Apologetics Session 26 - Christology - Part 2

Father, we exalt you, Father. We lift up your holy name, Father. Lord, I want to confess, Lord, just the sins of the day,

Father, whatever has happened in all of our lives, but especially me, Father, just lifting up before you, Father, the thoughts

I've had, the work I probably should have done better, maybe even the judgment of other people at work or wherever, nothing that I know of, but Father, just knowing that in so many ways,

I offend your holy law and just your holy righteousness, Father.

And I thank you, Lord, for the forgiveness that is in your Son, Jesus Christ. I thank you, Father, for the blood that washes us clean,

Lord. We thank you for this class, Father, and the fact that we can know you more through this class.

Please help us tonight. Please be our teacher, Father. And we thank you for the girls in the precept class, and we pray for them,

Lord. We lift that class up to you, and we're so thankful for the ladies that were there. And, Father, we're thankful for our brother

Ivan. We know that he is not well right now, and he has some limited options going forward, but those options hopefully are going to be the cure that he needs for this pneumonia that he has.

Please, Father, touch his body and heal him, Lord. We ask for our brother, Lord, please. We thank you for John and his wife,

Joan. And we pray for them, Lord, as they try to minister to their daughter, who has really been beaten up,

Father, by this accident. We praise you that you have spared her life and that she is,

Father, just alive right now. And we pray, Lord, that you would enable this situation with her getting around in a wheelchair, which is totally new for her, a young girl, and now she's bound to a wheelchair.

Father, we pray, Lord, that you would please help with this ramp situation, and,

Lord, that you would just minister to her heart, Father. We thank you for all these things in Christ's name.

Amen. Amen. Hey, guys. So, thanks for being here.

Last week, we just got into Christology, and I spent a lot of time on Jesus being

God Almighty. And that's a very important subject, so I thought we should spend a lot of time on that.

And we looked at about, I'll say, 25 or 30 verses at least. There were many different categories that we went over.

This week, we're going to go into more of a description of who

Jesus is. Is there something we didn't cover last week about Jesus? There was a lot of things about Jesus.

We could spend the rest of our life talking about Jesus. But this week, we're going to talk, first off, that Jesus was also fully man.

This is quite a concept for a lot of people. I'm going to go through this much faster than I did the section last week.

I'm just going to mention the arguments in the Scriptures for this. And then there's a lot more after that.

I'm hoping we actually get finished this time. We'll see how we do. But if Jesus was not a man, if, for some reason, some people would say he was a spirit.

Well, a spirit could not have offered himself in the place of humanity.

He had to be a man to bear the punishment and the guilt that men deserved.

So in order for him to be the perfect sacrifice for the human race, he had to be a man.

In addition to that, if he was not a man, he would not be able to sympathize as our high priest who knows our infirmities and knows our weaknesses and knows the pain and the suffering we go through.

Jesus took on human flesh so that he would know all those things so that he can be our great high priest.

So if he was not a man, we wouldn't have that type of ministry from the Lord himself. So let's look at some of the things that we know about Jesus and see why we believe that he was also fully man.

So, he was born of a woman. We know that, right? Luke chapter 2, verses 6 and 7 says,

It came about while they were there, the days were completed for Mary to give birth to her firstborn son,

Jesus. So he was born in a physical way, a regular physical way, through a nine -month pregnancy, right?

There wasn't some magic speeding up the process.

There wasn't a, all of a sudden, Jesus popped into the world. He came as impregnated by the

Spirit, Mary was, and he grew as that little baby in her womb for that nine months and experienced a physical birth.

That's actually a very big deal. There's a lot of people that don't believe that, even though the

Bible is very clear about that. You remember some of the prophecies in the

Old Testament that said that he would be born of the seed of the woman.

So he would be born of a woman. Galatians 4 .4 says that,

In the fullness of time God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law.

1 John 4, 2 and 3, and there are many more verses than this, but 1 John 4, 2 and 3 says this,

By this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses

Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess

Jesus is not from God. 1 John was dealing with the

Gnostics that dealt with this higher knowledge, and they believed that Jesus wasn't necessarily

God in the flesh. They also believed he wasn't necessarily a physical representation of God, and a representation of man, maybe some kind of a spirit.

