Apologetics Session 25 - Christology - Part 1

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Apologetics Session 26 - Christology - Part 2

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So tonight we're going to take our first look at Christology. So Christology is the study of Jesus Christ.

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Sound like an important study? Maybe. Yeah. Could be, right? Study of Jesus is really where we should start, you know, in so many ways.

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We've talked about so many things. We've talked about what we just listened to on the video a second ago, which was, you know, how important the

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Word of God is and is the Word of God true? Is the Word of God reliable? We've talked about those things.

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We've talked about a lot of things. But tonight is who is Jesus Christ.

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We're going to start that tonight. So if we misinterpret the scriptures and we do not believe the correct truths about Jesus, does it matter?

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Yes. Jesus said to his disciples in Luke 9 20, who do you say that I am?

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How important was their answer? Peter said, thou art the Christ of God, the

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Holy One of God. In other words, Jesus, you are the Holy One who is expected.

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You are the Messiah. That's a correct answer, and they still had a lot to learn about Jesus, but that answer spoke to his, really, his eternal nature, the fact that he was

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God Almighty, and the purpose of why he came. So that was a correct answer.

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Unfortunately, when we talk to people, a lot of times when we say words, they don't have the same definitions that we do.

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I had a big conversation with some Mormons when I was just out in Utah for vacation, and they would nod their head and say, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes,

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I believe all these things, but they weren't really believing the same things about Jesus being the

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Son of God, God the Son. So it's very important that we get our words right and our definitions right, and it's important because if we get it wrong, we're going to see that we're in a very bad way.

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I'm going to read 2 Corinthians 11, verses 3 and 4. I'm going to let you guys read a lot of verses tonight too, but I'm going to read the first few that we do.

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This is 2 Corinthians 11, 3 and 4. Paul writing to the

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Corinthian church, and he's fearful that they have been led astray.

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He says, but I am afraid, lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds should also be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.

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For if one comes and preaches another Jesus, whom we have not preached, for you receive a different spirit, which you have not received, or a different gospel, which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully.

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He's worrying about them because they are easily led off the path of the purity of the gospel and the purity of Jesus that they had been taught personally by Paul.

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It's very similar to what Paul said in the Galatians, right? He said that anybody comes to you preaching another gospel, whether it be an angel or a supposed letter from us, you know, let that person be anathema, let that person be dim.

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Here he's talking actually about the gospel, but he's also talking about the very person of Jesus Christ. If you have been taught about a different Jesus, not one that the scriptures talk about, but one that you've made up, you've made up some ideas, or somebody has taught you some false things about Jesus, do not latch hold of that.

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For Jesus himself said in John chapter 8 verse 24, Jesus said this, he said,

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I say to you therefore you shall die in your sins. He's talking to Pharisees. For unless you believe that I am he, you shall die in your sins.

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He's talking about messiahship. He's talking about whether they believe he's truly the one promised by God, that he is messiah.

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And the fact that he said, unless you believe that I am, with a, that he is in, kind of like an addition just for our purposes so that we understand the grammar, he's really referring to his deity and his messiahship.

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And if you look in the Old Testament, messiah did have the attributes of deity.

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So Jesus says if you do not believe that I am the one, you're going to die in your sins.

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So what we believe about Jesus is incredibly important. The apostle John in 1

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John chapter 2 verses 22 and 23 said this, who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the

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Christ. This is the antichrist, the one who denies the father and the son.

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Whoever denies the son does not have the father. The one who confesses the son has the father also.

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Everything in our faith revolves around Jesus and what we believe about him. You know, there's plenty of other religions around and we know a lot about those.

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Just about every major religion, at least all the ones that I know about, has something to say about Jesus.

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The Buddhists and the Hindus think he's some kind of a master or an avatar or something like that.

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You know, somebody with great wisdom and you know, spiritual insight. You know, we can learn from this

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Jesus. But they wouldn't confess him as Lord God Almighty nor Savior.

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Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism, right? He had a lot to say about Jesus and his followers think they're following Jesus.

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But they're not following the Jesus that we are. They believe some things about Jesus that are totally false.

