Son of God, Lord of Glory

Alpha & Omega Ministries

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Son of God and Lord of Glory, that's the title of our topic tonight, The Biblical Doctrine of the

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Deity of Jesus Christ. And the handouts I've given to you have that title, Son of God and Lord of Glory.

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It's a title that speaks to us of the nature of the Lord Jesus Christ, being the

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Son of God and yet also being described as the Lord of Glory. Who is this person?

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Who was the man who walked the earth 2 ,000 years ago, known as Jesus Christ? Is organized

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Christianity, as we know it today, wrong to say that he was God in human flesh?

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That's what we're going to look at tonight. It's very important because as evangelical

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Christians, we claim that having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is the most important thing that can happen to you.

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And so if you have the wrong Jesus Christ, you're no longer talking about biblical gospel or being saved.

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And so knowing who he is and accepting who he is, is vital to each one of our salvation.

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There's nothing we can do about that. We need to know who he is. Now, down through the ages, down through history, acceptance of the quote -unquote orthodox position concerning Jesus Christ has been the criteria as to whether one was in the faith or not in the faith.

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It was one of the most important rules that were used. Today, however, it's actually sort of out of style to believe in such things as the deity of Christ or the verbal inspiration of the scriptures or the virgin birth or any of these other myths, as some of our modern theological people would say.

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Modern theologians, especially over in Europe, would think that we're about 250 years behind the times to even discuss such a topic.

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Does the Bible teach these things? Well, that's an important point in itself. We're going to be looking at the

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Bible. And our comments tonight will be based upon the scriptures and totally upon the scriptures because it is our source of information.

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Anything outside of the scriptures is wholly secondary in its application and certainly cannot be considered to be absolute truth unless it is in perfect harmony with what the scriptures reveal about Jesus Christ.

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So I make no apologies for going to the scriptures for my information about the deity of Christ.

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Again, that may be old -fashioned, but I'm not going to apologize for it. I'm going to say that it's the obvious thing you must do because if you want to know about Jesus Christ, you go to his word, his word about himself.

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Now, tonight we're not going to talk a whole lot about the humanity of Jesus Christ. That is not our purpose tonight, but it must not be forgotten.

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You must recall and must remember that Jesus Christ was perfect man as well as perfect God. And just because we're not going to be stressing his humanity does not mean that we are ignoring it or that his deity should be taken and just simply run right over the fact of his humanity.

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That would provide you with an unbalanced picture. And when we get to the end of the discussion tonight, when we talk about the relationship between Jesus's humanity and his deity, you will see that many passages that people use to deny the deity of Christ are actually passages which are referring to his humanity and to his position as mediator, high priest, sacrifice, and so on.

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So just because we're not going to be talking a whole lot about his humanity does not mean that we are denying it or that it is not important.

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However, his humanity is much less denied today than is his deity. People don't have too much problem with thinking about Jesus as a man, but thinking about him as God causes people some real difficulties.

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And so we're going to look at that. Another thing that we are not going to be talking a lot about tonight is the entire doctrine of the

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Trinity. We've already discussed that in another seminar. But I'd like to mention that if a person is just listening, for example, to this seminar and this information, that it must be pointed out that we are not attempting to say that Jesus Christ is the

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Father. We are not attempting to say that Jesus Christ is the Holy Spirit. We are not getting into what is known as Sabellianism or Modalism, teaching that there is one

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God who once in a while acts like the Father and once in a while acts like the Son. That is not what we're saying.

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We're not saying that Jesus is the Father. We accept the fact that the Father is God, that he is eternal, so on and so forth.

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What we want to show tonight is that the Bible says that Jesus Christ also shares that one being that is

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God, and he is also eternal, the Creator Almighty, so on and so forth. We are also not teaching polytheism.

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We are not saying that the Father is a separate God from the Son, that the Son is a secondary

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God, and that maybe there's a God above the Father somewhere out there. We're not talking about polytheism.

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With that in mind, what I'd like you to do is to take your Bibles, and we will be looking at the topic not in canonical order.

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We won't start with Genesis and end up with Revelation, though it would obviously be the easiest way to do it if we just wanted to turn our

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Bibles here, there, and everywhere. But I want to do it in topical order, in topical sections.

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The first section I've titled Jesus as God. Quite simply, the texts in the

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Scripture that either very clearly, very plainly, and without a doubt call

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Jesus Christ God, as well as some Scriptures which may call

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Jesus Christ God, but there are honest -hearted people who would say it might not be. We'll look at those also and make our own decisions.

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So let's begin by taking our Bibles and turning to the first chapter of John. John chapter 1, beginning with verse 1 itself.

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John chapter 1, beginning with verse 1. I will normally be reading from the

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New American Standard Version. We have other versions available to us that are fine versions, but I will normally be using the

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New American Standard. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was

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God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being by him, and apart from him, nothing came into being that has come into being.

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In him was life, and the life was the light of men, and light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

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Let's skip down to verse 14. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory.

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Glory is of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. Then down to verse 18, no man has seen

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God at any time. The only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has explained him.

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Now, due to the importance of this first section in the book of John, we'll take a little more time looking at it than we will at most passages.

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Part of the reason for that is, of course, due to the fact that there are, there is,

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I should say, one certain translation by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, known as the

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New World Translation, which I believe mistranslates this passage, and hence many people have some confusion about the form in which this verse appears in the

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New Testament. Now, I have here the Greek New Testament, and as you know, the New Testament was written in the

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Greek language. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew. And the first verse of John is divided up into three sections, three phrases.

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The first phrase, in the beginning, was the Word. Now, all through the first 14 verses of the

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Gospel of John, the writer, John the Apostle, is very, very careful to differentiate between the

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Word and all of the things. He demonstrates this differentiation through his use of verbs.

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He uses one particular verb in reference to the nature of the Word, and a totally different verb in relationship to all other things.

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For example, in verse 3, all things were created through him, came about through him.

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That is a different verb than we find in verse 1, where it says, in the beginning, was the Word.

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The first verb, where John describes the nature of the

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Word, who we know is Jesus Christ, is an imperfect. In other words, it is timeless.

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However far back you want to push the beginning, the Word will still be there. In fact, one translation puts it, when creation began, the

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Word already was. The Word was already in existence before creation even started.

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The Word antedates creation. Paul, over in Colossians, will say this.

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When it says that, in Colossians chapter 1, Paul will say that Jesus Christ was before all things.

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He existed before all things existed. So, this logos, this

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Word, is eternal. Has not had a beginning. The second phrase says, and the

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Word was with God. Now, the Word there, we find in the

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Greek language, was with, the word translated with, is the Greek term pros. And it denotes being face -to -face.

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Having communication with someone. Communion with someone. A relationship with someone.

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So, the Word was face -to -face with God. Now, if we stopped right there, we might have a problem.

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Because it would seem that the Word, therefore, is not God. That the Word does not have the nature of God, even though, to the monotheistic

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Jewish mind of the Apostle John, who wrote this, that would be impossible. He's already said the Word is eternal.

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And the only thing that is truly eternal, completely eternal, is God. At least to the

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Jewish person, that's true. And in the Old Testament, you would see that that is true. But he didn't stop there.

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He added that third phrase, and the Word was God. Much has been made of the fact that the word

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God there does not have the definite article, the, in front of it. And it does not. There are a number of reasons for that.

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First of all, its position in the sentence would indicate that it should not have the definite article before it.

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If John had put the definite article before the Word for God, theos, he would have been teaching

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Sibelianism. Because that would have made both theos and logos totally interchangeable.

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That would identify the Word as all of God. And all of God as being all of the Word. That would basically be teaching that all of God is

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Jesus. That the Father is Jesus, and the Holy Spirit is Jesus. And that is not true. That is not what

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John was presenting. The fact that the article is not there would point to the nature of the

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Word. That the Word was as to his nature, absolute deity, is how

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Kenneth Weiss translates it in his expanded translation. And that is a very good translation.

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Because it is not just simply attempting to identify the Word as being all of God.

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It is attempting to say that the Word was as to his nature, absolute deity. Now this word is not theos.

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It is not a description of a god -like one. And a translation of a god -like one or a god is simply unacceptable in the realm of Greek grammar or Greek syntax.

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It's just not possible. It's the word theos. It is a nominative. It is a noun and must be translated as such.

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The Word was God. Notice verse 2. This one was in the beginning. Again, pros, face to face with God.

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Look at verse 3. All things came about by him. He created everything.

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Now that word dia, all things came through him or by him, can be translated through.

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And some people have attempted to say, well, that means that Jesus was just simply the instrument of creation.

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You'll notice, however, in Romans 11, 36, that in speaking of God, it says all things came about through him.

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Now obviously, it's referring to the fact that all things owe their origin and their source to God.

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That's what the phrase means. And hence here also, if we want to be consistent with the Greek language, that's what it means here too.

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It's not just saying that Jesus was just a channel through which creation took place, but he is the origin and source of that creation.

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Now, verse 14 informs us that the Word became flesh.

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Notice here that Paul, excuse me, I keep saying Paul. John changes the verb he uses in reference to the

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Word. And here he uses the same verb that he used of all things being created, of John coming into existence and everything else.

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Why? Well, because there was a point in time at which the Word became flesh.

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The Word had not always been flesh, but the Word became flesh as a babe in the manger of Bethlehem.

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And so he completely finishes his use of the two verbs, his contrast the two verbs, by switching to the use of this verb to describe the time occurrence of the incarnation of Jesus Christ in flesh.

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And we beheld his glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

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We did behold his glory. Jesus has a glory of his own. He is not just simply a reflection. He is not just simply a high spirit creature that reflects

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God's glory, but he has a glory of his own. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

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Finally, verse 18 says that no man has seen

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God at any time. However, the monogamous theos, the unique God, is how

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I would translate that if I were to translate it from the Greek language. He has exegeted him.