And that's not it at all. 1 John says, no, you must believe that he came in the flesh.

We have to believe that. Next. We know

Jesus grew as a man, because very early on in the

Gospel of Luke we see him at 12 years old. He's in the temple. We knew he grew in stature with God and man, it says.

And as a young boy he was in the temple, and he was questioning the religious leaders. And they were all amazed at his teaching, right, or his knowledge and understanding.

And he went to the temple, and it says that he was also in subjection to his parents, and grew up under the umbrella of their authority.

Some other things about Jesus being a man. We know that he fasted for 40 days and 40 nights, and he didn't do so by supernatural power.

He did so in the strength of a human being, it says. And then he was hungry.

He suffered the pangs of hunger. He had a physical body that had the same sorts of needs and wants that our body has.

And he didn't give in to those things. He fasted for 40 days and 40 nights. People have done that as well.

I'll say normal people, but we often think that because Jesus was God, he could do all these supernatural things.

But he didn't use his supernatural privileges for many of the things we see him do, walking as a man.

And this was certainly not one of them, because he suffered hunger. And he suffered to the point where the angels had to minister to him after his 40 days and 40 nights.

We know that when he was on the cross, that he said, I'm thirsty. We know he was thirsty as well.

We know from John chapter 4 that Jacob's well, when

Jesus was there and he was going through Samaria, and his disciples were not there, they were in town, but a woman came to Jacob's well.

And that's where he engaged her and talked with her for a while. But it says that he was wearied from his journey at that point.

That, yes, Jesus got tired. Jesus had a physical body that had limitations, and he was willing to endure that and put on some flesh for our sakes.

We know all these things about his body. The scripture tells us that he was also asleep in the bow of the boat, because he was very tired when the storm came.

We know that he ate many, many, many times. He didn't have this kind of body where he didn't need food.

He needed nourishment, and he took in nourishment, just as anybody else would. We don't know if he ever got cut or had a cold or something like that, but we know he could heal all things.

But we don't know if he was willing, and I'm sure he was willing, to suffer all things.

We know he certainly bled, but we don't know if he stubbed his toe, if he hit his hand with a hammer when he was a carpenter.

Yes, he was a perfect Lord and God, but he was a man, and he went through many of the same things we did.

It's hard for me to imagine some of these things, and it's hard for us to get our heart right. It's like if Jesus is hammering a nail, you think it's going to be a perfect shot, right?

He's kind of driving it just in there perfectly. When I'm driving a nail, all bets are off.

I have a black and blue toe right now because of some damage that I did to that. He did endure a lot of the things that we do as a man in the physical body.

We know he had human relationships as well, and sometimes this was great and something to rejoice over.

For instance, when he sent out the 70 and they came back and they said, even the demons were subject to us.

Jesus rejoiced over them and said, blessed be your father for you haven't revealed these things to mighty people, but as unto babes.

He just rejoiced over all the things that they were doing, and they were having fun together and just rejoicing in the

Lord. But then we have Jesus also being betrayed by a dear friend.

He knows betrayal as well, right? Those are some of the things in our human relationships we know very well, people letting us down.

Now, obviously Judas betrayed him in a different way than his disciples.

His disciples more like didn't come through when he needed them, right? When the pressure was on and the

Roman guards came and says, all the sheep scattered, they scattered just as it was written there. And when it was time to pray in the

Garden of Gethsemane, they fell asleep and couldn't.

They knew Jesus was troubled and they knew it was time to pray, but they couldn't do it.

They couldn't stand with him in that hour, and so they all scattered. So Jesus knew disappointment.

He knew disappointment. He knew rejection. On the human level, and certainly we do too, we know his emotions were stirred by various things that have happened in his walk.

Certainly when Jesus wept over his dear friend Lazarus and Martha and Mary who were grieving over that whole situation.

He experienced these things and because of this, he knows us.

He knows our frame. He knows who we are. He experienced all these things for our sake.