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And when we get into Mormonism we'll talk about that. And the key is, is the followers of those religions don't necessarily have to really put their faith and trust in Joseph Smith or in Buddha.

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That's not what they're called to do. Because those people, the

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Buddha or Muhammad or whoever it is, they're not claiming to be

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God and they are not claiming to be the Savior. They're not claiming to have the power to forgive sin.

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What those religions have done is they have made sets of rules that you must follow.

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And if you follow those rules you will be right with their religion. So you're not called to believe in them as somebody who has the power of eternal salvation or the power of eternal life.

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You're basically called to say, well, this person wrote a book and if you follow this book then you're going to be a good person because you've kept all the rules in the book.

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What we believe is that Jesus Christ means everything to us. If there is no

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Jesus there is no Christianity. If there is no Buddha there can still be

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Buddhism because they can follow the, you know, the tenets of the religion. If there's no

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Joseph Smith there can still be Mormonism because they can still follow the Book and do whatever.

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If there's no Jesus Christ there's no Savior, there's no forgiveness of sin.

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And what we believe about him is imperatively important. First John 5 11 and 12 says this, and the witness is this, that God has given us eternal life and this life is in his

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Son. He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

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Makes it pretty clear the Son is the only way to eternal life.

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Any way to get to the Father is going to be through the Son. So that's a little bit of an introduction about why it's so important to believe the right things about Jesus.

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Let's now look at the particular claim, Is Jesus God Almighty?

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Big claim for someone walking the earth, appearing as a man, to say,

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I am God Almighty. Many people say that Jesus never said that. And you actually will not find those exact words in the

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Bible. But the first thing we're going to do in seeing whether Jesus is God or not, we're going to see what he did claim and what he did say.

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So could I have someone read, we'll do Phil and then

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Cameron and Mike do you guys first. So Phil, John chapter 10 verse 30 and Cameron you do

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John chapter 14 verse 9. And Mike, if you could do

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John chapter 17 verse 5. John 10 30,

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I and the Father are one. So Jesus is in his great shepherd sermon, dissertations, talking and he claims that he and the

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Father are one. That no one is going to take his sheep out of his hand.

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And no one's going to snatch them out of the Father's hand either. And then he claims I and the Father are one.

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That claim is a claim of the deity. Let's see what your verse says Cameron. John 14 9.

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14 9. Jesus said to him, have I been with you so long and you still do not know me

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Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say show us the Father? Okay that's good.

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Now remember Jeff has Jeff is preaching right now through the Gospel of John and he's talked about in the first couple chapters of John how

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Jesus the Son has revealed, no one has seen God at any time, but Jesus the Son has revealed him.

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He has displayed him for us. Basically this is saying the same thing. If you have seen me you have seen the

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Father. I and the Father are one. These are claims to deity. Mike could you give us

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John 17 5. 17 5. And now Father glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.

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Before the world existed. All right so this talks to the eternal nature of the Lord. We we talked already in our general theology classes that there are eternal attributes that only

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God can have. Eternality is one. The fact that Jesus was the

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Father from the very beginning before even the world. The angels can't say that.

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Men can't say that for sure. Any created being cannot say that. But Jesus God the

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Son can. I'm going to read Revelation 1 17. So this is again

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Jesus speaking. First chapter of Revelation verse 17 he says,

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And when I saw him, this is the Apostle John saying this first, I fell at his feet as a dead man.

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And he, the one who John was was having a vision of, the

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Lord Jesus. And he, the Lord Jesus, laid his right hand upon me saying, Do not be afraid.

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I am the first and the last. And we're going to look at that in a little bit in Isaiah when the

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Lord says the same thing. But basically the Alpha and the Omega, that is only a statement that the

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Lord can make. That he is before all things and he is after all. He is eternal and he is from the beginning, from all eternity,

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God the Son. So Jesus made that statement himself. Jesus made also a lot of other statements.

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These things are more statements that only he could make as God.

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So Dave, could you read Luke chapter 6 verse 5? Bob, could you read

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Luke chapter 5 verse 24? And Brad, could you read

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John chapter 5 verse 21? Okay, Luke chapter 6 verse 5.

