20 - The Deity of Jesus Christ, Part 2

Well, welcome to the Striving for Eternity Academy. This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and all the details of the ministry can be found at strivingforeternity .org. I will be your instructor tonight.

I am Andrew Rappaport. We are in a school of world religions where we're going to be looking at different world religions and different topics under world religions. This particular class is an introduction to the major western religions.

The Deity of Christ in the Major Western Religions

This is part two of lesson number nine. Lesson nine is on Jesus Christ. With that, we are looking at who Jesus Christ is as compared to the other religions. If you remember, we have gone through this and we've been looking at the different religions and what they believe about specifically in six doctrines.

Their authority, their view of God, specifically the Trinity, their view of Jesus Christ, the view of man and his sinfulness, the view of salvation, and their view of end times. Now what we're doing is we're taking those six doctrines and looking at what the Bible says about those and kind of comparing what the Bible says now to all of those as a whole and just seeing what does the scripture say.

A lot of the work on the world religions that you see was from my book that you can get at the store, store .strivingforeternity .org. The book is What Do They Believe? I encourage you to go out there and buy that.

That will give you a handy reference for different world religions as you encounter them. We deal with six religions there, Judaism, Catholicism, Islam, Jehovah Witness, Mormon, and Christianity. Now for this class, if you're at the store, store .strivingforeternity .org, you can pick up a syllabus if you don't have one already.

We have a study of the Western religions student guides out there. We actually also have a teacher's guide if you want to teach this in your church. So this is a program that you can get the student guides for your students, your Sunday school class, and you can have the teacher's guide which has everything that I'm working off of when I'm teaching this class.

So you can get all those notes. Pretty thick actually. I think the total teacher guide is almost 300 pages. So it's about 70 pages more than the student guide, if not more than that. I think it may even be more than that.

But with that, we've been looking, we've mentioned that the deity of Christ literally is a difference of heaven or hell, eternal life or death, because Jesus said, unless you believe that I am your dead and your sins, Jesus said you had to believe that He is God.

You had to to have eternal life. And that's what makes this so important. There are many people, the Jehovah's Witnesses, we understand they deny the deity of Christ. The Jewish people clearly understand they'll deny the deity of Jesus Christ.

Islam, fully understand they deny the deity of Jesus Christ. Mormonism, they have a different view of the deity of Christ. So as we look at that, they all have issues with this one area. Roman Catholicism is the only one that we would say has an orthodox position of the deity of Christ.

But that being said, they would not agree with it. The real issue is I find many people that profess to be Christians, not Jehovah's Witnesses, but they claim to be Christians and they deny the deity of Jesus Christ.

We mentioned last class, I encourage you, if you didn't pay, if you didn't watch last class, go back to last class and watch that one. Because what you saw there, what you heard there was that we went through and showed how in the first century, people did not question Jesus' deity, it was his humanity that they questioned because of their thoughts, their philosophy back then, anything physical is evil, anything spiritual is good.

Jesus was so good, they doubted that he was actually a man. That's why so much of the New Testament, the Gospels, refers to Jesus as a man in the New Testament. Why? I mean, shouldn't that be like brain dead, like everyone knows he was a man?

Well, we're going to get to that. This lesson we're going to look at, we said that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man, so this, we're going to start by where we finished off. We were looking at the deity of Christ last class.

We mentioned the names of Christ and how his titles and his names refer to him as God. We looked also at the works of Christ. And we looked at the works of Christ, we started there and we're going to finish up there.

But one of the things I did is I've been working on writing a book on Jesus Christ's claims of deity. And as I worked through that, I broke this down into three categories, Jesus's words, his works, and his witness.

So his words were the things he actually said. His works are the things that he actually did that show that he's God, healing the sick, controlling weather, things like that. His witness are things like the names of Christ, the names that refer to him as God, being called son of God, being called son of man as a claim of deity.

How is that? The fact that demons call him God, that Jewish leaders said that he claimed to be God. We went through all of that and actually in all four of the Gospels, I went through all of them, 48 of the Gospels refer to Jesus as God directly or indirectly.

And so we, I actually broke down those down into categories and I think we have a video, we have a video, and this video was done when I just had finished Matthew, going through the Gospel of Matthew.

So I'm going to give the numbers for Matthew, but in my book I'll have the numbers of all four Gospels. And it shows you how you can see, as you read through the Gospels, the different categories, different ways that Jesus put his deity on display.

