19 - The Deity of Jesus Christ, Part 1

Well, welcome to the

Striving for Eternity Academy. This is a ministry of striving for eternity. You can get information about striving for eternity at strivingforeternity .org.

I am your instructor today, Andrew Rappaport. I'm glad to have you with us. If you have gone to the website at strivingforeternity .org

and picked up a syllabus, now would probably be a good time to take it out. If you have not, well, why waste time?

Go to the website, store .strivingforeternity .org and order your syllabus there, $25 each.

Not going to break the bank, but they're good to have. You get all the notes, you get the fill in the blanks that we're going to go over and you get a handy reference so you can quickly go back to your notes and the notes that we give you and follow along and that way you can have it ready when you need it and this is a lesson you're going to need.

We are in our school of world religions. In that school, we're specifically in a class on an introduction to the major western religions.

This class, this lesson, will be on lesson number nine,

Jesus Christ. As we talk about the different world religions, we've been looking at different doctrinal things as we've gone through.

You know from the first part of this class, we've been doing most of the discussion of the different religions, what they believe in six doctrinal areas, their authority, their view of God, their view of Jesus Christ, their view of man's sinfulness, their view of salvation, then lastly their view of end times.

These are all in my book, What Do They Believe?, which you can also get at the website, strivingforeternity .org.

But now what we're doing is giving a defense. Now comes a part of what is, this is part two, of how do we as Christians defend against these.

So though we had a lesson on Christianity, what Christians believe, this is really kind of looking at those six doctrines and giving a defense from the scriptures and why we hold to them and how they differ from all of the world religions.

So that's how we're breaking this down. Now, as we look at this lesson, boy is this an issue that there is lots of conflict over.

Now if you paid attention in the last two classes when we dealt with the doctrine of the Trinity, the

Triune God, you know that especially the last class when we talked about the Trinity, there's a lot of issues.

You have Jehovah Witnesses deny it, Muslims deny it, Jewish people deny it,

Mormons confuse it. So you end up having, Roman Catholics, they get it right, just saying.

So but you see with most of those other world religions when it comes to the Trinity, really messed up, okay?

Now really when we look into the definition of the Trinity, where did it start historically?

What started on the lesson we're going to look at today, this becomes the big issue. This is why this one is going to be really foundational because when you understand this one, understanding

Trinity is a lot easier. See basically in the first century, we're going to look at this later on, but in the first century nobody had any doubt in the first century that Jesus claimed to be

God. What they had trouble with is that he claimed to be a man. And so you end up having this scenario where what we see is that in those early centuries there started to be some discussion on the nature of Jesus.

Who exactly was he? And so they ended up recognizing they had to give some definition.

Once it became clear that Jesus was God, once that became established and then the

Trinity, understanding the Holy Spirit was God, wasn't a difficulty, okay? So this is where we, when we look at the

Trinity, this is where we kind of start. We start with this one of where Jesus is

God, okay? So we're going to start there and go through this.

Now if you have your syllabus, I have there for you in your notes. Although it has been difficult for men to understand throughout the ages, the scriptures teach that Jesus Christ is fully

God, that's your first blank, fully God and fully man. That's your second blank, okay?

And that's really important to understand. The scriptures teach that he's fully God, fully man.

He's got two natures in one indivisible oneness, okay?

And so what we have there is, when we're looking at this, is that we see these two natures, one being, okay?

One person. So it is usually that people have difficulty with this doctrine.

See, they can't understand this. How could Jesus be fully God and fully man? Even in the first century, they thought it had to be one or the other.

And that's why so much of them, they accepted the deity, they had trouble with the humanity. And nowadays we have trouble with the deity but have no problems with the humanity.

It is usually one of the two natures that are attacked or misunderstood.

Either his humanity or his deity, one of the two usually come under attack. It's important to realize that Jesus Christ has two natures, one fully man, one fully

God. Part of the reason for the confusion is that Jesus himself speaks from his own limitations, that's your blank there, his limitations of humanity, even though he was

God. We will see this, let's take a look at some of them, but Luke 22.

