that? It's not talking about an image of your body or a likeness.

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It's talking about your body. So the word in the biblical Greek does not mean just an image.

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Usually it normally means an embodiment, a real embodiment of something. And so then when it says the image of the heavenly, that's talking about your glorified body.

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And it doesn't, it's not talking about some image of your glorified body. It's talking about your real glorified body.

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Do you see the difference? The embodiment of your glorified body, the real body, it's not just an image of it.

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It's the real thing. Do you get that? It's really important to understand that word in this verse we're studying today in Colossians. So Corinthians 3 .13,

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sorry 3 .18 is another example of the same thing, changing us from glory to glory into the image of the glorified

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Christ. So we will actually, you know, when we are saved, we should walk around not as an image of Jesus, but as an embodiment of Jesus.

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Jesus lives in my body, doesn't he yours? So when I walk around, I'm not just a little

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Jesus. How many times I've even said it because a cool old preacher said it, Ben, sorry. I don't know who, but I copied him and it's not biblical.

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And I just discovered that in the last months when I've been studying this word anew. So we're not just little

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Jesuses. How many preachers have you heard say that, including me? So I apologize.

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I was wrong. It's not right. What we are is the embodiment of Jesus who lives in us. We're the body that he works in now.

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That is way stronger. And that is a way more important job than being a little

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Jesus. We're the only Jesus they see in our generation.

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And how we live is a louder witness than what we say with our mouths. So we have to live at first.

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And then as the Holy spirit leads us, tell people about how he changed our lives and so forth.

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So this, this word is a very important word in the Greek to get it right. So, um, the true key to understanding what it means when it says that Jesus is the image of God.

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The true key to this passage is in our Lord's own words in John chapter one, verse 18, no man has seen

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God at any time. Now we're going to move into this, uh, second part of the verse where it says that it talks about, he is the image of the invisible

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God. So the invisible God is an important part of the verse too, because also, because most people, so many people view

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God, the father is a little old man sitting on the throne and they'll say, well, he, in revelation that shows the throne in heaven and says,

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God's on it. And you know, but if you think about what you see, what John saw was just resplendent light over this mercy seat.

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It wasn't a person in a body. It wasn't a bodily form because the

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Bible said, well, and we'll get into it more when I told you, maybe next time I speak, it won't be so technical.

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I'm especially with this. So I probably won't do it today, but the point is God, the father is invisible and no man had seen him at any time, nor ever will the

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Bible says only the only begotten son of God has seen him.

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Jesus came out from him and he has seen him and he is the only bodily form of anything physical that's ever seen

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God. Now I was uncomfortable with that a little bit, and I remember asking brother

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Otis one time when I had someone like that, that I can ask questions to, and I thought could give me an answer, a really good answer.

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And I said, so brother Otis, does it ever bother you that the Bible says we might not see

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God the father ever? And he said, Oh, brother, David, you will see God.

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You'll see him through the eyes of Jesus. And I thought doesn't make much sense, but somehow it comforts me.

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It's an authoritative answer and I like it. I like it. But anyway, so let's, let's, let's think about this just a little bit here.

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So in John one 18, Jesus himself said, no man, excuse me.

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No man has seen God at any time other than the only begotten son, the only begotten son has seen him.

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That's Jesus, right? The only, and then it goes on. It says the only begotten son who is in the bosom of the father, he has revealed him.

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Now I want you to think about this. You've heard me say it recently, but I shall say it again is that if we didn't have

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Jesus and if God did not, if God was not a person or one

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God who subsist in three distinct persons is if you want to say it, I like Dave seniors way to word that better.

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He says, God is one God who subsist in three distinct personas. If it weren't that way, you would never know the father because he is invisible and no man has seen him at any time.

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And only Jesus has ever revealed him to a human being that you say, well, what about the old

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Testament? Well, Jesus was in the old Testament. He wasn't called Jesus. He was called Jehovah, but he was in the old

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Testament many times. And so Jesus is the revelator of the father.

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And the only really are the first revelator of the father. He, why is he called the word?

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Now the Holy spirit is not called the word. I do believe the Holy spirit wrote the word, the written word, but he's not called the word of God.

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Jesus is why? Because what is a word? It is like a truck, a pickup truck.

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You don't think of it that could take something from John's mind. If he spoke a word to me, you could take something spiritual from his mind and send that to me and put it in my mind.

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And I'd understand what's in his mind. That's what a word does, right? We couldn't understand each other without words really, or at least if you couldn't talk sign language or some way to use words.

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And so Jesus is that between us and the father. He brought the father's mind to human beings for the first time in the early chapters of Genesis and has continued to do so ever since he does it through the

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Holy spirit now, doesn't he? Cause he said, when I leave, I will send another comforter like myself and he'll teach you things you don't even know yet.

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But, um, and that's what he said to the apostles. And he said, you'll write it down. And so now we have it. So the perfect is come.