Let's play that. Many people say that Jesus never claimed to be God. However, when we take a look at these things, we will see in the categories that Jesus Christ said that his words, his works, and his witness will claim to his own deity.

The reality is he made words in both explicit and implicit statements. We look at his works. He was omniscient. He said he would be with us always, in other words, omnipresence. The fact that he had the power to forgive sins, he had authority that could only come from God over illness, over death, over demons, over weather, over the physical things.

He claimed to be the judge of all mankind and he was even said he was the source of being, of the judgment, that we have to accept him. He was witnessed to as God. We can see that, that he was virgin born in the titles that were given to him, Lord, Son of God, Son of Man, Son of David, the Christ, Messiah.

He was worshipped as God. He was recognized to be God by God the Father, by the Scriptures, by holy angels, by men, by his disciples, even his enemies and the demons, attested to the fact that he claimed to be God.

There's over a thousand and seventy verses in the book of Matthew and yet, when we look in these categories, we see that over four hundred and seventy of them refer to Jesus in one way or another as God.

That's forty-four percent of the first of the four gospels refer to Jesus as God. It's pretty clear, Jesus is trying to say, he's God. Alright, well with that, that's just some of the categories, the way it's laid out.

Now, we're going to look at the works of Christ. We started this last week, but let's go through this. If you have your syllabus, did I mention that? If you don't, you can get a syllabus, I don't remember if I mentioned that.

You can go to our website and pick up our syllabus, go to strivingforeternity .org, you can pick up the syllabus. With the syllabus, while you're out at store .strivingforeternity .org, you can pick up my book that a lot of this work was based off of, What Do They Believe?

That's a systematic theology of the major western religions, so it really deals with the first half of what we dealt with in this class. So let's see, the works of Christ. How do they point to his deity?

Well, we looked at John 9, 3 -5, and it says there, Jesus answered, quote, it is, it was not that this man sinned nor his parents, but that the works of God may be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day.

Night is coming when no one will work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world. What is Jesus saying that we could look to, to see his deity? The works that he did. That's the argument.

If you read that context there, the argument is that he healed a person, and only God could do that, and they're challenging him, and he's saying, I do the works of God, therefore look at the works I do, that tells you who I am.

So what were some of those works? Well, creation, for example. We started looking at this, and we looked at creation. We looked at John 1, 3, we won't look at them now, John 1, 3, 1 Corinthians 8, 6, we looked at Ephesians 3, 9, and we looked at Colossians 1, 16.

In those, you see that Jesus Christ is the creator. Now here's the thing that we mentioned, Jehovah's Witnesses will argue, well, you know, God created Jesus, and then Jesus, through Jesus, God created all things.

But in Isaiah, and we brought this out, and this is not in your syllabus, so this is one you want to write into your syllabus, is Isaiah 44, 24. We'll put that one up, if we could. So in Isaiah 44, 24, it says, Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb, I am the Lord who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself.

So Jesus, the Bible, sorry, Isaiah is saying that God alone created. He didn't have help. This is a problem for Jehovah's Witnesses, why? Because they think that Jesus was created, and then Jesus created all things.

But God says, He alone. That becomes a problem for Jehovah's Witnesses and for Mormons, because they both have this idea that everything was created by Jesus, not directly from the Father. Isaiah 44 says that it was created directly from the Father.

Okay? Problem verse for them. Not for us who think that Jesus is God, all right? One of the issues, and I mentioned this before in the last class, so I'll mention it again. The Trinity is not a problem, it's a solution.

The problem that we have as reading the New Testament is that we see, well actually we see it in the Old Testament as well. We see three different people that are separate and distinct, and yet they're all called God.

We see them existing in the same place in the same time. That eliminates modalism. If you know what that is, that's where the idea that God was the Father in the Old Testament, Jesus while He walked the earth, and is the Holy Spirit.

Now He just changed modes, but it's the same person, same God. Can't be because we see all three members at the same time. So it can't be modalism. We see that they're all referenced as God, so how do you solve this problem?

That is a problem for the human mind. Some people solve it by going, well it doesn't make sense to me, so it can't be true. Then you think you're God. If you think that it has to make sense to you, then you don't understand who God is.

God created everything out of nothing. He's greater than our ability to understand Him. So if we think we have to be able to comprehend Him for it to be true, then we think we're God, because we think that we're the standard on what judges what is right and wrong, and that's not the case.

So with that, we want to look at the next one, which is the forgiveness of sins. So let's look at, let's put up Matthew 9, and I have in here also Mark 2 .7 because that applies, but I want to go to Matthew because it's a little bit shorter.