When we look at Luke 22, verse 43, it says, And there appeared to him an angel from heaven strengthening him.

Notice how he needed strengthening. That's human, but God doesn't need strengthening. So you see, it talks about his human limitation.

John 4 and also John 19, what we see there, if you look at this,

John 4, verse 6, and also what we have is

John 19, 28. So let's look at John 4, 6, and you see here,

Jacob's well was there, so Jesus, wearied as he was from the journey, sitting beside the well, it was about the sixth hour.

He wearied himself, he was tired, but God doesn't get tired, but as a man he does.

John 19, 28 says, After this,

Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said, to fulfill Scripture, I thirst.

Again, do you notice how he has this limitation? It's evident that there's a limitation going on.

So with that, when we look at it, it adds to the confusion. Now we're going to go through and look today at his deity.

I hope to finish this today. We'll look at his deity and then his humanity. We're going to focus most of the time on his deity, but we have to understand that in the first century,

Christ's deity was not questioned, but his humanity was. I mention this several times because this is something we don't understand.

In his day and age, with Gnosticism and Platonic thought, they thought anything material, this desk, that's evil, that's bad.

Humans are material, they're bad. Anything spiritual is good. Jesus was good, therefore he couldn't be material.

They thought he had the appearance of a man, but was not a man, and that's why so much of the New Testament has to emphasize that Jesus came in the flesh, he came as a man.

Now think about that. If no one questioned his humanity, why would there be so much focus on him being the son of man, the essence of man, having come in the flesh?

Anyone would be like, well, duh, of course he came in the flesh. He's a man, right?

That's right. That shows us that what they questioned was his humanity.

His deity, they just state as if it's expected. Now, it is mostly his deity in today's day and age that gets questioned, and not his humanity, and that's the flip.

And I think so many groups focus on his humanity because they see so much of the New Testament arguing for his humanity.

But the only reason the New Testament would argue for his humanity is if it was in question.

And so what we have to do is not ignore the fact that there is an argument made for his humanity, but his deity is also clear, and that's why we say he's fully

God and fully man. It's important to see that the Scriptures clearly teach that Jesus Christ is both

God and man, the God -man. So before we begin looking into this,

I want to play a short video just so that you can see. This is actually me on the open -air preaching at a college campus.

Someone asked the question of why Jesus must be God. Why was Jesus God? And so this may give some background to see the importance of why this issue is such a vital issue.

So let's give a listen. Here's the question.

Why did Jesus Christ have to be God? That's an essential thing of Christianity.

It's what makes Christianity different than every world religion. This is why it's essential. Every single one of us have violated

God's law. God says that all liars will have their place in a lake of fire, which burns with brimstone, which is called the second death.

There's only one of two ways to pay an eternal fine. We can pay it for all of eternity, or an eternal

God can pay it once in time and have it count for all eternity. Why? Because he is an eternal being.

It's because he's eternal that that consequence that he paid counts for eternity.

Otherwise, me personally, I don't even know how many lies I've told, so for me to pay for my first one,

I'll never finish paying the first one to pay the second one. That's one of the reasons why I can't pay it for someone else.

Maybe one of you would be a perfect person and never violate God's law. And you'd say, well, hey,

I'm perfect, but you would only be able to pay for one other person's penalty in time because we're not an eternal being.

God being an eternal being can pay an eternal fine that would count for all of time.

That's why Jesus Christ had to be God, but he couldn't be just God. He also had to be like you and I.

He had to be a man. We can't go to a judge in a human court and say, Your Honor, I know I've got six months in prison.

My poodle will do my jail time. The judge is going to go, it doesn't work that way.

But one of us can pay a fine for someone else, but we have to be human. Jesus Christ was

God Almighty, became a man for one purpose. He did that so that he could die in our place.

Being God, he could pay an eternal fine. Being a man, he could pay for you and I. That is why we can have salvation.