He's eternally God, but yet he stepped into time, took on human flesh to experience all these things and eventually yield up his life for our sake.

And he certainly had anger at times, flipping over the money changers and when the

Pharisees were imposing their religious laws, especially on the

Sabbath, we remember the man with the withered hand and they were watching him to see if he would heal that man.

And Jesus looked around at them with anger in his heart, it says in the book of Mark. So he experienced it.

His anger was always righteous and his anger was always tempered in a perfect understanding and a perfect application for a particular situation.

Because the other thing is that Jesus was also sinless. Although he was a man, he was sinless.

And we'll read a couple of verses about that. But before we do, there are also several verses that just flat out call

Jesus a man. So I would like maybe a couple of folks that could turn to the scriptures for a second.

Kevin, why don't you read first. This is going to be John chapter 8, verse 40. And Dave, can you turn to 1

Corinthians 15? I'll tell you the verses in a second. And Phil, can you turn to 1

Timothy chapter 2? So 840.

John 840. But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God.

This is not what Abraham did. They claim to be Abraham's children and they were arguing with Jesus.

And Jesus says, you're trying to kill me, a man. A man who's told you the truth.

So Jesus calls himself a man. Dave, can you read 1 Corinthians 15? 21 and 22.

21 and 22. That's a nicely well -used Bible, Dave. We like to see that.

21 and 22. Okay. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

So by a man, there has been come the resurrection of the dead. That man's

Jesus. Phil, can you give us 1 Timothy 2 .5? For there is one

God and there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. The man

Christ Jesus. And that's what Job cried for, right? How can

I arbitrate my case to the Lord? I need someone to go between us.

And yet, there was none. But, Jesus being fully God and fully man is the perfect arbiter.

And he can go back. He knows who we are perfectly because he walked as we did.

He obviously knows God Almighty because he is. So, the

Bible calls Jesus a man. Now, although he was a man, he was sinless. Let's turn to Hebrews 4 .15.

Mike, could you read that? Bob, could you read 1

Corinthians 5 .21? And we'll leave it at that. There's some other verses that talk about Jesus being sinless, but we'll get the idea here.

There's also many other verses that talk about Jesus being a man. Hebrews 4 .15.

Yes, sir. Am I seeing things?

Hebrews 4 only goes as far as 13. No, it goes to 16.

Oh, there it is. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Yet without sin. But he endured those temptations. I don't think that Jesus did endure temptation because he did.

Bob, 1 Corinthians 5 .21? Mine goes to 13.

Do I have a bad Bible? No, 1 Corinthians 5 .21. I know, my electronic

Bible stops at 13. I'm serious. Mine goes to... Mine goes to...

I'm sorry, it's 2 Corinthians. Type up in the notes here.

Got him. 1 Corinthians 2. I'm thinking like there is no... Let's make a couple more verses.

What was it, 5 .21? Yeah, 2 Corinthians 5 .21. Everybody knows this verse.

All right. Get the commercial off first. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Amen. He who knew no sin, and that certainly is Jesus. Never sin. There are other verses that speak of this, but a perfect, perfect walk as a man on this earth.

Fulfilled all the law. Never did anything against his Father's righteousness.

He fulfilled it all. Perfect. So, is

Jesus half man and half God? This is the question now.

We were talking last week, I think, about parallel lines that converge in heaven.

This is one of those. Yeah, Bob, this is going to be hard for us to wrap our minds around, but what do the

Scriptures teach? That's what we need to come down with. It's not that we're going to be able to explain everything about this, but what do the

Scriptures clearly teach? And the Scriptures clearly teach that Jesus is fully man and fully

God at the same time. There's been a lot of theologians that have tried to describe this for us, but this is so important because he had to be man to do the things

I said earlier, which was to yield himself as a sacrifice that would be acceptable to God and would pay the debt for us, but he also had to be

God in the flesh. He had to be God Almighty to do the things that he did and to be an eternal life that was offered.

And that's important, too, because it's an eternal life that continually, when we're redeemed, we're redeemed with an eternal life that has a power for all eternity.