So Matthew 9, 2 to 6. If you turn in your Bibles, I hope you brought a Bible to class, but turn in your Bibles to Matthew 9, and it says this, and behold some people brought to him a paralytic lying on a bed, and when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, take heart my son, your sins are forgiven.

And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, this man blasphemes. Now this is where I want to stop before I get to verse 4, and look at Mark 2 .7. You can look at what I have on the screen there.

Mark 2 .7 emphasizes what it is. Mark 2 .7 says, why does this man speak like that? He is blaspheming. Who can forgive sins but God alone? Now Mark 2 goes into more detail, but Matthew 9 is a little shorter.

That's why we wanted to go there. So let's go back to Matthew 9, verse 4. But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, stop right there, he's knowing their thoughts, he's reading their mind. That's something only God can do.

And said, why do you think evil in your hearts? He knows what's in their hearts. He's stating what is in their hearts, not guessing. He's stating what's in their hearts. Now verse 5. For which is easier to say, your sins are forgiven, or to rise and walk, that you may know that the Son of Man, oops, Son of Man, that's another reference to deity, we don't have time to get into it, has the authority on earth to forgive sins.

He said to the paralytic, rise, take up your bed, and go home. You see what he has there is you have several different ways in that short passage, three different ways that he's showing he's God. He's forgiving the man's sin, well, four different ways.

He's taking a title, Son of Man, he's reading their minds, and he heals the person. What does he do? He's saying, what's the question? Who's this guy think he is? Who can forgive sins but God alone? And he says, so that you know that I have that authority.

Rise up and walk. What's easier to say? Well, they're both easy to say. One's provable. If I say your sins are forgiven, we can't see that, this side of heaven. If I say rise up and walk to a paralytic who can't walk, if he can't get up, then we know that's false.

If he does get up, we know that's true, so what's he doing? He decides that he's going to heal this man based on what he knew they would think in their heart. So, but here's the thing. He says, he doesn't start by saying, hey, rise up and walk.

He's done that many other times. He says, your sins are forgiven. He knew that this would create an issue with the Jewish leaders, and it did. He knew what was in their heart. He speaks to that issue and says, why do you think evil in your heart?

But he says, I will prove to you that I am God. I'll prove to you that I have the authority to forgive sins. Turns to the man and says, rise up and walk. Why? Because again, that's something only God could do.

Only God can heal is the thinking. Now, the issue there is a healing like that. It's not the healing where someone's stretching a leg and things like that. This is, anyone that's had a long-term injury knows that your muscles atrophy.

This guy got up and walked. He did not need, not only was his muscles created in such a way that he could get up, but there was no atrophy, okay? And that's the thing. He proved by his work that he could forgive sins.

And that's something that only God could do. The Jewish leaders were right in that case. Next is the giving of life. Now, there's two areas I want to focus on here. One is in John 11. This is physical life.

Jesus actually gave physical life. This is John 11. Let's start with verse 17 and then we're going to look at verses 34 to 44, so a little bit of a longer passage. John 11, 17 says, Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days.

Why is that important? Because in the Jewish mind, the Jewish teachings that after three days, a person could not come back to life. The idea was that after three days, their soul departed from them and they could not come back to life.

So John 11, 34 to 44 says, And he said, Where have you laid him? And they said, Lord, come see. Jesus wept so that the Jews said how he loved him. But some said, Could he who opened the eyes of the blind and a blind man also have kept this man from dying?

So they recognized Jesus healed people. They recognized that he had that ability to do what only God could do. Then Jesus deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave and laid a stone against it.

Jesus said, Take away the stone. And Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, Lord, by this time there is an odor for he's been dead for days. Jesus said to him, Did I not tell you if you believe you would see the glory of God?

So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted his eyes and said, Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me. But I say this on the account of the people standing around that they may believe that you sent me.

When he said this, these things, he cried out with a loud voice. Lazarus come out. The man who was dead came out. His hands and feet were bound with linen strips, his face wrapped in a cloth. And Jesus said, Unbind him and let him go.

You see in that passage, and this is one of several passages where we see Jesus giving physical life to someone where he healed. There was a case where he saw a funeral possession and he raised the widow's son from the dead.

He had the ability to give physical life. No man can do that. That's something only God could do. And therefore, what you see there is he's saying he's claiming there that this displays his deity that he sent from the father.