That's what makes Christianity different than any world religion. Because every other world religion is based on works that we would do.

But our works will work against us. God will actually judge us by a book, and the name of that book is the

Book of Works. There's two books that God has in heaven. The Book of the Lambs, the

Lamb's Book of Life, and the Book of Works. Our name is in one of those two books. Either we have been forgiven by God because he's made the payment of sin for us, and our name is in the

Lamb's Book of Life, or our name is in the Book of Works, and it's those very works that we're going to be judged by.

We often think our works are going to count for good. But here's a way of thinking of it.

If you had a father who takes his son fishing, and his father says to him, hey,

I don't want you to go to the lower part of the jetty because it's dangerous down there, but the son, being a typical son, doesn't believe dad.

He says, you know what, I really want to get some fish for dinner. I want to be able to provide for my family. I'm going to go to the lower part of the jetty.

When he gets down there, an alligator whips its tail, knocks the kid in the water. The kid doesn't know how to swim all that well. Dad dives in the water.

He grabs the son. He starts swimming him to shore, and all of a sudden, the alligator rips both the father's legs off.

But with all of the father's energy, with everything he has left, as he's sitting there bleeding, he grabs his son to shore, and his son says, hey, thanks, dad, but I really want to make sure

I have some fish for dinner. I'm going to go back to the jetty. That would be disrespectful. Why?

Because the father just gave his life to save the son, and the son's saying, but look at the works I'm doing.

That's what we're like when we stand before God and say, but God, look at my works. I know you're God Almighty, and it took your death to pay the punishment for us.

But in doing that, we sit there and say we want to add our works to it. We diminish what he has done.

That's why Jesus Christ had to be both God and man. So in that clip that you saw there, there was an argument for why

Jesus had to be both God and man. Both parts. This was an issue in the early centuries the early church fathers argued over.

If Jesus Christ was not God, then we couldn't pay the eternal fine.

If he was not man, he can't pay a fine for men. This is what makes Jesus unique, as I said in there. You see, he was fully

God and fully man and had to be. So let's take a look at this first lesson, or this first part of this lesson, which is the deity of Christ.

The deity of Christ. Now, as we look at the deity of Christ, in the first centuries after Christ, people did not question the deity of Christ, like I mentioned.

However, after the Christianization of the Roman Empire, there became a struggle. And this struggle ensued basically because what you had was you had a man,

Constantine, who just declared the whole Roman Empire Christian. And that's not how people become

Christians. And since that time, many cults have arisen that have questioned the deity of Christ.

Why? Because, you know what, the enemy doesn't have to get everything wrong for you to not be saved.

Just one thing, if you don't believe in the deity of Christ, hey, you have a wrong

Jesus. You're not trusting in the right Jesus. You're not trusting in a God who can actually save you.

So, with that, the Scriptures explicitly prove that Jesus Christ is

God by his names, he has titles of God, his works, and his attributes.

And we're going to look at that. Now, I'm working on a book that's going to go into way more detail than we have in this class.

Next class, I'll probably play a little clip that just goes a quick one -minute overview. But we have several classes.

If you are doubting that the Scriptures are clear on this, please go to our systematic theology classes.

And in those classes, go through the lessons where we talk about the deity of Jesus Christ.

And you're going to see where we have three classes that go into detail on this to show the importance.

So, it is a very important subject. It literally is the difference of eternal life or death.

Okay? So, let us start with the names of Christ. The names of Christ. Does Jesus have the names of God?

Alright? So, this is the idea that we have to keep in mind. Names had significance back then.

So, when I'm saying a name, I'm really saying a name or a title, like a nickname, an attribute.

Names had more significance than they do, at least in America today. So, if you look in your syllabus, when the

Scriptures refer to someone by name, it indicates much more about the person than how to refer to them.

It's more of a title sometimes. And it indicates their position, their personality, their character, things like that.

When comparing the Old and New Testament, there's many names given to Jesus Christ, and these names display

His deity. The Old Testament names for Jesus Christ, let's look at those.