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He has explained him. Everything we know about Jesus Christ, we, excuse me, everything we know about God, we know because of Jesus Christ.

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We know that God is loving because Jesus Christ is love. We know that God is gracious because grace and truth came to Jesus Christ.

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So, no man has seen the Father at any time. This is true. However, the monogamous theos, the unique God, has explained him.

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Now, if you're using the King James Version of the Bible, your translation will say the only begotten son.

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Without getting into a long textual history, the best manuscripts, and by far the earliest manuscripts that we have, have the reading theos,

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God. Almost all modern versions will have that there. It was obviously changed simply because it was a much easier reading than theos to say huios because that very same term is used over in John 3 .16

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about the only begotten son at that point. And so, we have manuscripts that date to within probably a generation of the actual writing of the

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New Testament that attest to this reading. In fact, the earliest ones that we have, have this.

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So, he is the unique God. The only begotten God is how some translate it. Now, staying in the book of John, let's turn to the 20th chapter.

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John chapter 20, verse 28. Now, if you're aware of the subject and the amount of verses we just flew by in the

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Gospel of John, you know we're going to be coming back to the Gospel of John in the consideration of other topics.

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But going to the 20th chapter of John, beginning about the 25th or 26th verse, we have the story of Thomas being absent when

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Christ first appears to the apostles. And Thomas says, well, unless I can actually see him and put my hand in his side, so on and so forth,

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I will not believe. Then Jesus appears, and you'll notice Jesus, though he was not present when

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Thomas first said that, knows what Thomas said. Have you ever noticed that before? Jesus does not have to be present somewhere to know what's going on.

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And he said to Thomas, here, put forth your hand and touch me. Well, Thomas didn't need to. Thomas was convinced enough by just seeing his

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Lord. And in John 20, 28, Thomas answered and said to him, to Jesus, Thomas said this, my

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Lord and my God. Now, this is obviously a confession of faith on Thomas's part.

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I will not even deem some of the answers that some people have come up with to try to get around what is said here with a response, because they're almost blasphemous in their very content.

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He says, my Lord and my God. Now, if Jesus Christ was not his Lord and his God, then

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Jesus should have said to Thomas, no, your Lord, maybe, your

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God, definitely not. Do not say that, Thomas. I rebuke you, so on and so forth.

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If Jesus is simply a high creature of God, a creation, an angel, he would have said that, but he didn't.

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Verse 39, he instead condones what

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Thomas said and talks about the fact that, because you've seen me, have you believed?

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Blessed are they that did not see and yet have believed. He calls it a matter of belief, what

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Thomas has said. And he says to him, you're right. It's just too bad it took you so long to figure it out.

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That's what he says to him. John 20, 28, you have to remember who Thomas's Lord and God was, and it was

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Jesus Christ. Now, let's turn to Acts 20, 28. Acts 20, 28,

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Paul talking to the Ephesian elders, giving his farewell, talks about the church of God, which he purchased with his own blood.

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Now, this seems to be the best reading. Again, we have a textual variant here. We have some that say the church of the

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Lord, and others that say the church of God, and some others that say the church of the Lord and God, just obviously taking two other readings and putting them together.

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And we also have some trouble translating the last phrase of the verse, of his own, but most modern translations will say with his own blood.

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All that behind us, and looking at the fact that most modern versions agree that this is the best translation,

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Paul would obviously, therefore, be identifying Jesus Christ as God, because, obviously, the church was bought with God's own blood.

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Some people might have a problem with saying God has blood. Again, you must remember that Jesus Christ became flesh, and if you become flesh, blood is a rather intricate part of being flesh.

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And so Jesus Christ was perfect man, and hence shed his blood on the cross for us. And that's how you can understand that.

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Romans chapter 9, verse 5. Romans chapter 9, verse 5.

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Now, Romans 9, 5, I'm going to read from the new international version, because it brings out what we're saying very clearly.

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Romans 9, 5 says, There are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is

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God over all, forever praised. Amen. Now, other translations vary on their punctuation, from totally taking away any reference to the deity of Christ.

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For example, the Revised Standard Version punctuates it in such a way to totally delete any reference to the deity of Christ.

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Without going into a long discussion of syntax, so on and so forth, I think the NIV's rendering is definitely the best, and would point to the deity of Christ, referring to him as Theos, as God, being over all, blessed forever.

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With that in mind, let's turn to the book of Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 1, we will only look at a couple verses at this point, and we'll come back to this chapter more than once, because there are at least three direct references to the deity of Christ in the first chapter of the book of Hebrews.

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But we're looking specifically at Hebrews chapter 1, verse 6 and 8.

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And when he again brings the firstborn into the world, he says, and let all the angels of God worship him.

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Now, Jesus Christ is the firstborn here, it is used as a title, as it is in Colossians 1 .15,

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and all of the angels of God are instructed to worship him. In verse 8, the

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New American Standard translates it, But of the Son, he says, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever, and the righteous scepter is the scepter of his kingdom.

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Now, it may be objected that this could be translated, God is thy throne, though most translations do translate it,

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Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever, which would, of course, have the Father addressing the

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Son as God. Now, since it can be translated either way, the context in which the verse appears must be the deciding factor.

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And after you read the first three verses of the book of Hebrews, and then read verses 10 through 12, which we will do later, and find out that both very definitely teach the deity of Christ, it is fairly obvious how

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Hebrews 1 .8 should be translated and understood. Hebrews 1 .8,

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Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever. Another passage is 1

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John 5 .20. This is specifically a passage that I mentioned earlier, that you can take either way and cannot be dogmatic upon in either way.

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1 John 5 .20 says, And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, in order that we might know him who is true, and we are in him who is true, in his

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Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God in eternal life. Now, grammatically, this is the true

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God in eternal life, that word this would refer most closely to Jesus Christ. And that understanding is perfectly accurate.

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However, others would point out the fact that in John's style, it would not be out of ordinary for him to be referring that this back to the

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Father. You can take it either way. And when you look at scholarly sources and interpretation of it, you will find that they are fairly evenly split right down the middle as to how to interpret that passage.

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So it might be calling Jesus Christ true God in eternal life. I think that it is.

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I interpret it that way. But we obviously, having looked at these other passages, and are going to look at some others, needn't put ourselves in an untenable position and insist upon certain translations and understandings to support our position.

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It's fairly obvious from passages like what we've seen, what we're about to look at, that Jesus Christ is termed

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God in the New Testament. We don't need to have to base our saying that on such passages as this, where you really aren't sure one way or the other.

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In light of, for example, what we're about to look at, Titus 2 .13 and 2 Peter 1 .1, I'd say that it certainly is not unusual for the

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New Testament to call Jesus God as it does here. But again, it's not something you're going to hit somebody over the head with your

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Bible with if they happen to possibly interpret it as meaning the Father. Having mentioned where we're going, let's look at Titus 2 .13

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and 2 Peter 1 .1. Titus 2 .13

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and 2 Peter 1 .1 provide us with examples of what is known as Granville Sharpe's rule.

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Now, there is no such thing as Granville Sharpe's rule in the English language, but I'm going to put an example of it for you into English so you can understand what we're saying about the

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Greek rule. If you were to have two singular nouns describing a person, two singular nouns that were titles or descriptions of a person that were connected by the word and, and the first noun had the word the, the definite article the in front of it,

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Granville Sharpe's rule would say that both nouns are describing one person.

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Now, we know that in English that doesn't necessarily work. In Greek, it does. For example, in Titus 2 .13,

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we read of the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great

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God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Now, the two nouns would be theos,

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God, and soteros, Savior. They are connected by the word and, which in Greek would be chi.

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The first noun, which is in the genitive, theou, has the article in front of it.

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They are both singulars, and they are both describing one person, and the text provides us with the description of who that one person is, and that is

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Jesus Christ. He is our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. And 2 Peter 1 .1 has an almost identical construction, where it talks about by the righteousness of our

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God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Now, those are fairly straightforward and plain, and it would be almost impossible to get around what they obviously mean.

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So, the only way that some people would attempt to do so is to say, well, it must be an exception to the rule.

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And when you talk about exceptions to Greek rules, there certainly are such things. There are lots of exceptions to lots of rules.

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It's a joke amongst most beginning Greek students when you say, is it always going to be like that? And the professor looks at you like, you know, what rock did you just crawl out from under?

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You think you've been in this class long enough to realize that it doesn't work that way. So, I decided to see just how many times the

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Apostle Paul and the Apostle Peter broke Granville Sharpe's rule. Now, if they did, it would not invalidate the rule here.

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You would have to come up with some reason for saying that this is an exception from the context or anything else.

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I wanted to find out how many times Paul and Peter had broken this rule. And so,

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I looked through every single chi, that is, and, in all of Paul's writings and all of Peter's writings.

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In the 13 letters of Paul, the two letters of Peter. In those total of 15 books,

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I was unable to find so much as one exception to Granville Sharpe's rule. Paul did not break it, neither did

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Peter. In fact, in 2 Peter alone, in the little three -chapter book,

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Peter used Granville Sharpe's instructions five times, which is a pretty high usage of it, and he never, ever broke it.

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He never broke that rule. In fact, if you look at 2 Peter 1 .11, you will find an identical construction to 2

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Peter 1 .1, with the exception of the word God is replaced by the word

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Lord. Now, no one would translate it any different than our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ at 2

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Peter 1 .11. Why then anyone would translate it differently at 2 Peter 1 .1, I do not have the foggiest idea.