OK. Now, being sent from the father in that case does not mean that he's doing these things on the father's behalf. He's claiming that he had a pre-existence before his humanity, that he came to earth.

Now, some Jews have the thought that all the souls were created at one time and then we are given into a body. That's not what he's claiming there. All right. He's claiming that he had a pre-existence with God in a special relationship and came to be God.

And not only does he have the ability to give physical life, but eternal life. John 10 .42 says,. And many believed in him there. That is not the right one. I'm looking for John 10 .58. Do we have that one?

OK. John 10 .58 is the one where he says, Sorry, we don't have it. All right. So we don't have that slide. But you can look up in your Bible that you have in front of you. John 10 .58, where he gives eternal life.

Let's look at the fact that he accepted worship. Worship is to be accepted only by God. You see that when angels were worshipped, they stand people up. Now, worship means to bow down. There's a difference in bowing down before a king and bowing down to someone as God.

There's a reason in the New Testament times in the early century that the Christians would not bow before the emperor. Why? That was an act of worship because the emperor claimed he was God. So there's a difference when someone bows down as an act of worshipping God.

It is always condemned to worship a false god. When angels see someone worshipping them as God, they raise them up. When men see that act as God, they raise them up. All right. But Jesus doesn't raise them up.

Let's see if we have some of these verses. Matthew 14 .33. Oh, we have all of them on one slide. Perfect. So, Matthew 14 .33 says this,. And those in the boat worshipped him, saying, Truly you are the Son of God.

When you see the phrase Son of God, it means attributes of God, essence of God. Just replace it with God. So they're saying,. And those in the boat worshipped him, saying, Truly you are God. Luke 24, verses 51 to 52.

While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried into heaven. And they worshipped him, and he returned to Jerusalem with great joy. Lastly, look at Philippians 2, 9 to 11. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow.

And in heaven and on earth and under the earth, every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So you see there, he is accepting of worship. That's something that would be blasphemy unless, of course, he's God.

One more that we'll look at is the judgment of mankind. If we have that slide, John 5, 22 says,. The Father judges no one, but gives all judgment to the Son. This is important because in the Old Testament we know that it is God who acts as judge.

And here it's that the Father is not actually the one that's going to do the judging. God's going to do the judging, but it's going to be the Son. In John 5, 27, just a few verses later, it says,. And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man.

Son of Man is a title of deity because if he was just a man, no one would have to be reminded they're just a man. There's also a passage in Daniel that references that as divine. But here it's that Jesus has the authority to execute judgment.

He has that authority. And yet we know that it's God who's going to exact judgment. Psalm 7, 11, God is a just judge. So who does that judging? Well, it's Jesus. But it's God. Well, Jesus is God. Acts 10, 42,.

And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed to God to be judged of the living and the dead. We also see in 2 Timothy 4, 1, I charge you in the presence of God and Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing in the kingdom.

So you see there that Jesus Christ, in those passages, he is very clearly being called the judge. He's going to be the one to do the judging. Now I want to be able to go to the next section in our syllabus, which is the attributes of Christ.

The Attributes of Christ

The attributes of Christ indicate his deity. If Jesus Christ is deity, then he should have the attributes that are only of deity. If you go back to our classes on systematic theology, when we first, those first few classes, we looked at the attributes of God.

In the first few classes, we looked at attributes that we said are only true of those members of the deity, of the Godhead. Only God has certain attributes. So if you have these attributes, you're God.

They're only true of God. And so when we look, if Jesus has these attributes, and we already saw one, that he's omniscient. He knows what's in the hearts of men. He knows those things. These attributes that are attributes only of God.

Therefore, if Christ possesses these attributes, it is only because he is God. That's your blank there. He is God. If he's got these attributes, he's God. So the question is, does he have those attributes?

In the New Testament, we see that Jesus possessed the attributes of the following attributes of deity. First, incomprehensibility, Ephesians 3, 8 and 19. Ephesians 3, 8 says, To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ.

That talks about Christ's incomprehensibility. In Ephesians 3, 19 it says, And to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. So what you see there is that the fullness of knowledge, right?

This knowledge is beyond what we can know. So this, again, talks about the incomprehensibility. Why? Because we can't fully understand everything about God. Jesus Christ is sovereign. In Romans 14, verses 10 -12, Why do you pass judgment on your brother?

Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.

So that each of us will give an account to himself, to God. Notice, remember, we already said, every knee is going to bow to who? Jesus. So this is, this is now, Jesus is saying every knee is going to bow to Him.