The first one that we can look at, and we can look at many that we're familiar with, you see in the Old Testament, Isaiah 9, 6,

He's called the Mighty God, Everlasting Father, which I understand some people get confused because, wait a minute, how is

Jesus the Everlasting Father if God the Father is the Father? Yeah, we may not understand all of that, but clearly that passage is referring to Jesus, and He's called

Mighty God. I think in the sense that they're showing unity between Him being the

Mighty God and Father, being united there and one, in a sense.

In Psalm 110 .1, He's called Lord. He's referred to as Lord being

Jehovah Lord, that name that's used specifically for God, not just the name that's used for it could mean

Master. There's three different names in the Old Testament that we would say God or Lord.

Yahweh or Jehovah, and that's only used of God, and Jesus in Psalm 110 .1 is referred to that way.

You have Adonai, which could mean Master, and we see that translated as Lord. And then we have Elohim, which, except for maybe one passage, always refers to God.

We see in Isaiah 7 .4, He's called Emmanuel, which is translated

God with us. So He was going to be called God with us. Then we have an interesting passage, one

I want you to remember. I want you to remember this because this is the one when the Jehovah Witnesses come knocking on your door, this is the passage to turn to.

Let's turn to Jeremiah 23 .5. And I encourage you, if you could even have them turn in their translation and say, could you read to me

Jeremiah 23 .5? And they turn to it and they read this.

Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will rise up for David a branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

Now stop right there and say, okay, who is that speaking about? And they will say, oh, that's speaking about Jesus.

He's the branch of Jesse. Jesse, he is the one, this king that we're looking for.

Really, what's his name? Keep reading in the next verse. Oh, look at this.

In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely, and this is the name by which he will be called the

LORD our righteousness. See how LORD is in all caps in this translation? That means this is

Jehovah. And actually, if you take the Jehovah Witness Bible, it actually says Jehovah our righteousness.

Yahweh sikhenu. That's the idea here. So he's going to be called God our righteousness, divine

God our righteousness, Jehovah our righteousness, not once, but twice. You go 10 chapters later, go to Jeremiah 33, so you add a 10 to the chapter number, add a 10 to the verse number, verses 15 and 16, you will get this same exact phrasing.

Two spots, both in Jeremiah. Jeremiah 23, 5, and 6. Jeremiah 33, 15, and 16.

Those are the places to turn to because they just go ahum, ahum, ahum, ahum. Oh, that's just his name. That would be blasphemy to call him

Jehovah. It would be blasphemy. So they have themselves a little bit of a dilemma.

These names all point to the fact that the future Jewish Messiah would be

God himself. The reference to Jehovah in Jeremiah 23, 5 is one of the ones

I really encourage you to give, and I have in your handout there in your syllabus, the name where it says the

Jehovah our righteousness, or the Lord our righteousness. I encourage you to write Jehovah there because that's to give you an indication.

Write that in so when the Jehovah Witnesses come and you flip in through this manual, and you go to your syllabus, it's like ah, there it is, there it is, and you'll quickly know where the verse is.

It's not a proper name, but a description. That's the thing. Some will argue, I had one person try to argue, well that's just a proper name.

No, this isn't a proper name. It's a description of how he as king will reign.

So it's a title, not a name, as we think of a name. His name's in the

New Testament. We got some names given to Jesus in the New Testament that reveal his deity. We're going to spend more of the time here.

In the New Testament, the names of Jesus Christ are explicitly of the Christ, Christ itself, the title

Christ. As we see, the Old Testament said that this future anointed one, this Messiah, would be

God. Therefore, the term Christ, Christ means Messiah. Christ is

Greek for anointed one, which in Hebrew would be Messiah. So it's the same one, it's the Messiah, the

Christ, the anointed one. Old Testament said that person would be God.

So when you see Jesus referred to as the Christ, that itself is deity. This is the way we have to think.

We have to understand the way these words are meant. So the definite article before Christ itself means that he is the anointed one, the one that had been waited for, the

Messiah, that had been prophesied throughout all the Old Testament. Now, what are some names we see for him?