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Yes. And he said to them, the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. So Jesus makes a claim that he is

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Lord over this holiday that was set apart by the

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Jews. And obviously this was a sacred day set apart by the Lord and given as a sign for the

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Jews. And Jesus says he's Lord of it. He's commander of it.

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He has authority over it. Only God himself could have said that. Bob, can you read the

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Luke 5 verse 24? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.

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For he said to the paralyzed man, I tell you, get up, take your mat, and go home. I think we all remember that verse that that verse everyone was expecting the paralyzed man for Jesus to say,

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Son, you get up and walk. But he said first, your sins are forgiven.

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And that caused quite a stir with the religious leaders because they're like, who can say these things but God alone?

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They knew what he said because he was God and he did have authority on earth to forgive sins.

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Nobody else has that except the Lord himself. Brad, John 5 21?

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For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.

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So this is the power of life, sovereignty over whom he wishes to give life to.

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These are also expressions of power that only God has. I'm going to read

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John 8 58, and this is in the section where Jesus is again arguing with the religious leaders and they are trying to question him about many things.

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And this is in the same section where he said, if you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.

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This is a little bit after that. He's talking about Abraham and he says to them,

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Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am. And again, that is one of those verses that has...

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In the Greek, there's not the same... Iran back there has a shirt that says

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Yahweh on it, Y -H -W -H, and that was the Old Testament word for Jehovah.

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I am. Right. In the New Testament, we don't have necessarily a word that corresponds to a clear definition that he's saying he is

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God. But in the context of what he has said here, before Abraham was born,

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I am. The Greek words just mean I am. But in the context, he's saying

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I am eternal, I am before all things again. So again, this is a claim to deity and it is a reference back to Y -H -W -H from the

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Old Testament. So we're just getting started with this, folks. There are so many proofs about Jesus's deity, it is overwhelming.

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But you know what? It's also the most attacked truth,

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I think, besides maybe the scriptures themselves, maybe. But the twisting of who

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Jesus is and the fact that he is not God is one of the most attacked things that we will see in our culture and in every false religion.

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So let's go to the next topic. Those were words either Jesus said that proved he was

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God or declarations of being God himself. This now is, does

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Jesus Christ receive worship? The answer is yes. When we see the angels in the scriptures, a few different times, men would try to bow down and worship an angel, right?

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And what would the angel say to the person? Stop just working it out. That's right.

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Now, you also remember in the book of Acts, when I believe it was

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Silas and Paul, I don't think it was Barnabas and Paul, I think it was Silas and Paul, they had healed some people in the book of Acts and the men bowed down and they were calling

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Paul, maybe it was Barnabas, they were calling them Zeus and Hermes. Do you remember that?

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And they wanted to worship them as basically three gods. What did Paul and,

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I think it was Barnabas, what did they say about that? Not to go worship us, we too are just men. Right.

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So let's see what happens when somebody bows down and worships Jesus. So, this is a long one,

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Rich. Can you turn to John chapter 20? This is going to be the

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Thomas section. Verses 27 through 29. So 20, verse 20, 27 through 29.

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Ron, can you give us John chapter 5, verse 23?

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And then, Ian, let's have you do Philippians chapter 2, verses 9 through 11.

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And we'll stop there. Then he said to Thomas, put your finger here and see my hands, and put your hand and place it by my side.

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Do not disbelieve but believe. Thomas answered, my Lord, am

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I God? Jesus said to him, have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen me, yet have believed.

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Thomas doesn't rebuke, or Jesus doesn't rebuke Thomas at all. He receives the worship

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Thomas gives. And I don't think, by the way, we've just looked in the, we're studying through Luke, and we just looked at Luke where he healed the 10 lepers.

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And the one leper came back and gave thanks and glory to God by bowing down to Jesus.

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Jesus, again, did not rebuke that leper. He received the worship. And he said, well, where are the other nine?

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That was his question, not about receiving worship that he shouldn't have received. He received the worship.