So that's very important. And Jesus said in John chapter 8, he says, unless you believe that I am he,

I am, you shall die in your sins. So we absolutely need to believe that God, that Jesus is

God in the flesh. Now, this has been a problem over the years.

Now, there's a term, son of man, in the Scriptures that is mentioned quite a few times in the

Old Testament and quite a few times in the New Testament. We see it mostly in the book of Matthew, book of Luke, but in Daniel, when it talks of the son of man,

I'm going to read this from, I believe it's from Got Questions.

This is one of the answers you get. You know, you see Got Questions when you do some Googling. It says, the teachers of the law during Jesus' time on earth would have readily understood

Jesus' meaning when he applied the title son of man to himself. Jesus used the phrase to point to his exalted state as a person of the

Godhead and the fact that he will fulfill Daniel's prophecy. In Jesus' case, the application of the title the son of man also highlights the humanity of Christ.

The difference is that he is the son of man, that is, he is the epitome of humanity.

Jesus is the sinless one, humanity perfected, the one to reconcile

God and man. So that was the explanation they had on Got Questions.

And it was a good explanation. And Jesus loved to use that phraseology about himself, the son of man, and it brought out both his deity and his humanity.

From Jeff Kleewer, you've heard of him, right? He's going to explain this union of man and God together in one being.

Jesus Christ is one person of the Trinity. The one person Jesus Christ is infinitely greater than anything in creation.

There is nothing in creation that adequately compares to him. Unlike any other person that we as creatures may encounter,

Jesus, the creator, actually has two natures that coexist in a hypostatic union.

And you've heard of that hypostatic union before. When the son,

Jesus, took on human flesh, he added a human nature to his personhood, which from all eternity had only been a divine nature.

Nothing of the divine nature was lost in this transaction, nor were the two natures mixed together like a tablet dissolving a liquid, meaning that there's some kind of commingling, and Jesus is some kind of a mutant being or something right now, that he has the two natures within him.

Rather, through the hypostatic union, the full extent of both natures now exist eternally together in one person.

This does not affect God's immutability, because he has not changed his divine nature by adding flesh.

It's a lot of deep thinking. It's a lot of deep things to think about. But that's exactly how the scriptures describe

Jesus Christ. That he is God. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He has the attributes of God.

He exercises the attributes of God. He exercises the divine works of God. But he is also human.

And he is going to exist in the form that we see him after his resurrection, in his resurrected body.

He is going to maintain that for all eternity. Now, we see Jesus as well in the book of Revelation.

We see him also as a transfigure. We see the glory of God coming out at times. But when he allowed himself to be touched by Thomas, reach here your hands,

Thomas, put it to my side, his body is going to have flesh and bone. And as he is the first fruits of the resurrection, the first new body of the resurrection, we are also going to have a body like unto his, as Philippians chapter 3 says.

So he is going to maintain that for the rest of eternity. That really blows my mind.

That Jesus was not just willing to come as a man for this short time, we could say these 30 some years that he was on the earth ministering.

But he is going to have the marks of a lamb as of slain for the rest of eternity.

How could eternal God do that? You can't explain it, but the only thing you can say about it is it just demonstrates his immense love for his creation, for us.

That he would be willing to do these things. But these things are very important to get a grasp of, at least that we believe these things.

Not that we can explain them all or understand exactly how God did this, but that the

Bible teaches that Jesus is fully man and fully God. Because there are a lot of errors.

And I'm going to talk about a few errors right now. And if you're in a camp where you have missed the boat on Jesus, and you believe that he is something that he is not, you're not believing in the right

Jesus. And we mentioned some of those verses last week. So, it's difficult to explain, but it needs to be believed.

There was a group called the Ebionites. This is a sect from the 2nd century

A .D. And they denied the deity of Christ. They believed that Jesus was just a man, a special man, conceived by a miracle, and that the

Holy Spirit came upon him, but they fall short of accepting the deity of Jesus Christ.