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The rule holds. Jesus Christ, our great God and Savior, is our

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God and Savior, according to 2 Peter 1 .1. There are other examples of Granville Sharpe's rule in the

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New Testament, and we might look at that on some other day. Now, the one last passage we want to look at under this first section is

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Isaiah 9 .6. If you attend too many

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Christmas cantatas, you can probably sing

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Isaiah 9 .6 fairly well. You don't need to do that.

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Isaiah 9 .6 talks about the coming Messiah, that the government shall be upon his shoulders, he shall be called

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Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Jesus is here described as being the

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Mighty God. Few would deny it. This is a specific reference to the coming of Christ, the Messiah of Israel.

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And he is the Mighty God. Isaiah 10 .21 uses the exact same phrase,

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El Gibor, of Yahweh God. So it is fruitless to attempt to say, well,

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Jesus is a Mighty God, but he is not the Almighty God. Why then would Isaiah, within one chapter, apply the exact same title to Almighty God as he does to this

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Mighty God? And that, of course, would violate the straight biblical fact that there is but one

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God. You don't have a big God and little God. You don't have a big God and lots of little gods. You have simply one true

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God, one being that can be called God. Jesus Christ is called

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Mighty God at Isaiah 9 .6. Now that is the first section of Jesus as God.

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The second section of our outline this evening is titled Jesus in Relation with the

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Father. Since we know the Father is God, he is called Father God, God the

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Father. Since we know that, any passage that would discuss

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Jesus's relationship with him would bear upon our understanding of the nature of Jesus Christ, quite obviously.

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One of these passages, which I think most clearly demonstrates it, is Matthew 11 .27.

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While you're turning to Matthew 11 .27, it's interesting to me that some people would say that the

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Gospel of John, being the last of the Gospels written, is the only one that teaches the deity of Christ.

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That Matthew, probably one of the earliest, Mark most would say was the earliest, but that the synoptic

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Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, being very early in the tradition, don't say anything about the deity of Christ.

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That is obviously false, I think, especially on the basis of this passage. Matthew 11 .27

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says, Jesus himself says, Now there are depths to this verse that have never been plumbed,

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I would say. I certainly wouldn't want

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God to hand all things over to me, because I don't think I could run the universe, do you? It takes an infinite being to handle infinite power and authority.

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Now I'd like you to think for a moment. Sometimes we as Christians, when we're speaking with people about this subject, seem to get into the mindset of always just simply defending the deity of Christ.

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But you must realize that if you're going to deny the deity of Christ, you must have a logical alternative for the person of Christ, other than deity.

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Now the most logical alternative would be that he is God's first created being, his highest created being, but still a created being.

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With that in mind, does the thesis that would say that Jesus is a created being make any sense in Matthew 11 .27?

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Can you imagine even the highest created being of God, who is still eons removed from being anywhere equal to God at all?

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Can you imagine a creature of God saying that no one knows the Father except me, or that no one knows me except the

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Father? That's what Jesus said there, he said, no one knows the Son except the Father. How can he be such an immense being that the only person in the entire universe that can know him and understand him is the

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Father? How can his being be so complex, so infinite, if he is just simply a creation, simply a creature?

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Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son. Blasphemy from a plain man to say that no one knows

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God except me, I'm the only one that has knowledge of God, would be ridiculous for any creature to say.

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And yet, notice he doesn't stop just there. Except the

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Son and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal him. The height of folly for a creature to say that I am the only one who knows

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God, and the only way you can know anything about God is for me to reveal him to you.

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The height of ridiculousness for any creature to think that he can fully reveal

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God to mankind. For any creature will not be an accurate reflection, the perfect reflection, the total revelation of God.

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No creature can be that. And so this passage in its every word makes a mockery of any teaching that would say that Jesus Christ is anything but who he claimed to be.

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Now when you read Matthew 11, 27, you do not see anything strange about it.

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But if you picked up a newspaper tomorrow and read that the mayor of a local town had said these words, the first thought in your mind would be blasphemy, ridiculous.

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Yet you don't think that when Jesus says it, because you know who Jesus is. And words like that coming from his mouth are not blasphemous, they're truth, because of who he is.

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Let's go back to the Gospel of John. John chapter 5, beginning, oh, about verse 15, 16.

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Verse 16. For this reason the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things in the

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Sabbath. What things was he doing? He was healing people, he was doing good works. Notice what Jesus says, but he answered them, my father is working until now, and I myself am working.

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To understand the next verse that follows after 17, you must understand what Jesus just said. What was

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Jesus' defense to doing good works on the Sabbath? God does good works in the

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Sabbath, doesn't he? Well, obviously. Does God stop ruling the universe on the

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Sabbath? Does God stop keeping the stars in their proper positions?

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Does God stop the world from spinning on the Sabbath? Obviously not.

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The Jews understood that God's work in the universe continued even on the

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Sabbath. So when Jesus said, my father is working until now, and I myself am working, they got a little upset, because not only was

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Jesus claiming to have a part in God's rule of the universe and his work in the universe, but he said, my father.

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And it wasn't just like, oh, you know, our father God, or something like that. It was a phrase which referred to God being his father in a very special way.

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And because of this, we read in verse 18, for this cause, therefore, the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he not only was breaking the

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Sabbath, but also was calling God his own father, making himself equal with God.

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Well, why would calling God his own father make him equal with God? Does that?

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Well, yes, it does. Jewish mind worked in this way. If you had a son, he would share your nature.

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If you have a son, he's human. You might doubt that fact once in a while, but normally you would admit that he is indeed a human being, and he shares your nature.

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Jesus said, God is my father in the exact same way. And they understood that that was a claim to equality with God.

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So they were seeking to kill him. Now in verses 19 through 47 of that chapter,

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Jesus launches into probably the longest dissertation on his relationship with the father that we have.

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And it would be well worth your time reading it. He talks about the fact that he has come to do the father's will.

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And then almost imperceptibly, he slips into letting you know that all judgment is his, that the father has given all judgment to him.

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In verse 23, that you are to honor him just as you honor the father. And if you do not honor him, you do not honor the father who sent him.

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That believing in him gives you eternal life, and so on and so forth. Fascinating chapter,

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John chapter 5, and what Jesus says about his relationship to God. Now you will notice that the

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Jews didn't give up with just that. Turn to John chapter 19, and you'll find out that they remembered this.

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They did not let the Lord forget it. John 19 7, we read, the Jews answered him, we have a law, and by that law he ought to die, because he made himself out to be the son of God.

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Now the only law they had by which you should die, in reference to this, certainly wasn't adultery or anything else, was blasphemy.

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Claiming to be God, equal to God, or blaspheming the name of God, which they would understand if you as a man made yourself out to be

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God, which they accused Jesus of in John chapter 10, that would be blasphemy to God. And so this shows that they understood the term son of God as a claim to deity, and Jesus never denied that.

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And so when you're reading the New Testament, you run across that phrase, the son of God, realize that that is a claim to deity, that is a claim to being of the nature of God.

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I just referred to John chapter 10, let's look there very quickly. John chapter 10 is a rather famous passage, because when most

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Christians think about proving the unity of the Father and the Son, they almost automatically think of John chapter 10 verse 30, where Jesus says,

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I and the Father are one. And the problem is that many groups that deny the deity of Christ will immediately take you over to John chapter 17 verses 21 and 22, where Jesus prays that the believers might all be one, just as he and the

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Father are one. And hence, obviously, he's not talking about all the believers becoming one person or anything like that.

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Well, that reflects a misunderstanding of the doctrine of the Trinity. Jesus and the

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Father aren't one person, so obviously he wasn't saying that the disciples should be one person. But instead, we see a supernatural unity between the

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Father and the Son, and we see a supernatural unity between believers. Believers are all baptized into one spirit.

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We all are adopted into the one family of God. That's not to say that we become gods ourselves in any way, shape, or form, obviously.

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But Jesus, in John chapter 10, wasn't talking about a unity between disciples. He was talking about his relationship with the

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Father. And notice in verse 31, the Jews took up stones again to stone him. I think it's funny that John adds the word again, sort of like, you know, we're sort of getting used to this.

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The Jews took up stones again to stone him. And Jesus says, why are you doing this? Many good works I have shown you from the

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Father, for which of them are you stoning me? Notice what the Jews say. The Jews answered him, for a good work we do not stone you, but for blasphemy, and because you, being a man, make yourself out to be

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God. Now the Jews, who were staying right there listening to what Jesus said, understood what he said. They understood the meaning of his words, the inflection of his voice.

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And notice what Jesus says. Jesus answered them, has it not been written in your law, I said you are gods? If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came, the scripture cannot be broken.

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Do you say of him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, you are blaspheming? Because I said, I am the

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Son of God. If I do not do the works of my Father, do not believe me. But if I do them, though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the

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Father is in me, and I in the Father. What is his whole point?

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Well, the law, the scriptures, specifically Psalm 82 .6, do record you are gods.

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But Psalm 82 is a psalm about unrighteous judges. The very next verse says that they will die like men.

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In a sort of interesting way here, Jesus has applied this to them, and has called them unrighteous judges.

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He says, are you going to be unrighteous judges by accusing me of blasphemy, because I said I am the Son of God? Are you going to repeat the mistake that others have made?

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His argument is an argument that says God has the right to call anyone gods that he wants to.

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The people in Psalm 82 .6 were called gods because they then put in position of judging in the place of God and wielding the authority of God's law.

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They held that in an unrighteous position, and hence lost that position. He is arguing from the lesser to the greater.

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If God can use that terminology of you, even when you are unrighteous, how in the world can you accuse me of blasphemy when

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I say I am the Son of God? Well, how can he say that? Well, he goes on to say, if I do not the works of God, you don't have to believe me.

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But look guys, I'm doing the works of God. The Father is in me, and I am in the Father. That's what he says down there in verse 38.