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Ron, what do you have there in John 5 .23? So that all who honor the

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Son, even as they honor the Father, he who does not honor the Son does not honor the

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Father who sent him. Jesus equating himself with the Father in the honor that is due his name.

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Certainly worthy of it. Ian, very well -known section here. Can you read

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Philippians 2? Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is

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Lord to the glory of God the Father. There's a few more.

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Now, like with everything else, I'll release this to the group. And I need all your emails too, by the way, so you'd be part of the group.

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But I will read through some of the rest of these, but I will read Revelation 5 .13 and 14 right now.

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And every creative thing which is in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea and the things that are in them,

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I heard saying to him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever.

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And the four living creatures kept saying amen and the elders fell down and worshiped. That's the

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Father and the Son. There are other verses that point to the worship of Jesus Christ.

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I'm going to go on to the next category though. This is pretty widespread here.

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Jesus performs the acts of God. He does things only God can do.

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And it's more than just, think probably immediately of the healings, the tremendous amount of healings that Jesus did where he's physically on earth.

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But he also is attributed with creation. He also is attributed with authority over demons and all principalities.

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He also is attributed with omniscience that he knows all things. We talked about him forgiving sin and giving eternal life.

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So let's look at some verses about him being the creator. So Bill could you read

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Psalm 33 6 and Chad could you read

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Colossians 1 16 and 17.

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And then I'll give one to Russell right after that okay? Okay Bill.

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By the word of the Lord the heavens were made and by the breath of his mouth all their hosts.

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Okay now initially you might be scratching your head like well why do you bring up that? We're talking about Jesus right? The word of God.

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The heavens, the earth were made from the word of God. Hebrews 11 also tells us that.

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And we know that Jesus Christ is the word of God. Maybe in Colossians chapter 1 a little more clear.

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Chad could you read that for us? Yep. Colossians 1 16 and 17. For in him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible.

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Whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through him and for him.

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He is before all things and in him all things hold together. And could you have

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Russell read John 1 3 if you could show that to Russell? You can read it, we've seen it before.

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Yeah John 1 3. John 1 3. Through him all things were made but all things were made without him nothing was made that had been made.

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In him was life and that life was the life of all mankind.

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That's good. So all things that were made, nothing that has come into being has come into being except by him.

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And that again is Jesus the word of God. There's a few other verses in regards to this as well and I'm not going to read those right now, but you get the idea.

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He is the creator. Now in Colossians there's a, in the verses very close to where we read it says that he's the first born of all creation and that has caused a lot of people to stumble.

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What is this first born? If he's first born that means he must be a created being. Even though it says all things are created by him, nothing that has come into being has come into being except by him.

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So that would contradict that very statement. So we see this first born.

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What does that mean? Preeminence. Richie says it means preeminence.

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The Greek word is protokos. I thank you very much for pronouncing that.

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Protokos is right. It can refer to something that is first in time or preeminent in rank.

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In the case of creation, Jesus is preeminent over all his creation. He's made it. He sustains it.

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He has authority over it. Now just to get an idea that this first born, you know, don't go crazy with this first born thing because it's mentioned a few other times in the scriptures in the

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Old Testament too. Kevin, can you turn to Psalm 89 verse 27?

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And Tim, could you turn to Exodus 4 verse 22?

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Yes. And Kevin, whenever you get there you can read that.

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It's 89 27. 89 27. And I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.

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Okay, he said, I will make him my firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth. He's talking about King David there. So let's think about King David for a second.

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The psalm says that. What is the Lord trying to tell us in that psalm?

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Well, David was not the firstborn in his family, right? Right.

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He was like seventh or eighth. Seventh. We're going to say seventh, right? If our memories are correct.

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We'll go for seventh, okay. So, okay, he is not the firstborn in his family.

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What does it mean he's going to make him the firstborn of the highest of the kings of the earth? Well, he's talking about his position in regards to the kings of the earth.

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He's going to be the preeminent king of the earth. And that's what the

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Lord is saying there to us. He's not saying that he is first in line of some, you know, prodigy that started with him and then is going to continue on.

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He's saying the firstborn of the kings of the earth. He's the preeminent of all those kings. And of course, eventually his kingdom is going to be established and be an eternal kingdom.