Well, we see him called God. John 1 .1,

John 20 verses 24 -29, 1

Timothy 1 .1, 1 Timothy 4 .10, Titus 1 .3 -4, Titus 2 .10,

Titus 2 .13, Titus 3 .4, Titus 3 .6. Seems like there's quite a number of them, huh?

He's often referred to as God. Let's take a look at some of those.

So there's John 1 .1. In the beginning was the

Word, and the Word was with God.

And then what does it say? The Word was God. Now, I understand that some

Jehovah Witnesses will argue that this is not really a definitive article because this one's not saying that he's the

God. And then all of a sudden they got themselves a little bit of a problem because what they're dealing with now is they're believing or arguing for two gods.

1 Timothy 4 .10 says, For to this end we will toil and strive because we have our hopes set on the living

God who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.

And then Titus 2 .13 says, Waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great

God and Savior. Who's our great God and Savior? Jesus Christ.

You see how Jesus is referred to as God and Savior. So in each of those you see that.

We can look at, he's called Lord. We can look at this. This is Luke 6 .46.

Why do you call me Lord, Lord and not do the things I tell you? Now, the emphasis of Lord, Lord is to emphasize that he wasn't just saying you're

God, you're master. Lord, Lord gives a greater emphasis. That would be that he's calling him

God. But it's even clearer in Luke 24 .34

saying, The Lord has risen indeed and has appeared to Simon.

We'll see in Acts 10 .36. For as the word that he sent to Israel preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ, he is

Lord of all. He's Lord of all, not just master. He's God because that would be who's

Lord of all. Acts 26 .15. And I said, who are you, Lord?

And the Lord said, I am Jesus of whom you're persecuting. Now, the interesting thing is that that's

Paul on the Damascus Road. He's not saying, oh, master, when he's hearing a voice come out of nowhere.

He thinks that's God speaking to him. And the voice that he hears is

Jesus. We can see this. One that ties

Lord and God together is with Thomas. When he sees Jesus after the resurrection, he says, my

Lord and my God. All right? We see he's called in the book of Revelation the first and the last.

We see this in Revelation 1 .11, 1 .17, and 22 .13.

I'm not going to read those if that's all right. But those all refer to him.

He's called the Word. We see that in John 1 .1, John 1 .14.

In John 1 .14, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory as the glory of the only begotten

Son of the Father, full of grace and truth. Being the Son of the Father would be an acclaim of deity.

All right? And so also you can see Revelation 19 .13. There's some others in your syllabus.

He's also called, we're going to look at this passage a couple times in this lesson, but he's also called the

I Am. Remember in Exodus 3 when

Moses says, who should I say? What's your name, God, that I go back to Egypt?

Who do I say sent me? And he says, tell them I am that I am. And here we have in John 8, 58 to 59,

Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was,

I am. So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out.

Now how do I know that that's a claim of deity? Because two chapters later he's going to make another statement.

He's going to say that the Father and I are one, and it's going to say again they pick up stones to stone him, and he's going to ask him why, and they're going to say because you claim to be

God. The context helps us understand what the Jewish people understood by that. Now he's called the

Savior. That we already saw, that the Savior was tied to God.

The Savior in the Old Testament was going to be God. So Titus 3, chapter 1, verses 3 and 4 says, and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which

I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior to Titus, my true child, in common faith, grace and peace from God the

Father and Jesus Christ our Savior. Titus 3, 4 to 6 says this, but when the goodness and loving kindness of God our

Savior appeared, he saved us, but because of works, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the

Holy Spirit whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our

Savior. So he's called the Savior. One more title that most people don't understand.

The phrase Son of God, I don't know how many times I have been corrected when I'm out on the street and I say that Jesus is

God, and someone will come up and say, no, no, no, he's the Son of God, as if it's different.

It's only different because you don't understand the language of the time when it was written. Son of God is often misunderstood because people do not take the time to understand sonship in the times and culture of Christ.