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The perfect word of God is here and we have it. And these are the words of Christ and they reveal

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God, the father to us because he's invisible. You never could have known him without Jesus. You would have known something was up there, but you wouldn't have known him personally without Jesus Christ.

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So he says of himself, it's interesting to hear people say, well, show me where Jesus ever claimed to be

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God. Well, how much time you got? Okay. Because Jesus said here, now, maybe sometimes it's a little subtle, but it's not so subtle when you spent 40, 45 years as a minister studying the word every week, week in and week out for 45 years.

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It's not so subtle. It just kind of screams at you. But look at this one. He says, no man has seen

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God at any time, except the only begotten son who is in the bosom of the father.

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He has revealed him. That's talking about revelation. You know what humanism is? Humanism is what's taught in all the college and universities.

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You'll go to every one of them. You send a kid to college. You just send him to learn Satan's doctrine. I'm not saying don't send them.

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If they want to be an engineer, a doctor, a lawyer, they pretty much got to go to college, but you better have them well equipped before they step into that arena.

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And our Christian school does equip our kids well, but it's a dangerous place to send a kid nowadays.

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So what they teach humanism, what is humanism? Humanism believes that a human being in and of himself from his own mind can just come up with all the knowledge of everything in the universe, including beginnings of the universe without any revelation from a

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God they don't believe in. So it's as if everything emanates from the brain of a human.

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Try it sometime. Why don't you try it? Get out by yourself in the backyard where no one's bothering you and just invent something totally new in your brain.

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I mean, we have algebra and calculus. Come up with some new form of math in and out of yourself.

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Come up with more scripture that you could add to the Bible just out of your brain. Now, see, that's what the

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Mormons did. That's what the Jehovah's Witnesses do in cult groups, but you can't do it.

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You can't. Listen, I'll be honest with you. You can't learn any more anything new about God really without the

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Bible just by going out in your backyard and thinking or even praying. Now, you can learn new things about him through the experiences of life that are backed by the knowledge you got from this book, right?

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I mean, we get the knowledge first and then we start living and we see God doing the things he said he would in our lives and we do learn from that, but you see what

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I'm saying. You're not going to learn any new revelation in and of yourself. It has to come from the Holy Spirit or in this case,

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Jesus Christ who is the Word. So this is what humanists don't understand. Without the Word of God, they know nothing about beginnings.

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They know nothing about themselves. They know nothing about God. So he revealed the

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Father and this is really a great starting point because when it says

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God is invisible, that is really important to understand. You could not know him without Jesus Christ.

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So in a scripture, I threw a page away too early before I need it.

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In a scripture that says Jesus, his dear son who is the image, the embodiment of the invisible

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God. So if God is invisible and no man can see him at any time and I have evidence

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I'll share with you next time I preach, you won't ever, you won't ever see him. No man will ever see him and so if that's true, how could you know him without Jesus?

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You could not because he's the embodiment of an invisible spirit being that has no body, which is the

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Father. What does the embodiment of the Father mean? Well, Colossians is going to tell us when we get to it, he is all of the fullness of the

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Godhead in a body. So Jesus is God. Now people say, well,

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I don't know about that. Well, unsaved people don't know about that, but saved people learn about it very quickly.

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And so he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.

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Now so I love what Elliot said about this word. Mayer wrote a really interesting commentary that deals with this word and because I don't want to get too technical,

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I'm going to leave his out because I think you got it. It's not just a stamp, it's the embodiment of God.

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All right, now Hebrews chapter 1 verse 3 says that Jesus is the brightness of God's glory and the express image of his person.

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So here's our word image again. So I'm going to read it with a better translation. Jesus, who being the brightness of God's glory and the express embodiment of the person of God the

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Father. Wow, think about that. Now we talk about God being subsistent three persons.

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It's kind of interesting theologically that's been discussed since the oldest I can find it is around,

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I mean other than the apostle Paul and Jesus and the other writers of scripture, the oldest I can find is about 200

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AD where early church fathers talk about the trinity. I've got some of that too, but for next time or maybe never too technical, but just trust me it's there.

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They talk about the Father, Son, Holy Spirit in the church is as far away as just 200 years after Jesus walked on the earth.

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So they were teaching the trinity long before the Roman Catholics came along somewhere around 300.

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At least 100 years before that we see evidence of the trinity and so many people today, especially Jewish believers who want to get, they always tend towards legalism and they want to say that the trinity was invented by the

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Catholics. Well the problem with that is I can give you evidence where early fathers talked about it before the

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Catholic church existed. So they're lying when they say that and when you show it to them, I had one individual

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I said if I can show you that would you change your mind? He said yes and when I showed it to him I had to dig it up.

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I didn't know where it was in my study and I found it, showed it to him. I said there it is what do you think? He said man I don't go with that.