Okay? He's going to be the sovereign. He's going to be the one that's sovereign. Now, let's look at omniscience. We already looked at one. Let's take a look at John 2, 24 -25. But Jesus, on His part, did not entrust Himself to them, because He knew all people.

He didn't guess. He knew. And needed no one to bear witness about man, about man. For He Himself knew what was in man. How could He know? Can you know what's in me? Do you know what's in my heart? No, I don't know what's in your heart.

I don't know what you're thinking. Jesus did. Every time you see Him reading someone's mind, He's putting His deity on display. Let's look at John 16. John 16, verses 30 -32. Now, we know that you know all things, and do not need anyone to question you.

This is why we believe that you came from God. Jesus answered them, Do you now believe? Behold, the hour is coming, indeed has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone, yet I am not alone, the Father is with me.

Notice He knows what is about to happen. He knows the future. He's not guessing it. He knows it. This is showing His omniscience. Well, how about His omnipotence? This is the fact that He's all-powerful.

We see this in John 5, verse 19. So Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of His own accord, but only what He sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.

That's John 5, verse 19. John 5, verse 21 says,. For the Father raises up the dead and gives them life, so also the Son has life to whom He gives, to whom He will. Again, He has the power. Colossians 1, verse 17.

For He is before all things. That talks about His eternality. We're going to get to that in a moment, but we won't look at this one. He is before all things, and in Him all things are held together. He holds all things together.

That talks about omnipotence. That He's all-powerful. What about omnipresence? That He's everywhere at one time. This is a little bit different with Jesus, because though He's omnipresent, He's everywhere at one time in His deity.

Even today, because He's fully man, He is at one place at one time. Yet, in a Godhead, He's everywhere. But we see this in Hebrews 13, 8. That's Hebrews 4, 13. Oh, okay. You're right. I'm wrong on this one.

Hebrews 4, 13. I was looking at immutability, which we'll get to. Hebrews 4, 13 says,. And no creature is hidden from His sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom He must give account.

This talks about both His omniscience and His omnipresence. Everyone's going to give an account because He sees everything, because He's everywhere. This is His omniscience. We can look at His immutability.

Since I mentioned that we... Oh, we don't have that slide. Okay. Hebrews 13, 8 talks about His immutability. That means the fact that He doesn't change. Hebrews 13, 8 says that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

That means that He does not change. His attributes are not going to change. That's the idea there. He's eternal. John 1, 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Talks about His eternality. John 8, 58. Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am. They recognize that as a claim of deity and want to stone Him for it, for blasphemy, because He was claiming that He was eternal.

This is Revelation 1, 8. I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is, who was, and who is to come, the Almighty. That's again talking about His eternality. Really trying to get through this whole lesson today.

We can look at His holiness. That's not only of God. Mark 1, 24. What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know you are the Holy One of God. He's called holy by a demon who would know.

He's seen Him before He came to earth. So while possessing the attributes of deity, Jesus Christ did not necessarily use them at all times. But He limited Himself to His humanness. You can see this in Matthew 4, 2.

Luke 22, 43. John 4, 6. John 19, 28. What you see in those passages, He's hungry. He's thirsting. He's doing things that show His limitations. He's tired. He limited Himself as a man because He was fully man, yet He was still fully God.

Can I comprehend that? No. But God, again, He's incomprehensible. This does not mean that He ever stopped being God or never was God. But somehow He limited Himself in His deity, His use of attributes.

He limited Himself as a man. One passage which is ascribed to Christ as the greatest statement of His deity is Colossians 2, 9. Colossians 2, 9 says, For in Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.

In other passages it says the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily. That passage alone ends it. In Jesus Christ is the fullness of the deity or Godhead. That is so clear. It's the fullness. That's why I love that one because it's the fullness of the deity.

Now, after examining the totality of the information on the deity of Christ, one must say one of three things. I know this from C .S. Lewis. But there are three things. It is either that Jesus is a liar.

That's your first blank, a liar. That means that He deceived those who followed Him because He told them He was God. And He must have somehow faked it in doing works that only God could do and having attributes that only God could have.

So He either was a liar or He was a lunatic. That's your next blank, a lunatic. That is, He was so deluded, He did not know what He was saying when He claimed to be God. He actually thought He was God.

The only problem is He did works that only God could do and He had attributes that only God could have. So how could a lunatic do those things? Therefore, really, He couldn't have been a liar and He couldn't have been a lunatic.