The word Son, while it can mean offspring, that's your first blank, while it can mean offspring, most often is used to refer to one who partakes of or is identified, that's your next blank, identified with one who is his son.

So it's not as much referring to offspring as much as it is identity.

Your identity as a son of someone, you're identified with your father. So it's not focusing on the offspring as much as the identity.

Where do we see this? Where I make this argument, can I prove it? Well, sure. Let's look at first Mark chapter 3.

James, the son of Zebedee. Now notice, we have son of Zebedee.

We know who his father is, right? His father is Zebedee and John his brother, which means his father is also

Zebedee. So here we know his father, but it says James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, the brother of James, to whom he gave them the name

Borgianus, that is sons of thunder. Now how many of you think that like two lightning bolts got together, boom, crack, they both cracked at the same time, that thunder noise just boom, that thunder noise produced

James and John. No, they're not the offspring of thunder. They are loud and bolsterous, good open air preachers, they're loud and bolsterous and because of that they are out there and being called sons of thunder because of their loudness and their brashness.

Their father is named in the same passage. So clearly it is not saying that son of is only offspring.

We have the son of perdition. In John 17, 12, it says, I kept them in your name with which you have given me.

I've guarded them and not one of them has been lost except the son of destruction. And that description might be fulfilled, son of destruction or son of perdition.

No one thinks that destruction gave birth. You see this also in 2 Thessalonians 2, 3.

Let no one deceive you in any way for that day will not come unless the rebellion comes first and the man of lawlessness is revealed the son of destruction or perdition.

So what you have there is clearly it's not the thought that destruction gives birth.

It's a descriptive, it's identity. We also have in Acts 4, 36,

Joseph who was also called by the apostles Barnabas which means son of encouragement, a

Levi, a native of Cyprus. So we are very familiar with Barnabas but we often we see him throughout

Acts but we often don't realize that that wasn't his birth name. That was the name he got because he was such an encourager that he became identified as a son of encouragement because he encouraged people so much that that became his name.

That's what people called him as a nickname. And so it shows the identity not the offspring.

Also note that sonship in relation to Christ is always in connection to his incarnation.

Jesus calls himself the son of man. Think about this just for a moment. If you had to keep being reminded that someone is a man, wouldn't at some point you be going, dude,

I could tell you're a man? Who do you think you are? If I had to keep reminding you I'm human, I'm human,

I'm human, I'm human, at what point do you come to me and say, Andrew, who in the world do you think you are?

God? Exactly. That's exactly what him claiming to be son of man, he's identifying as a man because they knew he was

God. He needed to remind them he was a man. All right? So when

Jesus uses the name I am, however, it's an explicit reference to the deity of Christ.

And we saw that in the John 8 passage. The Greek phrase for I am is egoi me.

It is the same as used in Exodus 3, 14 in the

Greek, that's the Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. It's the same thing, egoi me.

So it's the same wording that we use for Jehovah or Yahweh. And the Jews at the time of Christ understood that because they wanted to pick up stones to stone him.

They wanted him dead. Okay? Because they understood what he was saying when he was saying that he was

I am. In John 10, 33 it says the Jews pick up stones to stone him for blasphemy.

They were very clear in the reason on why they wanted to stone him. All right?

So, let's take a look at, what do we have?

We looked at that. So, the works. Let's look at the works of Christ. The works of his deity.

Now, so we have the titles of his deity. He's given the names of deity. And I'm not sure

I'm going to be able to get through all of this today. But, you know, when we get through this, the thing to focus on is he said,

Jesus said that his works would attestify to who he was.

He said it was a witness. There's several things that witness to his deity. One is the very words he says.

When Jesus Christ spoke, he said, as in John 8, 58 and 59, in John 10, he said he was

God very explicitly. But, not only that, he said his works would be a witness to who he was.

Another way to know as far as what's a witness is the way people spoke of him.

We're not going to look at that in here. We're going to look at his attributes, which is another testimony to it, another witness.