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So he's not intellectually honest right? So I'm done with him. I haven't talked with him about the Bible since, not one time and I owe him a lot because he's the one that got me to re -examine the end times and help me see that better.

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But anyway I don't think he's, I don't think he was honest about that. So when it talks about that Jesus is the brightness of God's glory in the express embodiment of the person of God.

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So think about that. If you have three personas Dave I really like that but maybe it's table talk that I brought forth too early.

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We usually like when we come up with something kind of new like that we'll talk about it for about a year and try to shoot it down. So this could get shot down.

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Maybe person is the best word. All the theologians for 2 ,000 years have used person. Maybe we should use it.

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But you got to understand they weren't speaking English. They were speaking Latin and Greek. So I don't know that English person is the best.

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Maybe maybe Dr. Dave down here gave us the best.

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But isn't it interesting let's just call it persons for today. You got the Father, Son, Holy Spirit and you would say that the

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Father is one of the three persons. The Son is the second and the Holy Spirit is the third.

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But you do see where the English word person is a bit problematic. Because when we think of three people we're like three different people.

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Right? Like we're three different people. There's no way you can take that and understand that God is not three different people.

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Right? I mean how confused are our friends when we tell them well they say well tell me about the Trinity. I don't get it.

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You say well God is one God subsisting in three distinct persons which is straight out of every theological book in the world.

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They all say this say that. And they're saying well so he's three people. You say no no he's not three people.

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Well you just said he was. Do you see the problem? So I like persona because the point is they are they are persons in the sense that they have what a person has.

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All three the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit have everything that an individual person has.

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Such as emotions, intellect, vision, creative abilities.

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And see the Holy Spirit has that so you could call him a person. Right? He's not just a he's not just a what how could

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I say it? Like a spirit thing that he's not just God in a spirit form.

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He is his own person. He has a personality of his own and he has ministries to us that the other two don't always do that he always does.

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Jesus is the same way. He has intellect. He has creative ability. In fact he created everything that's physical.

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So and everything invisible. So everything right? So has creative ability. So he is

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God but he also has a personality of his own and deals with us in individual ways that the other that the

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Father and the Son don't. Right? He is the word and it doesn't say the other two are but he is the word.

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And then the Father my goodness we wouldn't know anything about him without Jesus but we know a lot about him because of Jesus and the

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Holy Spirit. So he has a personality. Obviously creative abilities.

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Everything that Jesus created came out of the mind of God the Father. And he didn't make or do or say anything he didn't see the

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Father do already. So think about that. So but don't you find it interesting that theologians like to talk about the three persons and so do

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I. I mean we have to because the scripture indicates it that way. But here it talks about that Jesus Christ was the express image of the

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Father's person. You see what I'm saying? Do you find that interesting? Jesus who is one of the three persons of Godhead is the embodiment the express which is a big

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Greek word it means total like the total embodiment of the person of the Father.

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So when Colossians later is going to tell us I think when we get to chapter two and other places that Jesus is all of the fullness of the

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Godhead in a body it's correct. Now how can you say he's not God when we understand these things?

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You see but so many people that even in churches around Corsicana that are Christian go in there every Sunday and maybe they're getting a little sermonette.

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I don't know what they're getting but they don't know that Jesus is God. Charlotte I could tell you a cute story about when we first got saved and this other young couple was discipling us and they really were in their home.

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And the first I believe it was the first night we went to their home to have Bible study they're gonna help us grow and he was a deacon and he said wow

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I think this verse is saying Jesus is God. Remember that? They had not seen it yet.

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Deacon in a Baptist church and he figured it out with us I mean he figured it out and taught us thank goodness he taught us the right way right and there it was and it was

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John 1 1 he was reading we were going to study through the book of John. John 1 1 he said wow that seems to be saying

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Jesus is God that's interesting. Well no other religion believes that they believe he's just a prophet but he is

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God. All right so who being the brightness this is

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Hebrews 1 3 who being the brightness of his glory and express image of his person and upholding all things by the word of his power so Jesus Christ not only made everything he holds it all together with his hand he is not a

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God who flung everything into the universe and then sits here like this to see what how it's going to come out. That's what the

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Jews thought in World War II when Hitler killed so many of them they said oh well God must be a God who flung it all out there and he's sitting here seeing that turns out because he's not helping us.

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So they became agnostics most Jews are agnostics today because of that but they didn't know

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God because they don't believe the New Testament which is the revelation of God the father by Jesus Christ.

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So they have a problem there so it's the express image of his person upholding all things by the word of his power which he had by himself purged our sins and then sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high.

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Now the majesty on high is the father and he's talking about this kind of glory hovering above the mercy seat in the third heaven right now and it pictures the lamb of God standing at the right hand or sitting at the right hand of God and that is where Jesus is right this minute but look who it says purged our sins.