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And so he goes all the way to the point of saying the Father is in me, and I am in the Father. How can you call that blasphemy?

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How can you pick up stones to stone me? And their entire argument was scuttled right there.

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He had used a technique that they like to use in their arguments with people, and were very good at.

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And you may notice that whenever you have a favorite form of argument, and someone's better at it than you are, you're normally in a lot of trouble and don't have too much to say.

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I would never have wanted to have argued with the Lord. Everyone who did got in a whole lot of trouble.

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Now, some might say, well, I don't like your explanation of that. Again, I have to say, if you're going to deny the deity of Christ, you need to apply your own theory as to who

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Jesus is to this. If you're going to say Jesus is the highest created being, that he is an angel,

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I'd like to remind you that Jews don't stone angels. And if he was simply saying that, I am in unity with the

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Father because I want to do what he wants to do, the Jews had no reason upon which to stone him.

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No law that prescribed doing that. And so why did they pick up stones?

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Why did Jesus say what he did? I don't know. John chapter 14. Jesus carries along the same theme in verses 1 through 11, and I won't take time to look at every single verse, but the whole passage is amazing.

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In verse 1, he says to believe in God and believe also in him. In verse 3, he promises to return for believers, so that believers might be where he is.

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Obviously, for anyone but God, that'd be rather blasphemous thing to think that for anyone, heaven would be being where a creature was.

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Heaven to me is being where God is, not where a creature is. In verse 6, he claims to be the way, the truth, and the life, which again,

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I think would be rather blasphemous for a creature to say. In verse 9, he says, I've been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know me,

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Philip. He who has seen me has seen the Father. How do you say, show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the

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Father, and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own initiative, but the

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Father abiding in me does the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me. Otherwise, believe on account of the works themselves.

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Amazing things for someone to say, that the Father is in me, and I am in the Father. There is a reciprocal relationship between the two of us.

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An amazing thing for anyone to say, that he is such a complete and perfect revelation of God the

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Father, that to have seen him is to see the Father, and to know the Father. You say, well that doesn't necessarily say that Jesus is

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God. It may not say it in the way you're thinking, but what else could it possibly mean?

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Can you imagine an archangel saying that if you've seen me, you've seen

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God? Of course not. So this discourse of the

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Lord, concerning his relationship with the Father, is one of the clearest ones we have. And it's so clear in fact, that it doesn't really require a whole lot of discussion about it to point it out, and what it says.

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Now, believe it or not, I'd like you to look at John 14 28. This is a favorite passage of Arians, and Unitarians, and just about anybody else you can imagine, to attempt to deny the deity of Christ.

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And let's look at what it actually says. You heard that I said to you, I go away, and I will come to you.

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If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. Now, it might be pointed out that the term here for greater, it does not mean better.

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It just simply is referring to a position, that at that time the Father had a greater position than the

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Son. And that's obvious when you look at Philippians chapter 2, and the fact that Jesus made himself of no repute, and voluntarily humiliated himself, and took on human flesh.

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But it's also much more clear when you read the entire passage in its context. This, the 14th, 15th, 16th, and 17th chapters of John, are occurring on the night before Jesus' betrayal, where he is with his disciples.

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Some of the dearest things to Jesus' heart are revealed in these passages, the 17th chapter, the real

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Lord's Prayer. And he is just about to go through great suffering, and he says to his disciples,

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I'm going away, and the disciples don't understand. He says to them, you should have rejoiced with me when

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I said I'm going away, because I'm going to the Father, and the Father is greater than I am. Well, why would they rejoice? Well, because Jesus was returning to the state which he had before he came.

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He was going to return through the darkness of the crucifixion, and those hours on the cross.

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He was going to return to sharing the glory which he had with the Father before the world was, John 17, 5.

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And he was going to be triumphant. So instead of teaching that Jesus is a creation, in its context,

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John 14, 28 points out Jesus' true nature, and his love for us, that he would place himself in a position where he could very logically say the

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Father is greater than I am, after having said that he is the perfect reflection of the

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Father, and the one who reveals the Father to all people. So John 14, 28 is not a passage to be afraid of, it's a passage to refer to, to demonstrate the deity of Christ.

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Let's look at the 17th chapter of John, since we just mentioned it, and look at just one verse,

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John 17, 10. Notice that Jesus, in speaking to the

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Father, says some things that you and I probably wouldn't speak to the Father and say these things. For example,

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John 17, 10, and all things that are mine are thine, and thine are mine, and I have been glorified in them.

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All things that God has are Jesus's, all things that Jesus has are

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God's. I can understand how all things that Jesus has are God's, but it's pretty hard to understand how everything that is

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God's is Jesus's, and he's been glorified in them. A man glorified?

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Are you not to glorify God and glorify him alone? Well, this is true, but back in John 17, 5,

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Jesus had said, and now glorify thou me together with thyself, Father, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.

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Jesus had glory with the Father before the world ever was, before creation began.

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He was in existence and was glorious and glorified. Now let's turn to one of the greatest

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Christological passages in the New Testament, the book of Philippians, chapter 2. The Carmen Christi is what is called the hymn to Christ.

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Philippians chapter 2, verses 3 through 8. Let me read the whole passage quickly. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind, let each of you regard one another as more important than himself.

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Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bond servant and being made in the likeness of men.

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And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

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Now this passage has, of course, created a great deal of controversy and a number of other things.

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I'm not going to attempt to deal with every possible interpretation or anything else. Let me just give you what

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I believe to be the obvious biblical interpretation of it. Paul is exhorting the people at Philippi to act in humility toward one another.

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And he brings up, as his ultimate example of humility,

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Jesus Christ. This must be remembered. The context in which the passage appears is,

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I think, the key to the entire debate. For there are more than one way to translate the passage.

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There is more than one way to understand the term that is translated in various ways.

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The King James Version translates it robbery, New American Standard translates it a thing to be grasped.

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There are other translations. All of those are not going to give you a perfect understanding of the passage without its context.

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Here is Paul's perfect example of humility. That Jesus Christ, existing in the form of God, New International Version translates it, who being in very nature

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God, did not regard that equality with God something to be grasped.

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Now here's where the whole controversy centers. Was that equality with God something

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Jesus had and did not consider it something to be held on to? Or was it something he did not have?

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He was not equal with God and did not even give consideration to trying to become equal with God.

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Which one is it? Well, I believe the context demonstrates very clearly which one it is.

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For which one would be an act of humility? Humility is putting other people first.

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Humility is doing things for other people. It's having certain rights and privileges but laying them aside and not exercising them for yourself but exercising them instead for others.

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Always putting others before yourself. Would the first scenario put forward by possibly people who deny the deity of Christ and would say that this passage says he does not even consider being equal with God?

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Would that be humility? Would the janitor at the

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White House be our example of humility if I said to you, look at the janitor at the

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White House today because today he did not try to become equal with President Reagan.

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Well, no, that probably really wouldn't be humility. That would just be common sense.

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He has a different position. Grasping at a higher position is not an example of humility.

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Then would it be right to say, well, Jesus Christ, a high spirit creature, is our example of humility because he didn't try to grasp at becoming equal with God.

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Is that humility? The last person that tried to become equal with God, we know as Satan, was cast out of heaven for doing that.

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Obviously, it would not be an example of humility for him not to grasp at being equal with God. That's just simply not committing blasphemy.

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Well, how about our scenario, our interpretation? Jesus Christ existing in the form of God, in the very nature of God, not regarding that position he has as being something to be held on to at all costs, but instead for the sake of others.

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Who? For us. He lays aside those privileges, makes himself of no repute, and takes on human flesh to die in obedience as a servant, to be the sacrifice for sinful mankind.

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Is that humility? Yes, that is humility. That is the ultimate example of humility. That is the goal of humility, which all

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Christians should strive for, but none will ever be able to match or comprehend.

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But that is humility. That makes sense of his argument. It is obviously what he's saying.

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But the very God of creation, who existed in glory before all time was, laid aside his privileges as deity, and was found in the form of a man.

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And we will see in verses 9, 10, 11, because of that, he has a name which is above every name. At the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow.

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But we will be looking at that in just a few minutes. Now, I mentioned we would be going to the book of Hebrews again, and we are.

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Hebrews chapter 1 verses 1 through 3 say that God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets in many portions and in many ways in these last days, has spoken to us in his son, whom he appointed heir of all things, to whom also he made the world.

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And he, that is Jesus, is the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his nature.

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And he upholds all things by the word of his power. And when he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high.

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Now, notice that again, the world was made through Christ, that Christ is the radiance of his glory.

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He is the apogosma, the outflowing of his glory, not just simply a reflection, though it can mean that.

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He is the outflowing of his glory such as we see the sun. And the reason you see the sun is you see the light coming from the sun.

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What we know about God, we know because of Jesus Christ. What we know about the sun, we know because of the light that we see coming to us.

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This is a description he's using. He is the exact representation of his nature. This word referred to, if you took a wad of wax, melted some wax and put it on a sheet of paper and took your signet ring, which was your signature of ownership.

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And if you took that ring and you stamped it into the wax, when you took the ring away, there would be an exact representation of your ring in that wax to the very finest detail.

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It'd be an exact representation. And this is what this word means, that Jesus is an exact representation of the nature of God.

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That is how he can reveal the Father in such perfection, because he is the exact representation of his nature.

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There is another passage in Hebrews chapter one, which we'll be looking at in a few minutes again. So we'll be coming back there.

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Let's look at Revelation chapter one. In fact, just basically, I'll be going all through the book of Revelation very quickly here.

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In Revelation chapter one, verses seven and eight, we read, Now, if you have a

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New American Standard Bible, that's a red letter edition, you'll notice that these words in verse eight are attributed to Jesus Christ.