But, you know, one of the things to do is look at how much the demons claimed he was

God. His enemies, the Jewish leaders, called him God. Okay? Not just his disciples.

The reason that becomes important is because if you want to see what's being said of a person, you look at those that would be on the enemies, those that are kind of trying to disprove him.

What is it that they were claiming he was saying? They were saying he was claiming to be God. And that's how you know that the claim was true.

It wasn't that his disciples were trying to make him out to be God. This is a thing that, there's a guy,

Bart Ehrman, who wrote a book, How Jesus Became God, thinking that throughout time he eventually morphed the disciples, made him into a

God. The problem with that is his enemies, even in Jewish writings, they state that he's

God. Even in the arguments made by Jewish leaders, they argued that he thought he was

God, that he claimed to be God and these things. So that's not the disciples saying it. So why would their enemies say it?

Because that's what was being said. Okay? That's why. So let's see how far we can go through this.

Alright, the works of Christ identify his deity. The works of Jesus Christ that he did while on earth are really putting his deity on display.

It was one of the proofs or witnesses that he referred to as, for example, in John 9, 3 -5, if you look in that passage, and it says there,

Jesus answered, and this is right after he healed, let me give the work that he did so we understand context.

He just healed a blind man and they're saying, you know, they couldn't believe, you know, they see this blind man, he's about to heal him.

So John 9, 3 says, Jesus answered. It was not for this man's sin or his parents' sin, because that's the thing, at that time, they thought that if someone was born blind, it must be because of either his parents' sin or he sinned, but something that must have caused it.

And he's saying it's not because the parents sinned or he sinned, but that the works of God may be displayed in him so that, you know, in other words,

God's work can be displayed. Verse 4, we must work the works of him who sent me.

While it is day, night is coming, no one can work. As long as I am in the world,

I am the light of the world. What's he saying? Look at what I'm doing.

Look at the works that I do. The works that I do. He's just about to heal a man, and he's saying this is the work of God.

He said, look at the works I do. The works that I do, they display my deity. That's what he's arguing for.

Okay? And so that's what we end up seeing. All right? Now, what are some of these works?

There's things that Jesus did that only God could do. First, creation.

Let's see. Did Jesus create things? And this is, again, you want to go with this is where you could take this lesson as I'm laying it out and work with your

Jehovah Witness friends when they come knocking on your door. You can show that this one's going to be different because this one's going to be one you can show how a problem that you're going to have with the

Latter -day Saints because they're going to say that God the Father created everything and Jesus Christ created everything, but Jesus Christ was created.

So how could he create everything if he was created? And they're going to say that God the Father was born on a planet called

Kolob, and how could he have created everything if he was born? He was therefore created, and how would that solve the problem that he created the planet that he was born on?

Problem that they have. Jehovah Witnesses will say that Jesus Christ was Michael the archangel who was the first created thing, and then he created all other things,

Colossians 1, 15, 16. We're going to look at that, and I'll point that out at that point.

But they're going to say he created all other things. Jewish people,

Islam, going to deny that Jesus created. Hindus, Buddhists, going to deny that Jesus created.

What does God say? Well, John 1, 3. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

So in other words, it's really being clear that Jesus created in this, right? All things were made through Jesus, and without him nothing was made that was made.

Everything that's made, everything that was created, was created by Jesus. Everything.

How could he create himself? That's a problem with the Jehovah Witnesses. That's a problem with the Latter -day Saints. It's not a problem with the

Roman Catholics. They would see that Jesus created all things. This is where the area we will see

Roman Catholics will have an issue when we get to salvation. There's going to be differences there. But when it comes to the doctrine of God, the doctrine of Jesus Christ, they're solid in that area.

They just don't focus on it. They focus on Mary. But that's where they have error, right? So we looked at that in Lesson on Catholicism.

All right, let's look at another. 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 8, 6 says,

For yet for us there is one

God, the Father, from whom all things, and for whom we exist, and one

Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom all things exist.