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Do you believe anyone less than God could take your sins away? So he must be

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God and there's another proof in verse three of Hebrews chapter one he by himself it doesn't say with the help of the father it doesn't say with the help of the

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Holy Spirit it says Jesus by himself purged our sins and then he sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high.

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So we are truly saved by the blood of Jesus plus nothing. Anybody adds anything to that they're a bapto -catholic or a methodo -catholic or a pentecostal -patholic or catholic.

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I messed that one up. All right now in verse 27 of Hebrews chapter one it says and in this majesty in which he is the exactly similar visible revelation of God he will present himself to all the world in this majesty at the rapture.

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So that is pretty amazing and you see verses in Matthew 16, 27,

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Matthew 25, 31, Philippians 3, 20, 2 Thessalonians 1, 7, 1 Peter 4, 13,

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Titus 2, 13, etc. where it talks about the glory of Jesus Christ at his coming.

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Philippians 2, 6 says who Jesus who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God.

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Well show me where Jesus ever said he was was God. Well I understand this is the apostle

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Paul writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit but he said Jesus is God didn't he and he's quoting

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Jesus because Jesus taught him that Jesus himself said I don't find it robbery to be equal with God.

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He taught that to Paul and Paul wrote it down so this is actually a quote from Jesus Christ through Paul and he thought it not robbery to be equal with God but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men.

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There you find the word icon again. So let me ask you this does that mean that Jesus was like a little stamp of a man or does it mean he actually was a man?

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See there's there's the biblical meaning of icon and so when it says he's in the likeness of God it means the same thing as when it says he's in the likeness of man.

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There's your proof. No way you got the proof now. Take it out of the world. So it means way more than just a likeness.

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It means the embodiment of God is who Jesus is and he's also the he's also an actual man.

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He's actual God and he's actual man and these these verses when we understand the whole of the

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Bible they prove it. So it's interesting this phrase where it says he found it not robbery to be equal with God but he made himself of no reputation.

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This there's whole doctrines and books written on this part because this is the part of scripture in verse 8 and being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself and it's a key word he humbled himself and became obedient unto death even the death of the cross.

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This is where Jesus laid aside some of his glory when he came here. You remember how he said he didn't know the day of the rapture only the father knew that not even the angels knew it and you say well how can he be

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God then because when he came to the earth he laid aside some of his glory by his own will.

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He chose to do that in obedience to what the father wanted him to do so he temporarily laid aside some of his glory.

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He did not lay aside any of his deity. If you don't believe that look how astonished

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Nathaniel was when Jesus told him all about him he'd never met him before.

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Things like that or the woman at the well he knew she had many husbands so to speak right.

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I mean he didn't lay aside his deity he laid aside a little of his glory but guess what when he when he died for us and he rose again and then later he ascended into heaven he now has all of that glory back and he's still the man

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Jesus Christ and God he's the God man and he has all of his glory back when he comes back he's not going to be a babe in the manger.

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He's going to be so awesome that the lost are going to cry out for the mountains to fall on us and hide us from the wrath of the lamb.

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So you might want to call him the lion at that point not the lamb he's the lamb lion right he's the lion of Judah so we see these interesting things.

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Now I think probably that's enough for today because this is very technical and I want to get into next time

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I'm going to start picking up where it says the invisible God I want to talk about that word invisible a little bit but for now we spent most of the day today talking about what the word likeness means because it's very important.

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He's not Jesus is not a little God he's all of God and we're not little

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Jesus's we're the embodiment of Jesus he lives in my body and that's who we have to be when

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I'm spirit -filled I won't sin and you won't either because we're connected because the

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Holy Spirit connects to our spirit and we cannot sin in that form so we are more than just a little image of a little

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Jesus and he is fully God and that's what we've proven we haven't even gotten into the scriptures that show that he's

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God yeah really just a couple just kind of an introduction to it so next time we'll start out talk about what does it mean he's the image of the invisible

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God because because you could ask yourself this you could say okay does invisible mean that we just can't see him because he's you know sort of beyond the third heaven even and we just can't see him he's visible but we can't see him does it mean that or does it mean he's invisible so we'll talk about that next time all right all right so let's stand and have a word of prayer thank you for your attention you did pretty well on pretty technical subject this morning

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Lord thank you so much for your word we ask you to continue to bless it in our hearts help us to keep the right rules of bible interpretation and more important than that may your

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Holy Spirit be our teacher as we interpret scripture so that we get the sense of what you mean by what you say and Lord we ask you to guard the doctrines of the scripture the true doctrines and be let our local church be a guard of that truth in this city and all over the country and Lord we just pray for each member here today that as they go out into this world and they meet people at the grocery store they meet people at the gas station different places that they would be a light and as you move us that we would even speak to people about the

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Lord Jesus Christ we ask you to go into our time of fellowship now and bless it bless the meal we're about to have protect