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And I believe that that is correct. But some would say, well, there certainly weren't any red letter manuscripts, so that's just simply an editor's decision.

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And that is true. Do we have sufficient support from the book of Revelation to say that Jesus Christ is the

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Lord God, the Almighty? I believe that we do. Look at Revelation chapter one, verses 17 and 18.

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Now, we know this is Jesus Christ. And Jesus Christ identifies himself as being the first and the last.

01:00:02

He identifies himself as being the living one. Now, in the Old Testament, God was the living one, the great

01:00:09

I am. Here, Jesus says he is the first and last living one. And I was dead, behold,

01:00:15

I'm alive forevermore. Obviously, identifying it as Jesus Christ. Well, he is the first and the last.

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Does the book of Revelation say anything more about being the first and the last? Yes, it does.

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In the 22nd chapter, beginning at verse 12, Now this, of course, is

01:00:43

Jesus Christ. To show that it definitely is him, in verse 16, he says,

01:00:48

I, Jesus, have sent my angel. In verse 20, he says, yes, I am coming quickly.

01:00:55

Amen, come, Lord Jesus. So the one who is coming is, of course, Jesus Christ. So this person speaking in verse 12 continues to speak in verse 13 and says,

01:01:06

I am the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.

01:01:13

Jesus Christ is the first letter of the Greek alphabet and the last letter of the Greek alphabet. He's the A and the

01:01:18

Z, the alpha and omega, the first and last, the beginning and the end. Now God is the alpha and omega, the first and last, the beginning and the end.

01:01:30

There cannot be more than one first and last, more than one beginning and end. This also is a passage that strictly teaches the monotheism of the

01:01:40

Bible. For if Jesus is the first and the last, he's everything in between and there are no positions left for anyone else.

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Jesus is the alpha and omega. If he is, then he is obviously the same person who spoke in Revelation 1 .8

01:01:55

and said that he is the Lord God Almighty. One last verse that we need to look at is back in the book of Proverbs.

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Proverbs chapter 8. Now various people down through the history of the church have interpreted the person known as Wisdom in Proverbs chapter 8, this personification of Wisdom, as being

01:02:23

Jesus Christ. Both friends and foes of the deity of Christ have taken this position.

01:02:30

I'd like to say first of all there is no way that you can absolutely say that Jesus Christ is speaking in Proverbs chapter 8 and hence the verse cannot be dogmatically asserted in either direction as either teaching the deity of Christ or denying the deity of Christ.

01:02:49

However, looking at Proverbs chapter 8 verse 22, it says the

01:02:54

Lord, that is Yahweh, possessed me at the beginning of his way before his works of old. From everlasting

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I was established, from the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth. When there were no depths, I was brought forth.

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When there were no springs abounding with water, before the mountains were settled, before the hills I was brought forth.

01:03:12

Now the verbs here brought forth, possessed, could also be translated created, so on and so forth, and they can also be understood in the way that the

01:03:23

New American Standard translates them. It is on the basis of this that some people have said that Jesus Christ is created.

01:03:32

I don't believe that that can really be held to. You might ask a simple question, if Wisdom here is

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Jesus Christ, can you postulate a time when God was without wisdom?

01:03:48

When God was not a wise God? When wisdom did not exist? Obviously that's absurd, and in Hebrew thought the phrases that are being used by wisdom in describing itself here are the strongest ways of discussing eternity, great age that they had.

01:04:09

Now we might press the point and say, well it might indicate a point of origin there somewhere, but I don't think that really has anything to do with the subject and discussion, and even if you do believe that wisdom is

01:04:22

Jesus Christ, you cannot take an Old Testament passage and override

01:04:28

John 1 .1, 1 .3, Hebrews 13 .8, so on and so forth. I think you're wresting it out of its context to say that there could have possibly been a time when

01:04:36

God was without his wisdom. That makes very little sense. Now that constitutes our look at the second section entitled

01:04:48

Jesus in Relation with the Father. Now let's look at third, Jesus working as and described as God.

01:04:56

First passage I'd like to look at briefly is Mark 2, verses 5 -7. The paralytic healed by the

01:05:04

Lord, verse 5 says, and Jesus seeing their faith said to the paralytic, my son your sins are forgiven, but there were some of the scribes sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, why does this man speak that way?

01:05:15

He is blaspheming, who can forgive sin but God alone? Verse 8, immediately

01:05:21

Jesus, aware in his spirit they were reasoning that way within themselves, spoke to them, and that's where I'll stop.

01:05:26

I just wanted to point out that Jesus was aware of what they were even thinking in their hearts. Maybe their faces betrayed them, but I have a feeling that more is involved there than just simply the way they're looking.

01:05:37

Jesus said your sins are forgiven, who can forgive sins but God alone?

01:05:44

The scribes were right by the way. They were right about the fact that only God can forgive sins. What they were wrong about was who they were dealing with.

01:05:52

They weren't aware of the deity of Jesus Christ. Jesus did not deny that only

01:05:59

God can forgive sins, but he claimed that right. Now we will notice in a little while a passage that will sort of help us to understand this a little bit better, and I will point it out when we get there.

01:06:14

Just keep that in mind. Let's look at Colossians chapter 1. The book of Colossians written by the apostle

01:06:20

Paul to combat the Gnostic heresy which was in its incipient stages at the church of Colossae.

01:06:29

Gnosticism basically taught that there was a good God and the ultimate true

01:06:36

God was completely separate from all matter because matter is evil. Spirit is good, matter is evil.

01:06:43

So for the pure God to have created the world would be impossible because he could not be in any way involved with matter because that was evil.

01:06:51

So they postulated a long series of intermediate beings, aeons that descended down from God and each aeon was a little bit farther away from God than the one before.

01:07:07

And so it was a little less perfect. And eventually you came to a God whom they would say was the

01:07:14

God of the Old Testament, Jehovah God, Yahweh, who was so far removed from the real true

01:07:21

God that he was able to create matter. Hence the God of the Old Testament was an evil God, certainly not one to be revered or worshipped anyways.

01:07:31

And this teaching denied Jesus Christ his proper place. Paul talks about those people who worship angels in the book of Colossians.

01:07:40

And these aeons might be considered to be angels, intermediary beings between the true God and mankind.

01:07:49

And Jesus would be one of these. Now that might be a high view of Jesus to say he's one of the aeons, but it certainly wasn't the view that the

01:07:56

Bible presents. And so Paul wrote the book of Colossians and really laid it on the line of what he said.

01:08:02

In the first chapter of Colossians, beginning in verse 15, he says, he, speaking of Jesus Christ, is the image of the invisible

01:08:09

God. And we've already discussed the fact that if you're the image of the invisible God, you certainly are not simply a creation or a creature.

01:08:17

The firstborn of all creation, that Greek term, prototokos, translated firstborn, means the one having preeminence.

01:08:25

It is used that way in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, without going into a long history of it.

01:08:33

Textually and grammatically, that is what the term refers to. It's not referring to Jesus being the first created thing of God.

01:08:41

It refers to his being the one who has preeminence and authority. He is the firstborn of all creation.

01:08:49

He has preeminence over all creation. For by him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, where the thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created by him and for him, and he is before all things, and in him all things consist, hold together.

01:09:10

Now, if that's not a description of God, I don't know what a description of God is. All things are created by him, ta ponta.

01:09:17

It is absolute. It leaves nothing out. It is not all other things, as the

01:09:22

New World Translation, the Jehovah's Witnesses renders it. It has absolutely no basis whatsoever in the text.

01:09:28

Notice he says things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. He leaves very little out.

01:09:36

All things are created by him, and look who all things are created for. All things are created for Jesus Christ.

01:09:43

Now, if you believe that all things are created for God, then you're obviously identifying Jesus Christ as God. He is before all things.

01:09:53

Jesus Christ existed before all things. Now, you might say, well, that might not refer to his length of existence, and you might be right.

01:10:02

You might be right. The word pra there might not be referring to his length of existence. What then is it referring to?

01:10:10

He is before all things. God is described as being before all things, as being the one who is the origin of all things, one who is above all things.

01:10:20

So, either way you take it, it is either saying that he is eternal and existed before all things, or that he is above all things and has authority over all things.

01:10:28

No matter how you want to take that phrase, being before all things, and in him all things hold together, cohere, have their existence.

01:10:42

In Hebrews, it says that he upholds all things by the word of his power. That's obviously what he's referring to here, that Jesus Christ holds the very stuff of the universe together through his power.

01:10:54

He is indeed the mighty, almighty God. But he did not stop his destruction of the

01:11:02

Gnostic heresy just here in the first chapter. Paul continued on in chapter 2, beginning of verse 8. See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception according to the tradition of the men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.

01:11:19

Christ is the absolute standard by which all things must be measured. Verse 9 says,

01:11:25

For in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. Hati en auto katoikai ponta pleroma te steata ta somaticos.

01:11:36

It is a very important phrase. For in him all, not just some, not just an eon or some emanation of God, but all the fullness of teatitas, deity, the state of being

01:11:52

God, according to J. H. Thayer's Greek lexicon. It comes from theos, and it means the state of being

01:11:59

God, that which makes God God, is how Benjamin Breckenridge Warfield put it.

01:12:06

It is not just simply a divine quality or divine attributes, it is the stuff of God.

01:12:13

And the fullness of that dwells in Jesus Christ somaticos, in bodily form.

01:12:21

That was a direct shot at Gnosticism, because Gnosticism would not believe that the fullness of deity could have anything to do with any type of matter, with any type of bodily form whatsoever.

01:12:34

And so to understand the verse is to understand why Paul said it in an attack on Gnosticism.

01:12:42

To deny what it says concerning the deity of Christ is to totally destroy his argument against Gnosticism.