Now notice there. All things are created through Jesus. Okay?

All things get their existence through Jesus. All right, Colossians 1, 16.

This is the one I mentioned that Jehovah's Witnesses get messed up. Now let me read what it says, and then I'll tell you how

Jehovah's Witnesses add to it. It says, For by Him, by Jesus, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through Him and for Him.

Now they add the word other. They do it in verse 15, and again here it says, They'll say, For by Him all other things were created.

Why do they do that? Because they're acknowledging the fact that they think that Jesus was the first created, the first created thing, the first fruits, and then

He created everything else. So God created Michael the archangel who became Jesus, and then everything else was created through Him.

Problem with this is that this text is being very clear, just like that text that we saw in John 1, that everything that was created was created through Him and for Him.

Everything. He can't create Himself. Everything was created, and here's where we have the real dilemma.

Let's go to the Old Testament, and this is not in your syllabus, so I want you to write this in your syllabus.

I know there's some other verses in your syllabus, but Isaiah 44, 24. Write this in the margin in your syllabus under creation.

Thus says the Lord, that's Jehovah, Yahweh, Thus says the

Lord, your Redeemer, who formed you from the womb.

I am the Lord, notice all cast, meaning Jehovah again, I am the Lord who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself.

Now, keep this up for a second. Who's speaking? The one speaking is Jehovah, Yahweh. Okay?

He says He alone, alone, by Himself. Says it two different ways for emphasis.

He alone created everything and stretched everything out. He alone made everything.

Now, the reason this is important is because Jehovah Witnesses will say that Jesus did it through the

Father. So God the Father created everything through Jesus. That's not what

God the Father says. God says He alone created everything by Himself.

He's emphasizing that because He's really trying to let folks know

He didn't have help here. Okay? It was Him doing it.

Then you have a dilemma. How could God be the one to do it alone and yet Jesus is seen as doing the works of creation?

Creation is one of the things that we know is an act only of God. So there we have the dilemma.

How could that be? Well, the Trinity is the solution. As we said last week, the

Trinity is not a problem. The Trinity is the solution to a problem. God alone created everything and nothing was created except that which

God by Himself and alone created and yet Jesus Christ created everything that was created.

Anything that exists exists because of Him and remained to exist because of Him.

All things, everything was created by Him and for Him and yet in the Old Testament it's very clear that only

God could do that. What does that say? That says that Jesus Christ must be

God. That's an evidence of His deity, the works that He does. Now next week we're going to look at His works of forgiveness,

His works of giving life, His accepting of worship,

His judgment of mankind. We're going to look at His attributes and then we're going to wrap up with looking at the humanity of Jesus Christ.

And so if you have questions about this, you aren't quite sure, I can't answer everything because some of this is beyond our human ability to understand because God's greater than our ability to understand.

But if you do have questions, you can email us at academyatstrivingforeternity .org. If you don't have our syllabus,

I encourage you to go to the store, store .strivingforeternity .org, pick up a copy of the syllabus while you're there.

You can also pick up a copy of my book, What Do They Believe? and you can look at a systematic theology of the major Western religions.

Also, while you're at the website, why don't you look at the information we have on The Bible Interpretation Made Easy and sign up for one of those seminars or look to see if you can host a seminar in your church, in your area.

Get a bunch of Christians together and we can do a seminar there. Hey, while you're at the website, why not, if you're watching live, sign up for The Ohio Fire.

It's coming up April 8th and 9th of 2016 in Columbus, Ohio. We've got

Dr. Thomas White, Phil Johnson, myself, Michael Coughlin will be there teaching.

We will all be teaching and then afterwards going out on the streets and evangelizing as we do with each one of the

Spreading the Fire events. Remember, next week we're going to finish up the Deity of Christ. Then we're going to look at His humanity.

It's going to be packed again. I know I spoke fast. I'm trying to get a lot in, but there's a lot of important things here.

This is the reason it's important for you to have a syllabus. Until next class, I encourage you to remember to strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.