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The Lord promised that to him and his progeny after that. ESV actually says appoint him to be my firstborn.

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That's what ESV says. Okay, like he has a special appointment. Not the firstborn, but my firstborn.

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And then in Exodus 4 .22, could you read that to him? And you shall say to Pharaoh, thus says the

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Lord, Israel is my son, my firstborn. Okay, this is the

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Lord speaking to Pharaoh. And he calls

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Israel his firstborn. Well, we certainly know that Adam was the first man that was created.

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Wouldn't Adam be maybe the firstborn? But he's talking about, again, a position.

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A position that the Lord is honoring Israel with. And of course, you remember

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Abraham himself who gave birth to Isaac and Ishmael.

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And Isaac was not the firstborn. Ishmael was. So Israel was not the firstborn of Abraham.

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And then of Isaac, we have the twins. We have Jacob and Esau.

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And again, Jacob, whose name became Israel, was not the firstborn there either.

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But the Lord appointed them firstborn, which is a position of preeminence.

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It's God's way of telling us, you know, who he has put in a position of, you know,

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I don't want to say authority, but it's a position of honor. A position of status. So firstborn is used in that way all throughout the scriptures.

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And some people have said, well, since Jesus is called the firstborn, it must mean he was created. Well, that's not what it means.

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So we need to be careful when we look at words like that. Okay, in addition, one note that I saw was that firstborn suggests not the one born first, but the one

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God chooses. That just emphasizes your point. Right. Preeminence. The one he chooses.

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Now, beyond being creator of all things, does

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Jesus have authority over all things? Let's read some more verses. We're back up front now.

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So Phil, how about Matthew 28, verse 18? I hate to cut this section off with just verse 18, but I think that'll suffice.

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And Cameron, could you read Colossians chapter 2, verses 9 and 10?

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And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given unto me. Did you say all authority?

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I did say all authority. All authority given to Jesus Christ. And Cameron, Colossians 2, verses 9 and 10?

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For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him who is the head of all rule and authority.

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He is all rule and authority. And I'm ignoring the part where it says the fullness of deity dwells in him right now.

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We'll get back to that in a second. So he does have all authority.

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All authority has been given to the Son. That is something only

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God himself can possess. All authority. Now, in Jesus' earthly ministry, we talked about these things before.

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I'm not going to go through all the verses we could. This is kind of like it in the book of John, where it says, well, all of the miracles of Jesus, you know, had been written down in books,

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I suppose even the Bible, the whole world couldn't contain them all. Well, we're not going to go through every single verse that talks about healing of the lepers or casting out demons, but Jesus obviously did all those things.

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He did some things that prophets never did. Prophets did heal lepers, right?

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I mean, we know Elisha was given the power by the Lord to heal lepers. We know Elijah and Elisha, Old Testament prophets, raised people from the dead.

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But there are some interesting things that we don't see prophets doing in the Old Testament or anybody in the

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New Testament either, which is the power over nature that he displayed.

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I know that Elijah prayed for rain, but it wasn't like Elijah had direct control over the weather.

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Jesus did. Remember when he was in the boat in Galilee and the big tempest comes up,

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Jesus says, hush, be still. And when Jesus turned the water into wine and when

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Jesus multiplied the very creative power of actually, you know, multiplying the bread and the fish and the feeding of the 5 ,000 and then the feeding of 4 ,000 also, that those types of things were not necessarily performed by any prophets.

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We know Moses, you know, kind of watched over the time when manna was falling from the sky, but we know the

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Lord God himself was doing that. It wasn't the power of Moses, it was the power of God. In this case, it was the power of Jesus Christ multiplying that very bread.

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So many, many examples. And then what John 20, verse 30 through 31.

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Maybe, Mike, you can read those verses for us. So John chapter 20, verse 30 through 31.

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John 20, 30 to 31. Now, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book, but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the

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Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name. So that's a summary of of those miracles and why they were all done.

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That's why I talked about who Jesus was. Okay, so we talked about some claims that Jesus made.

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We have talked about the worship of Jesus, and we have talked about the acts of Jesus.