01:12:48

So the context of the verse and the wording of the verse itself is very clear in what it's saying. I believe it's one of the clearest statements of the deity of Christ in the

01:12:59

New Testament. I'd also like to look at Revelation chapter 5. Revelation chapter 5, basically the whole chapter, so obviously you're going to need to read it yourself.

01:13:12

But in Revelation 4 we see the scene in heaven, the description of God on his throne, and the 24 elders, and the four creatures, and everybody else saying holy, holy, holy is the

01:13:23

Lord God, the Almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come. That's verse 8. In verse 5 we have another vision, and this is the vision of the

01:13:32

Lamb. And notice that the Lamb is in the midst of the throne, that the 24 elders fell down, and the four living creatures before the

01:13:46

Lamb. And they sang a new song, worthy art thou to take the book, and to break its seals. For thou wast slain, and didst purchase for God with thy blood men from every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation.

01:13:57

And thou hast made them to be a kingdom and priest to our God, and they will reign upon the earth. And I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, and the living creatures, and the elders, and the number of them was myriads of myriads.

01:14:09

And thousands of thousands sang with a loud voice, worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and might, and honor, and glory, and blessing, and every created thing which is in heaven on the earth, and under the earth, and on the sea, and all things in them

01:14:29

I heard saying. Every created thing is saying this, everything. There is no creation that is not saying to him who sits on the throne, and to the

01:14:39

Lamb be blessing, and honor, and glory, and dominion forever and ever.

01:14:45

And the four living creatures kept saying Amen, and the elders fell down and worshipped.

01:14:51

What an awesome scene of the joint praise and worship of the

01:14:57

Father and the Son, He who sits on the throne and the Lamb. Every place in the universe is searched, and every created thing worships the

01:15:08

Lamb. The exact same places that were searched over in verse 3, when they were searching for someone worthy to open the book.

01:15:19

And who was worthy? The Lamb was worthy. This is worship of Jesus Christ.

01:15:25

It shows that he is not a created thing, for all created things worship him.

01:15:31

Finally, Micah 5 2. Micah chapter 5 verse 2, a passage that everyone allows, and everyone understands, is in reference to the coming of Jesus Christ as the one who was described here in Micah 5 2.

01:15:52

But as for you Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah. From you one will go forth for me to be ruler in Israel.

01:15:59

His goings forth are from long ago, from the days of eternity. Now, some versions say his origins are from long ago, and that's a perfectly acceptable translation, as long as you don't attempt to say that that means that there was a time when he did not exist.

01:16:17

It just simply means that his comings forth, his origins, were from long ago, from the time of eternity.

01:16:23

Now it's interesting that the phrase used here in Micah 5 2, about his days of long ago, the days of eternity, are applied to Yahweh God in the book of Habakkuk chapter 1 verse 12, where it says,

01:16:43

Are thou not from everlasting? The exact same phrase, from everlasting, used of the

01:16:48

Messiah coming forth in Micah 5 2. So if you're going to attempt to say that the phraseology in Micah 5 2 refers to a point of origin, to be consistent you must do the same thing for God, Yahweh God in Habakkuk 1 12, but of course that is futile and impossible to do.

01:17:08

So we see that the Old Testament also points out for us the eternity of the

01:17:14

Son. The next section that I'd like to look at, I will not be able to read each verse.

01:17:25

I think there might be one or two times I might stop, one that I know of. So I suggest you get a pen and pencil ready and write these down.

01:17:34

This next section I entitled Comparison Texts. Comparison Texts is where you normally,

01:17:43

I will be taking a passage from the Old Testament that teaches something about God, that talks about God, Yahweh God of the

01:17:53

Old Testament. And for some strange reason in the New Testament we find the

01:17:58

New Testament writers ransacking the Old Testament looking for these very phrases to apply to Jesus Christ.

01:18:04

It would be rather strange if the writers of the New Testament did not believe in the deity of Christ, that they would search the

01:18:10

Old Testament from stem to stern for phrases used of God to apply to their Lord.

01:18:16

Certainly would be strange if you believe that they did not believe in the deity of Christ, but it's obvious that they did from what we've already seen.

01:18:23

And so this is hardly unusual. They are important. They do not in themselves, any one passage prove that Jesus Christ is

01:18:35

God. You cannot stress them to that point. But taken as a group and in light of what we've already looked at, they are obviously just simple continuing affirmations of the deity of Christ from the scriptures.

01:18:52

Let's look at a few. For example, Psalm 130 verse 8,

01:18:59

Isaiah 35 verse 4 says that God will save his people.

01:19:04

When you look at Matthew 121, we see that Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, God with us will save his people.

01:19:13

Another example might be in Psalm 76, 7 you are told to fear

01:19:18

God. However, in Matthew 3, 12, Revelation 6, 16 and Psalm 2, 12, you're told to fear the son, to glorify the son, to fear him, respect him, revere him.

01:19:36

In Matthew 5, 18, we are told that God's word is eternal. In Mark 13, 31,

01:19:42

Jesus says that his words will never pass away, that they are eternal. In Psalm chapter 50, verse 6, we are told that God himself will judge us.

01:19:55

Psalm 58, 11 and 96, 13 say the same thing. However, in Matthew 25, verses 31 through 46, we see it is

01:20:04

Jesus Christ who will sit on the throne and judge his king. Not just simply in God's place, but as the king upon his own throne.

01:20:15

In Isaiah 44, 24, we read that Yahweh alone created all things, stretching forth the heavens by himself and founding the earth all alone.

01:20:23

However, as we've already seen, John chapter 1, verse 3 says that without Jesus Christ, there was nothing made.

01:20:29

That he was there at that time. Now, if Yahweh says that he alone created all things, obviously Jesus Christ is

01:20:35

Yahweh. In Isaiah chapter 60, verse 19, we find that God is light.

01:20:41

In John chapter 1, verses 7 through 9, we see that Jesus is the light of the world. In Jeremiah 2, 13, we find that Yahweh is the fountain of living water.

01:20:52

And we know that Jesus in John chapter 7, verses 37 to 38, says that he is the fountain of living water, that anyone who comes to him will never thirst again.

01:21:01

In John chapter 4, he said to the woman at the well of Samaria, that if she had asked, he would have given her water so that she would not thirst again.

01:21:11

In Psalm 23, 1, we know that the Lord is our shepherd. Psalm 100, verse 3, says that we are the sheep of his pasture.

01:21:19

But we know that in John 10, 11, Jesus is the good shepherd. In Isaiah 6, 1 through 6, 10,

01:21:29

Isaiah sees the vision of Yahweh's glory. And in John chapter 12, verse 41,

01:21:35

John quotes from that passage in Isaiah and refers it to Jesus Christ, that Isaiah had seen

01:21:41

Christ's glory. Whereas in Isaiah, Isaiah had seen Yahweh's glory, a direct reference to the person of Christ being the person that we know in the

01:21:52

Old Testament as Yahweh God. In Isaiah 43, 10, a passage that I do want to stop at and ask you to refer to because of the number of times we will look at this passage.

01:22:06

It is full of interesting information. Isaiah 43, 10 says, you are my witnesses, declares

01:22:12

Yahweh, and my servant whom I have chosen. In order that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he, before me there was no

01:22:18

God formed, there will be none after me. The phrase that I want you to see is where he says, understand that I am he.

01:22:25

In the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament, which is the translation into Greek created about 270

01:22:31

BC, the phrase I am he is ego

01:22:37

I me. Isaiah uses this phrase over and over again in mainly the 40th and 50th chapters, chapter 40 through chapter 50 of Isaiah.

01:22:50

As the name for God, Jesus used that phrase ego

01:22:56

I me of himself. For example, in John 13, 19, Jesus in speaking to his disciples said,

01:23:04

I tell you before it happens now, so that when it does come to pass, you may know and believe that I am he.

01:23:10

And when you look at the Septuagint translation of this phrase in Isaiah 43, 10, and what

01:23:16

Jesus said in John 13, 19, they are almost identical, even down to the very form of the verb that Jesus used.

01:23:23

And Jesus obviously knew of the Septuagint. In fact, he seemingly used the

01:23:28

Septuagint more than he used the Hebrew Masoretic text. So he was obviously aware of Isaiah 43, 10 in the

01:23:35

Septuagint. And you'd have to say that he was being ignorant of the scripture, or he was purposefully applying the phrase used of God in Isaiah 43, 10 to himself in John 13, 19.

01:23:48

That's not the only time he did it. In John 8, 58, he said before Abraham came into existence, I am, ego

01:23:54

I me. Now it's interesting that the Jews understood him to be doing exactly what he was doing.

01:24:01

They understood that that was the name of God, the great I am, the ego

01:24:06

I me, and they picked up stones to stone him in John 8, 59, something that they seem to do a lot of.

01:24:13

In John 18, verses five through six, when the soldiers came to arrest

01:24:18

Jesus, they said, we came for Jesus of Nazareth. And Jesus said, ego I me. And you know what they did?

01:24:24

They fell back upon the ground at the very name of God. John 8, 24, he laid it right on the line.

01:24:32

He said, unless you believe that ego I me, that I am, you shall die in your sins.

01:24:38

You cannot afford to be mistaken about the person of Jesus Christ. Unless you believe that I am he, you shall die in your sins.

01:24:48

Psalm 31, five says that God is a God of truth. John 14, six says that Jesus Christ is the truth.

01:24:55

In first Corinthians one, two, we find out that the early Christians were known as the ones who called upon the name of Jesus Christ.

01:25:02

And that word to call upon is a word that means prayer, that they would pray to Jesus Christ.

01:25:10

In John 14, verse 14, we read, Jesus says, if you ask me anything in my name,

01:25:17

I will do it. Yes, I know if you have the King James version of the Bible, that word me is not there.