Is that a problem? Yes. The Docetists and the

Gnostics, that's another group from the 2nd century and before that, because we know the Apostle John and Apostle Paul, too, dealt with these

Gnostics. They also reject the idea of the deity of Christ, but they also believe that the body of Christ, it was more like a phantom.

It was more like a spirit being. They believed that all flesh was evil, and that he had kind of appeared as more of a phantom, but he didn't have a real physical body.

And so they denied that he came in the flesh and offered himself as a man.

That is also a heresy. That's a false belief. And that belief is not going to gain entrance into heaven if you believe that kind of Jesus.

The Arians, we've talked about the Arians a few times, they also believe that he was a created being.

They believe Jesus was a created person, inferior to the

Father, and they taught that Jesus did not eternally exist with the Father, obviously denying the deity of Christ again.

And there are many, many, many other variations and combinations that people have come up with over the years to attempt to basically walk away from what the

Scripture teaches. We know there's some bizarre things out there.

We know there's some very, I'll say, nuanced isn't the right word, but they're very subtle.

They try to trick you, like all the cults. All the cults are going to go into some form of denying

Jesus' person one way or another. We know the Jehovah's Witnesses think that he's

Michael the archangel, that he's not God in the flesh. We know that the Mormons believe that he was also a created being, that he and Satan are brothers, and there's a lot of baggage that goes along with that.

If you are in one of those camps, you're not believing in the Jesus of the Bible, and you will be in your sins.

So the early church knew that they were dealing with all these things. So what did they do? Well, they had a couple of councils.

They had a council of Nicaea, right? And they had a council of Chalcedon, and out of those came some creeds, which we know.

I think I have them in here. I was going to put... The Apostles' Creed came out in the 5th century, and that was after the

Council of Chalcedon. The Nicene Creed, I'm going to read that one.

That came out in 325, and it was slightly altered in 381 at the

Council of Constantinople. The reason, I believe, the change in 381 was it was about the

Holy Spirit, because it says that he proceeded from the

Son. That was the original wording, but he proceeds from the Father and the Son. That was the change in 381, and that's also accurate, by the way.

I'm going to read the Council of the Nicene Creed. Through him all things were made.

For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, he became incarnate by the

Holy Spirit, and the Virgin Mary, and was made human. He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, he suffered and was buried.

The third day he rose again according to the Scriptures. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of the

Father. He will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead. His kingdom will never end.

And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life. He proceeds from the Father and the

Son, and with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified. He spoke through the prophets.

We believe only in one holy Catholic and apostolic church.

We affirm one baptism for forgiveness of sins. We look forward to the resurrection of the dead and to life in the world to come.

Amen. They created that creed not to go beyond the

Bible, but to help clarify some of the doctrines of the early church to make sure that people were on the right page.

Now, creeds are good in one way, in a sense, but it is a man -made writing from afterwards that the council made up.

But the reason they came up with it is because of all of these false beliefs about Jesus Christ.

So we need to believe that He was fully God and fully man. And those things are clear from the

Scriptures, and we need to latch on to several truths about Jesus that are non -negotiable.

He's fully man, He's fully God. We've already spoken about that. He was born of a virgin.

That has to be a belief we have. He walked as a man and never sinned. We mentioned that before.

He died a physical death. And believe it or not, there's heresies that revolve around that that say

He didn't die, the swoon theory and some other things that you'll hear about. He was resurrected.

He is the only way to receive forgiveness of sins and eternal life. You have to believe that.

It's John 14, 6, Acts 4, 12. He is coming again to judge the world and establish an everlasting kingdom of righteousness.

Those are non -negotiables about our Lord Jesus Christ. We cannot waver on those things.

Those things have to be locked up in our minds, and we believe them about our great

God and King. That's a lot about who

Jesus is. Let's talk for a second about what He did and what He's going to do.

This gets a little bit into Matt's study of soteriology, which is salvation, but we'll look at some things here and just remind ourselves of what

Jesus accomplished. He came, as He said in Luke chapter 19, 10,

He came in the flesh to seek and to save that which is lost. The only way that humanity could be saved was that if Jesus was willing to lay down His life for sinful humanity.