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Now we're going to get into some of my favorite things, which is just flat out the plain teaching of Scripture.

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Does the Scripture say that Jesus is God? You would think this would be so easy, but we'll see what happens.

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And maybe some of these things, maybe you haven't heard before. So that's what I'm really hoping in this class, really, is maybe some of these things you've heard before many times, but some of these things maybe not, so we'll see.

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So the Old Testament has very clear teaching that Messiah was going to be

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God Almighty. Who's next? Brad, could you turn to Psalm chapter 45, verse 6 and 7, 45?

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Yes, Psalm 45, verses 6 and 7. And Bob, could you turn to Isaiah chapter 9, verse 6?

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Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of upright uprightness.

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You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.

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That verse is not only stated in the Old Testament about Messiah, but it was also repeated in the

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New Testament in the book of Hebrews, where the writer of Hebrews is performing a proof that Jesus Christ is more exalted than the angels, because which of the angels had ever received worship?

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Which of the angels did he ever call God? And I didn't actually quote the Hebrews 2 section, but I just quoted the

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Psalm 45, but it clearly says, Thy throne, O God, and he is talking about Messiah.

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Isaiah 9, 6, Bob, very familiar territory. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and a government will be on his shoulders, and he will be called

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Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. I don't see how you could mix those words to think that Jesus was anything but God Almighty in the flesh.

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Not really sure how that could happen. I am time crunched, folks, and I want to see how much more

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I have here. I think we might be able to get through some of the rest of this, so let's see.

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Okay, so we just read some Old Testament verses. Now, let's read some Old Testament verses that correlate to the

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New Testament. Let's see,

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I'm picking and choosing here. Let's read

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Isaiah, okay, Dave, I'll give you Isaiah chapter 6, verses 1 through 10.

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It's a little bit lengthy, and then Ron, right after that, you're looking at John 12,

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I'll let you know where in a second. Isaiah chapter 6, what? I'm sorry, I didn't get you.

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Isaiah chapter 6. Isaiah chapter 6, verses 1 through 10. In the year that King Ezra died,

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I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple.

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Above him stood a seraphim, each had six wings, with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.

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And one called to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the

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Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory. And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke, and I said,

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Woe is me, for I am lost. I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of people of unclean lips.

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For my eyes have seen the King and the Lord of hosts. Do you want to keep going?

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Yeah, are you at 10 yet? No, I am not. Okay. Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that had taken with tongues from the altar, the tongues from the altar, and he touched my mouth and said,

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Behold, he has touched your lips, your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.

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And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and whom will go for us?

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And then I said, Here am I, send me. And he said, Go, and say to the people,

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Keep on hearing, but do not understand, keep on seeing, but do not perceive.

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Make the heart of the people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, they hear with their ears, they understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.

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Okay, very familiar section again. Ron, could you read John chapter 12, verses 40 through 41?

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He has blinded their eyes, and he hardened their heart, so that they would not see with their eyes, and perceive with their heart, and be converted, and I healed them.

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These things Isaiah said, because he saw his glory, and he spoke of him.

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When he's saying his glory there in John chapter 12, he's talking about Jesus.

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That when the people did not recognize because their eyes were dull, and their ears were stuffed up, and their hearts were not converted, they missed the glory of God, and the glory of God was before them in Jesus Christ.

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So John chapter 12 is showing us, and pointing us to the fact that that Old Testament revelation of the throne of God, and all the beauty around it, is the one and only

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King, the word Jesus. And John chapter 12 brings that out.

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Now, I said before we were going to talk about the verses in Isaiah that said that Yahweh refers to himself as the first and the last, and then in Revelation chapter 1, verses 8 and 17, also

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Jesus says he's the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last. So there is a union there, there's a union of thought there, and an identity of the same,

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Jesus being God, through that declaration. In Zechariah chapter 12, verse 10, it says that they will look upon me whom they have pierced.

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The me in that section of scripture is God, Yahweh. Well, who did they pierce?