01:25:23

That is just simply due to the very basic fact that the manuscripts upon which the

01:25:29

King James version was based were very young manuscripts, very inferior manuscripts in comparison to the many that were found thereafter.

01:25:38

And that word had been deleted. It is in the great majority of the texts that we have. Jesus said, if you ask me anything in my name,

01:25:45

I will do it. And Acts 7, 59, Stephen, while he was being stoned said,

01:25:54

Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. It was an act of prayer. He prayed to Jesus. Now you pray to God alone.

01:26:01

We know that, we know that from the time of our childhood, but the New Testament provides us with plenty of evidences of prayer to Jesus Christ.

01:26:13

John 14, 26 and 16, 27 speak about the Holy Spirit being sent from the

01:26:19

Father and the Son. Romans 8, 9 identifies this spirit as the spirit of God and the spirit of Christ.

01:26:26

They are interchangeable terms. 1 Peter 1, 11 says that it was the spirit of Christ that was witnessing and prophesying in the prophets of old.

01:26:37

Now Nehemiah 9, 20 and 2 Samuel 23 verses 2 through 3 say it was the spirit of Yahweh that was speaking in the prophets of old.

01:26:46

Obviously the spirit of Yahweh in the Old Testament is the spirit of Christ in the New. Isaiah 48, 11,

01:26:53

God says he will not give his glory to another. Whereas in John 17, 5, Jesus says, glorify thou me together with thyself father for the glory which

01:27:01

I had with thee before the world was. Acts 1, 8 says that we are to be witnesses of Jesus Christ.

01:27:07

Isaiah 43, 10 says that we are to be witnesses of Yahweh. Obviously therefore you either have a contradiction or the fact that Yahweh is

01:27:18

Jesus Christ. When you look at Acts 4, 24, 2 Peter 2, 1 and Jude 4, you run across a word despotah in the

01:27:28

Greek Testament. In Acts 4, 24, it is obviously in reference to God, the master and sovereign of the universe.

01:27:35

However in 2 Peter 2, 1 and Jude 4, we see it is Jesus Christ. Jude 4 specifically says

01:27:42

Jesus is our only despotah, master and lord. If you have a lord, if you have a master above or other than Jesus Christ, you are no longer talking about biblical theology or the biblical

01:27:54

Jesus. In Joel 2, 32, the

01:27:59

Bible says that whoever shall call upon the name of Yahweh shall be saved. In Romans 10, 13, whoever shall call upon the name of the

01:28:07

Lord shall be saved. And contextually, in the context there, the Lord is obviously

01:28:13

Jesus Christ. Look at the 9th and 10th chapters of Romans and you cannot avoid the conclusion that calling upon the name of the

01:28:22

Lord is calling upon the name of Jesus Christ. In a few minutes, we're going to look at the preeminence of the name of Christ in the

01:28:28

New Testament. In Psalm 68, 18,

01:28:33

God leads the captives away as captive. In Ephesians 4, 8 -9, we see that it is

01:28:39

Jesus who leads the captives captive. In Isaiah 45, 23, every knee shall bow and every tongue shall swear allegiance to Yahweh God.

01:28:48

In Philippians 2, 10 -11, every knee bows and every tongue confesses allegiance to Jesus Christ as Lord, to the glory of God the

01:28:56

Father. In Romans 11, 36, all things are to God, all things are to him and for him, so on and so forth.

01:29:05

In Colossians 1, 16, in Ephesians 5, 25, and 27, all things are to Jesus Christ.

01:29:12

In Acts 7, 28, Paul told the people on Mars Hill that we exist and have our being in God.

01:29:20

In Colossians 1, 17, all things consist and have their being in Jesus Christ. In 1

01:29:26

Timothy 1, 17, we're told there is only one wise God, the only true God, and yet Colossians 2, 3 says that in Jesus Christ are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

01:29:36

Jeremiah 17, 5, we are to trust in Yahweh. In 2 Timothy 1, 12, I know whom I have believed and persuaded that he is able to keep that which

01:29:44

I have committed unto him against that day, that is Jesus Christ. In Psalm 102, verse 25, we have an entire passage about Yahweh creating the heavens and rolling them out, and they will pass away and become old as a garment, but he will be everlasting.

01:30:03

It is this very passage which is quoted word for word in Hebrews, the first chapter, verses 10 through 12, in direct reference to Jesus Christ.

01:30:13

This is a direct place where Jesus is called Yahweh in the

01:30:19

New Testament. In Malachi 3, 6, we see that Yahweh changes not.

01:30:28

Hebrews 13, 8, it calls Jesus Christ. It says that he is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

01:30:34

In Zechariah 2, 5, Yahweh is the Yahweh of glory. James 2, 1, Jesus is the

01:30:39

Lord of glory. In Psalm 34, 8, we are to taste that Yahweh is good. In 1 Peter 2, 3, we taste that Jesus Christ is good.

01:30:48

In Isaiah 8, 13, we are to sanctify Yahweh as Lord in our hearts. In 1 Peter 3, 15, we sanctify

01:30:53

Christ as Lord in our hearts. In Exodus 34, 14, we are to worship God and worship him alone.

01:30:59

For God, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. In Revelation 1, 5 through 6, the writer there glorifies

01:31:05

Jesus. In Ezekiel 43, 2, we have a description of God's voice as being the voice of many waters.

01:31:13

In Revelation 1, 13 through 16, this is Jesus's voice. In 1 Kings 8, 39, it is

01:31:19

Yahweh who searches the hearts of men. In Revelation 2, 23, Jesus reminds the church that he is the one who searches the hearts and minds of men.

01:31:29

In Revelation 15, 4, we're told that God alone is holy, and yet in Revelation 3, 7,

01:31:34

Jesus is described as being the faithful and true witness, the one who is holy. There could be many, many more verses added to this list.

01:31:43

You could make an almost unending list. The fact that the Old Testament God, Yahweh, is the

01:31:50

New Testament God, Jesus Christ, is obvious. It is undeniable.

01:31:59

I'd like to look at a few topical sections right now. We've covered a few of these things, but I want to talk about a few just simple topical things very quickly.

01:32:07

Now obviously, this is not meant to be exhaustive. It's meant to be a springboard from which you can do research on your own.

01:32:14

The first topic, the name of Jesus. In Acts 4, 17 through 18, Acts 5, 28, 40, and 41, the apostles were told not to preach in the name of Jesus, and yet when they were persecuted, when they were beaten, they counted it glory to be able to be suffering for the name, the name of Jesus.

01:32:35

What was the name by which the New Testament Christians were known? It was the name of Jesus Christ.

01:32:41

The name in the New Testament is not the name Yahweh. It is the full revelation of Yahweh as Jesus Christ.

01:32:49

The name is that of Jesus Christ. In 1 Corinthians 6, 11, Paul says, you were washed, you were sanctified in the

01:32:56

Spirit of our God, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. In Philippians 2, 10 through 11, we have already seen that the name which is above all names is the name of Jesus, the

01:33:06

Lord Jesus Christ. So sometime, grab a concordance, sit down and look up name in the

01:33:13

New Testament and see that it is in reference to Jesus Christ, that his is the name.

01:33:21

Jesus is our Savior. Have you ever thought of the absurdity of saying that a creature is your

01:33:28

Savior? Have you ever thought about that? Have you thought about the foolishness of saying that you could be redeemed by being in a creation of God?

01:33:42

In Genesis chapter 22, beginning of verse 2, we have the story of Abraham offering his son

01:33:49

Isaac on the altar. God says, offer your only son Isaac. Well, Abraham had more than one son.

01:33:57

He had Ishmael. But to God, Isaac was his only son. Abraham did that.

01:34:05

Abraham was obedient. Abraham gave of himself. Abraham gave his own son.

01:34:15

Now, if you're going to say that Jesus Christ is a creation, that he is not God in human flesh, you must live with the fact that you're saying that Abraham gave more than God did.

01:34:28

For if God simply allowed his highest created being to die on the cross, if God just simply gave what he could replace, what he could recreate, then he gave not much at all.

01:34:42

For God, who is rich in power and in might, could create a thousand Jesuses if he is but a creation.

01:34:49

And hence, God is taught a lesson in love by Abraham? No, that is not the case at all.

01:34:57

God gave of himself. God gave his only begotten son.

01:35:04

God bankrupted heaven. Deity died on that cross that day. Deity who had taken on human form so that he could do that.

01:35:14

It was not just simply a creation. Jesus is the Savior. One of the most beautiful things about the

01:35:23

New Testament is that we are to be in Christ. How can being in an archangel or anything else bring about your salvation?

01:35:37

No, but a personal relationship, a union with God through his son

01:35:42

Jesus Christ is how salvation is brought to your heart. We are to worship

01:35:47

Jesus Christ. In Matthew 28, 9 and 17, the disciples, after seeing the risen

01:35:53

Christ, followed his feet and worshiped him. In John 9, 9, he heals the blind man and the blind man worships him.

01:35:58

In Hebrews 1, 6, all of God's angels are to worship him. We've already looked at Revelation chapter 5, where every created thing bows before the one who on the throne and the lamb and worships them.

01:36:14

One phrase that might cause some people some problem is the phrase, only begotten. I have here a book entitled,

01:36:26

The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament Illustrated from the Papyri and Other Non -Literary

01:36:32

Sources by James Holt Moulton and George Milligan. It's one of the most widely accepted vocabularies of the

01:36:41

New Testament. What it does is it examines words that are found in the Bible as they are found in non -biblical passages, letters that people wrote.