The EFCA, our denomination, the Statement of Faith says this,

We believe that Jesus Christ, as our representative and substitute, shed His blood on the cross as the perfect, all -sufficient sacrifice for our sins.

His atoning death and victorious resurrection constitute the only ground of salvation.

The only ground. That's the only way we could be saved is through His death and resurrection.

The only way that was going to happen is if He yielded His life, and because our life is going to be in union with Him after we show faith in His finished work, in effect, we die with Him on the cross and we are raised up again with Him through the resurrection.

That we have new life in our mortal bodies because of what He has done, because He now indwells us and has given us life.

He has quickened our mortal frame is what it says. The great substitute,

Jesus, has taken our place in death and He's given us life. That work is the greatest thing that has ever happened in the history of the universe as far as,

I guess, our thinking is concerned. Obviously, we're kind of man -centric, right?

We didn't see the Lord when He created the universe with a word. I think that would have been pretty amazing.

But as far as we're concerned, the work of Jesus on the cross was the most amazing thing that has ever happened in the history of the universe.

And we needed Him to do that for us. Now, what happens now? Jesus has died.

He rose again. All those who believe in Him are going to have life in His name. What's He doing now?

Where is He? What is His activity right now? Let's read a few verses on this.

I haven't had you read yet, have I? No. Let's read Hebrews chapter 1, verse 3.

And then, John, could you read Hebrews chapter 9, verse 11 and 12?

Go from there. Okay, Hebrews 1, 3, correct? Yep.

He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact input of His nature, and He upholds the universe by the word of His power.

After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

So that's where He is. He's at the right hand of the Father right now, of the

Majesty on high. And, John, Hebrews 9, 11, and 12 talk a little bit about His work as High Priest.

If you could read that. But when Christ appeared as a High Priest of the good things to come,

He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, to the holy place, once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

I read that. We read that one because that kind of signifies His role as a

High Priest as well, going before the Father. And that was the salvation event, that that was basically the offering of Himself to the

Father. But let's look now at the verse that Phil read a little bit earlier.

Bill, could you turn to 1 Timothy 2, verse 5 again? And, Brian, could you turn to Romans chapter 8, verses 33 and 34?

1 Timothy 2, 5. And, Brian, you're in Romans 8.

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and man, the man,

Christ Jesus. So He, as High Priest, mediates between us and the

Father. So we can go to God the Father through the name of Jesus Christ.

He is the one who allows us to have access to a holy

God. And it says in early Hebrews, it says that we can boldly enter His throne room because of what

Jesus has done. So that is His ministry as High Priest.

He allows us to have access to the Father. But your verse is going to tell us a little bit more of what that means.

Okay, Romans 8, what again? 33 through 34. Okay. Who shall bring any change against God's elect?

It is God who justifies, who is to condemn.

Jesus Christ is the one who died, more than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

Apostle 35? That's probably good. I'm sorry. So who's going to bring a charge against God's children,

God's elect? Is anyone going to have a charge against? Well, some might try to bring a charge, but who's there sitting as our advocate before the

Father? Jesus. Jesus is going to say, oh, yes,

I've paid for that sin. I have paid for what this man is being accused of.

It looks like a courtroom scene in Romans chapter 8 where Jesus intercedes for us as not only the advocate and the lawyer, but he's also the one who laid down his life as the sacrifice and can justly say, there's nothing wrong with this person.

This person is holy and blameless because of what I've done in his life by faith, washing and cleaning.

So Jesus is our advocate. Now, I also think in Jesus' high priestly role as well.

In the Old Testament, we used to see when the people needed wisdom, they would go to the high priest and they would minister to the people.

And they particularly had the, well, a lot of people think that they're called lights and perfections is what the actual translation is, but that's the urn and the thume.

Some people think it's stones or whatever, and the priest would go before the

Lord on behalf of the people and make a request, and the urn and the thume would reveal the answer, and the high priest had that role.

Well, in the New Testament, what does it tell us? But it says in James, it says, if any of us lacks wisdom, we should go before the

Lord and ask Him. And I think that, again, is the Lord's role, the Lord Jesus giving wisdom.