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Jesus. And we know that Psalm 22 and John chapter 19, many obviously we know

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Jesus was crucified and pierced through his hand and his feet. So there's a few other

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Old Testament to New Testament references like that, that will show that like Yahweh is speaking, or something that happens to Yahweh is attributed to Jesus Christ in the

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New Testament. And those things are pretty clear. And then the last group of verses

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I want to look at, I want to, these are just the ones that just flat out say

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Jesus is God. So let's read these, let's read all of these. Rich, you're next.

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This is John chapter 5, verses 17 and 18. John 5, 17 and 18.

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Ian, you're going to get Philippians chapter 2 again, this time verses 5 and 7, 5 through 7.

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Bill, could you read John chapter 1, and I'm going to have you just read verse 1 and then verse 14, right after it.

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And we know what these verses say. So Rich, are you there at John chapter 5? 17 and 18.

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But Jesus answered them and said, my father is working until now, and I am working.

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This is why the Jews, seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the

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Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own father, making himself equal to God.

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Yeah, they got it. The religious leaders didn't believe Jesus, but they understood what he was saying to them when he said, my father is working and I am working.

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And by the way, he said that on the Sabbath, so they were really upset at him. It was like, what is all this work you're doing, you know?

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Very upset. Ian, let's have Philippians chapter 2.

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Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

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Hard to think that you could not understand that Jesus is calling, or the scriptures are calling

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Jesus God at this point. Bill, how about John chapter 1, verses 1 and then verse 14.

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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

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And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory, glory as the only

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Son and the Father, full of grace and truth. Hey, you brought out a very interesting point there.

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What version are you looking at? ESV. ESV? Yeah. Because many of them are going to say glory is of the only begotten.

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Just about every, probably, version in here is going to say that. But the one and only Son is a better translation there.

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And that's another cause for stumbling that people have, because they see the, especially the

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New King James, because we all remember John 3 .16, that Jesus is the only begotten

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Son of the Father. And that only begotten, again, the

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Muslims have made a whole war against that statement. But what the phrase really is, is the one and only

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Son. Not that he was at some time a created being. But that, you know, if we get into the into, again, the

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Greek and the phraseology there, it should say the one and only Son. Monogenes, the

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Greek. And so that's another form of confusion that people have, but it's certainly not saying that Jesus was created.

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And those translations right on the money there. But the Word of God. Who is the Word of God?

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Jesus. The Word was God. There's no way to get around that.

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There's no possible explanation for that. I know that the Jehovah's Witnesses have added to their

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Bible, their so -called Bible, and they have added an article that says Jesus is a

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God. But adding to the Word of God isn't going to help you get around the fact that Jesus is

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God Almighty. You can try to get around it, but it's not going to work. I'm going to read a couple more verses.

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Titus chapter 2, verse 13, says this, that we're looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great

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God and Savior, Christ Jesus. Our great God and Savior, Jesus.

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Very easy to read that. And one of my favorites in Acts chapter 20, verses 27 and 28, this is

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Paul as he is going to be saying goodbye to the

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Ephesian elders as they're kind of gathered there. And he says this, this is from Eratos, it says,

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Paul says, For I did not shrink back from declaring to you the whole purpose of God, but be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock among which the

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Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which he purchased with his own blood.

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Whose blood? We don't see Jesus's name in this sentence.

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We see Holy Spirit and we see God. Whose blood is it?

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It's God's blood. Jesus purchased, or it says God purchased with his own blood.

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If God purchased with his own blood, Jesus Christ. He's the one who did the purchasing and obviously the

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Father and the Holy Spirit were part of that. But it's pretty clear they're really, the evidence for Jesus's deity is overwhelming.

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Actually I didn't reread that Colossians verse where it says the fullness of deity dwells in him in bodily form.

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Actually I skipped over quite a few possible other explanations or definitions or declarations.

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We already talked about some of the stumbling points that people have about the only begotten of the Father or the firstborn, but really if you are going to deny that the scriptures teach that Jesus is

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God, you have to throw out an awful, awful lot of scripture. But this is very, very common for the deity of Jesus to be attacked.