01:36:53

So we're able to see how those words were used at that time. This word, only begotten, monogamous in the

01:36:59

Greek, I will read what it says here, is literally one of a kind, only, unique, not only begotten, which would be monogamous and is common in the

01:37:11

Septuagint in this sense. It is similarly used in the New Testament of only sons and daughters and is so applied in the special sense to Christ in John 1, 14, 18, 3, 16, and 18, in 1

01:37:23

John 4, 9, where the emphasis is on the thought that as the only son of God, he has no equal and is able fully to reveal the

01:37:31

Father. So Moulton and Milligan would say that in the phrase only begotten, there is not meant to be any emphasis or thought of the actual act of begetting as a father would beget a son, but instead that it is referring to uniqueness being the only one of one's kind.

01:37:58

And that is a rather interesting point, and I think it is well taken, and I certainly wouldn't want to attempt to argue against him on a point like that.

01:38:08

Jesus is the eternal creator. We've seen this in John 1, 3, Colossians 1, 16 -17.

01:38:15

We've seen this in relationship to Isaiah 44, 24. We see this in Revelation 3, 14, where Jesus is the beginning of the creation of God.

01:38:24

He is the origin, he is the source, the archae of the creation of God. How can he be creation when he is the creator?

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That is an absolute contradiction in terms. The very phrase Lord Jesus Christ, Paul's normal term for Jesus, his paraphrasis for Christ, also shows the early acceptance of the deity of Christ.

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For Paul, the term kurios from the Septuagint version was the word for God. On the road when he met

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Jesus, he said, Who art thou, kurios? Who are you, Lord? And so for Paul to refer to Jesus Christ as Lord is for Paul to refer to Jesus Christ as deity.

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They are inseparable. Another aspect in this topical section would be the day of the

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Lord, as we understand in our English Bibles, the day of Yahweh in the Old Testament. Something that is spoken about a lot, but in the

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New Testament, it is the day of Jesus Christ, the day of the Lord. You can see this in 1

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Thessalonians and in many other places. The ease with which the New Testament writers simply take the name of Yahweh and use the name of Jesus in its place is rather amazing.

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We also have the Trinitarian formulas in the Bible, and I'm not going to go into them because we go into a number of them in the discussion of the

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Trinity, in a seminar on the Trinity, but the fact that the name of Jesus Christ can so simply be used in unison with that of the

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Father and the Holy Spirit certainly points to his being a divine person, being deity.

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Now I'd like to start winding down with two final things, three final things.

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First of all is what I call the indirect evidences of Christ's deity. For example,

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Christ's words concerning himself, and I'm not going to spend a lot of time on these, but I think they are important.

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In Matthew 11, 28 -30, Jesus says, Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

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Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart. You shall find rest to your souls. My yoke is easy, my burden is light.

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Who could say that? Can a man stand before you and say, Come unto me? Did Isaiah ever say,

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Come unto me, people of Israel? Did Ezekiel ever say that? Daniel? Jeremiah? Moses?

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Could any prophet, any creature of God say, Come unto me, and I shall give you rest, and you shall find peace for your souls, rest for your souls?

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No. It would be blasphemy in anyone's mouth, but Jesus's. John 14, 6, he claims to be the way, the truth, and the life.

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Again, blasphemy, if but from a man. In Luke chapter 14, verses 25 -26, he says,

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Anyone who comes to me must hate their father and their mother, their brothers and their sisters in comparison to me.

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He demands absolute and complete loyalty to himself. Any prophet of God would demand absolute loyalty to God, not to the prophet.

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In John 7, 36 and following, Jesus, while reclining at the house of Simon the

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Pharisee, a woman comes in and cries and wipes his feet and Simon's offended, and Jesus tells him a parable about, well, who would love more, one who is forgiven a great deal or one who is forgiven a small amount?

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And it is obvious in his story that the one who is owed is himself, that he is the creditor, that he is the one to which these things are owed.

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It is to Jesus. It is Jesus whose law we have broken, whose love we have spurned, who we have sinned against.

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We sin only against God, but in his story, it is obviously him who has been sinned against.

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An obvious reference to the fact that he is the one to whom we owe our fidelity, our faithfulness, our worship.

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In John 6, 37, Jesus says, Anyone who comes to me I will in no wise cast out.

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That's a beautiful verse that teaches the eternal security of the believer in Christ, but I want you to see something other than that.

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I will in no wise cast him out. Can you imagine the absurdity of a creation saying, if a fellow being of mine comes to me,

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I will certainly not cast him out. The fact that Jesus has the authority to cast out or not to cast out is an authority that is given only to God.

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If he is but a creation, it is absurd for him to say, I will not cast out my fellow creatures. In John 16, 14, he says,

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The Holy Spirit will take of mine and will glorify me. The Holy Spirit glorifying a creature?

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Creature worship? No. Worship and glorification of Jesus Christ.

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We have the witness of people other than Jesus Christ himself. The Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 5, 14 -15 says that those who accept

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Christ should live for Christ. And Paul himself in Philippians 1, 21 said,

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For me to live is Christ. For me to live is a creation? No. For me to live is a vital relationship with the

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Lord Christ. So there are many, many, many passages like this that provide indirect evidence, the deity of Christ, that normally aren't even discussed, but I think need to be brought into the discussion.

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One last thing briefly. If, as we say, the deity of Christ is so completely found in the scriptures, is found in every book of the scriptures, in just about every phrase of the scriptures, you see his preeminence in his person.

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Certainly then, the writings of the early church fathers should reflect this. And they do.

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The writings of the apostolic fathers and the early church fathers do indeed reflect their belief in the deity of Christ.

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Let me give you just two or three examples. The early church father Ignatius, when he wrote his letter to the

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Ephesians, section 2, verse 7, says, There is only one physician of flesh and of spirit, generate and ingenerate,

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God and man, true life and death, son of Mary and son of God, first passable and then impassable,

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Jesus Christ our Lord. In his letter to the Romans, 3 -3, he says,

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For our God, Jesus Christ, being in the Father, is the more plainly visible. 14 times

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Ignatius refers to Jesus Christ as our God. Now Ignatius was writing within one generation of the apostles.

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Very, very early witness. Another early witness from about 180 AD is

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Melito of Sardis. He wrote, But it was in the midst of street and city, in the midst of a city of onlookers, that the unjust murder of a just man took place.

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And so he was lifted up upon a tree, and a description was provided to indicate who was being killed.

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Who was it? It is a heavy thing to say and a most fearful thing to refrain from saying. But listen as you tremble in the face of him on whose account the earth trembled.

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He who hung the earth in place is hanged. He who fixed the heavens in place is fixed in place.

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He who made all things fast is made fast on the tree. The master is insulted.

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God is murdered. The king of Israel is destroyed by an Israelite hand.

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So Melito of Sardis, that early, would have no problem in saying God was murdered. That Jesus Christ was

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God. We could talk about such people as Clement and Polycarp, Irenaeus, Athenagoras, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Novatian.

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Even Origen, who some people attempt to say was the world's worst heretic, is a witness to the deity of Christ.

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They did, indeed, accept Jesus Christ as full deity. What then you might ask in conclusion about the many, many verses that people would bring up that would seem to deny the deity of Christ?

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We do not have time to go into every single one of them. Someday, maybe, possibly, we'll put together a presentation of favorite proof texts of people who deny the deity of Christ.

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I think there is an overarching principle that we need to grab hold of, which will help us to understand many of the phrases in Scripture that would seem to conflict with the clear evidence we've already seen.

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And that is a doctrine known as the Eternal Covenant of Redemption. Now, we've talked more about it when we talked about the

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Trinity, but I want to just address it very right now. In Philippians 2, we see that Jesus Christ voluntarily, underline it, put it in bold print and memorize it, voluntarily took his place in salvation.

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What the phrase Eternal Covenant of Redemption basically means is that each of the three persons of the Godhead voluntarily took the places which they have taken in salvation.

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The Son, the Redeemer, the Spirit, the Sanctifier and Empowerer, the

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Father, the One who basically made all things even begin to happen in the plan of salvation.

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They voluntarily did it. Jesus voluntarily humiliated himself, made himself of no repute.

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So when one points to passages that demonstrate Jesus's obedience to the Father, his limitations in a human body, his submission to the will of the

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Father, the Holy Spirit's glorification of the Father and the Son, when a person points to those passages and says, see there, that shows that Jesus is not equal with the

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Father. You must remember that the story of the Bible is the story of salvation. And hence, we will see passages which will demonstrate the submission of the

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Son to the Father. But that does not take away the person of the

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Son. That does not take away his being as deity. It just demonstrates his great love in putting himself in that position for us.

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Do not deny him his proper worship and place simply upon the basis of what he's done for you.

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That must hurt him a great deal. And yet it's done over and over and over again.

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So Jesus is, the Bible describes him, the Prince of Peace, Mighty God, Wonderful Counselor, Holy One, Lamb of God, Prince of Life, Lord God Almighty, Lion of the tribe of Judah, Root of David, Word of Life, Author and Finisher of our faith,

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Advocate, The Way, The Dayspring, The Lord of All, The Great I Am, The Son of God, The Shepherd and Bishop of Souls, The Messiah, The Truth, The Savior, The Chief Cornerstone, The King of Kings, The Righteous Judge, The Light of the

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World, The Head of the Church, The Morning Star, The Son of Righteousness, The Lord Jesus Christ, The Chief Shepherd, The Resurrection and the

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Life, The Horn of Salvation, The Governor, The Alpha and Omega. All these phrases do indeed describe the

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Lord of Glory, Jesus Christ. The Bible proclaims him as our

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God and Savior. All true Christians must, at some time, bow before him as Thomas did, proclaim him as my

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Lord and my God. If you'd like to know more about Alpha Omega Ministries, you can write us at P .O.

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Box 37106, Phoenix, Arizona, 85069. Or you can find us on the internet at aomin .org.