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So we need to be armed with the ability to say, you know, the scripture says right here, you know, in Philippians chapter 2 or Titus 2 .3

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or 2 .13, excuse me, it says right here that he's God. Yes, it says the only begotten of the

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Father in this verse right here, but again, you don't necessarily have to know the

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Greek or, you know, to get into, you know, Richie knows all the

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Greek, he knows all the Hebrew, he knows everything, which is very useful, and I'm not saying that we shouldn't know all those things, but if we know the things that we brought out tonight, we certainly should be able to, you know, explain to someone that why we believe

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Jesus is God. And then when I'm sitting here thinking about this study, it has to hit you.

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Jesus, God the Son, from all eternity past, dwelling with the glory that he had with his

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Father, willingly, as all the verses that Ian read, willingly became humble and came as a man to the point of death.

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The kenosis. The emptying. Emptied himself, coming as a former man, being willing to be obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross, and we know his name is exalted above every name, but when we think of God Almighty laying his life down for us, like, you know, who are we?

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What have we done to deserve such love, such a sacrifice, that God himself would do these things for us?

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It's love. It's a humbling thing, and that's, you know, obviously we need to know that Jesus is

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God and believe he's God as part of what basically the salvation of the gospel message is, but boy, when you think about the

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Lord himself laying down his life for us, it is overwhelming, and I'm glad we can talk about this tonight, because none of us deserved it for sure, and we certainly had a debt that we can never pay, and we're not going to ever be able to pay back

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Jesus for what he has done, but what we can do is praise and worship him and thank him for all that he has done, and we're glad to do that.

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So does anyone have anything to say or any questions about Jesus being God? We still have a lot to say about Jesus, but that's the big thing we wanted to get out tonight, that the scriptures teach that he is

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God Almighty. Anything else strike anyone or any other verses that you might use in other proofs?

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I know many people talk about the Greek grammar and things like that.

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When you look at Matthew 28, I think Rich only read that all rule and authority had been given to Jesus, but then of course it says, you know, go therefore and baptize in the name of the

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Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But when you see the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit equated like that in a sentence, it really puts them on the same level.

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It shows that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are all equal in nature.

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And we'll talk about that when we talk about the Holy Spirit as well, because there's some other verses that do equate the three, and there's plenty of other arguments.

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I would say this is a pretty good sampling, but maybe you guys do have, does anyone have anything else that they often think about when the proof of Jesus is

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God Almighty? The resurrection of Lazarus in John 11, after four days raising a dead man from the grave.

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Who could do that but God alone? He did that. One of the things

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I think about all the time is when the Pharisee's response is when he makes those claims of being

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I Am that in and of itself affirms everything that they pick up stones to stone him.

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They knew what he was talking about. They knew what he was saying. Before Abraham was,

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I Am. That was the exclusive name for God to the Hebrews.

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Yeah, well let's close up here then tonight, and just very exciting, you know, we don't follow some, you know, some religious person who wrote a book down.

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We follow a living, powerful God who is God Almighty, who laid his life down for us and was raised again on our behalf.

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I am so glad that he has revealed that to us through his spirit, really, letting us, when we read the

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Word of God, just having that in our hearts to say yes. I totally believe that because the unbelievers can read the same verses we read tonight, and they will not have their hearts illumined to know the very things that we know deep down in our hearts.

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It's not that they don't have the information. It's not that there's extra proofs that we have that they couldn't look up in the scriptures, but by his grace he's revealed them to us through his spirit, and we have much to be thankful for tonight.

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So, Richard, you want to close us up in prayer? Amen. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time.

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We love you so much, Lord Jesus, and we just want to live to give you all the glory and honor and praise in everything we do,

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Lord God, and we thank you for Drew teaching us tonight, Lord God. Thank you for the

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Word that is alive, truly. It's a living Word, sharper than any two -edged sword, and Lord God, I'd like to offer prayers to our brother

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Ivan. Lord God, we just pray you heal Ivan, bring him back to us whole, dear

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Lord God, and more on fire for your glory than ever. Yes, God. And now, Lord God, as we depart, we pray for journey mercies that you take us home safely on the road, and Lord God, we give you all the glory in Jesus' precious name, amen.