And you can say, well, that's the Father, that's the Spirit. All of them have a role in the ministry of our lives.

I think Jesus' high priest, though, gives wisdom to His children when we ask

Him. So when we pray, do we ask for our prayers to the

Father, to the Son? If you ask for anything in my name, the

Father will give it. So usually when we pray, we pray in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Sometimes we might not remember to say that, or we might not think of that as a formula maybe, because when

Peter cried out, Lord, save me, sometimes we just cry out.

And sometimes we pray, as Romans chapter 8 says, where our hearts are just groaning within us, and the needs we have just come up before the

Lord. And it says in there that the Spirit actually interprets the things that we have before.

So you know, the Father, Son, and the Spirit are all involved in our requests that come before Him.

But I think in particular, as a high priest, He would give wisdom to His children. Now, some amazing things about Jesus that we know, but I just want to go over it real quick.

What are the titles of Jesus Christ in the Bible? There are a ton of them.

You can probably think of many. I'll just start going through a couple of them. Son of Man was one we talked about.

Son of God. Son of David. Son of Abraham.

That's in Matthew 1 -1. It talks about the genealogies. The King of the Jews. We remember

He had that title. He's called the Passover Lamb. I have 1

Corinthians 5 -7. It's probably 2 Corinthians, the way my notes are going. But I think it is 1

Corinthians 5 -7. He's called the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. And we certainly remember that title.

He's also called the Balm of Gilead, reference to the Messianic coming in Jeremiah 8 -22.

He's called the Bright and Morning Star in Revelation 22 -16.

You don't have to write all this down, because I'll send this out to you guys. He's called the Word of God.

Quite a few times in the Scriptures we see that. He's called our

Sabbath rest from Hebrews 4. He's called the

Lion of Judah. He's called the Root and the Offspring of Jesse in Isaiah 11.

And then He's called the Root and the Offspring of David in Revelation 5 and Revelation 22.

Very interesting. He's called the Alpha and the Omega, or the

First and the Last. He's called High Priest. We read a lot of verses about that tonight.

He's called the Chief Shepherd from Hebrews 13 and 1 Peter 5.

He's called the Lamb of God. And that's not just from John 1.

Revelation has a lot of references to Jesus being the Lamb of God, and really Isaiah 53 also.

He's called Emmanuel, God with us. We see

Him all throughout the Old Testament as the Angel of the Lord, appearing in a pre -incarnate form in the

Old Testament called Theophanes. And there are many verses there. I'll go through them.

You can just go through them here. You remember when He appeared to Manoah.

Well, He appeared to Joshua as the captain and the host. He appeared to Samson's father, Manoah, and his wife, and Samson's father and mother offered a sacrifice, and that sacrifice was burned up before them, and that was a pre -incarnate.

We remember Him coming probably in a pre -incarnate form with Abraham when they were talking about the destruction of Lot, where it was the

Lord Himself with two angels that were speaking. Again, a pre -incarnate form of, we believe, the

Lord Jesus. He's called Wonderful, Counselor, Everlasting Father, Mighty God, Prince of Peace.

He's called the Blessed and Only Sovereign from 1 Timothy 6.

He's called the Chief Cornerstone. Several verses for that. He's called the

Bridegroom many times. He's called the Living One. He's called the

Amen and the Faithful Witness. And those were all the ones

I could think of and find. All those words, all those titles, though, had very special meaning, and they tell us a lot about who

Jesus is. There are a couple titles, though, you hear about Jesus that really shouldn't be applied to Him.

I remember we used to sing a song called Sweet Jesus. It would go,

Sweet Jesus, Sweet Jesus. And it said, You're the lily of the valley. You're the bright morning star.

The bright morning star is correct, but the lily of the valley is not. It comes from Song of Solomon. Some people also call

Jesus the Rose of Sharon. But when you see the lily of the valley and you see the

Rose of Sharon and the Song of Solomon, it's those who the Lord is pouring affection upon, not necessarily somebody who is referencing back to the

Lord Himself or a picture of the Lord being Solomon in that case, as He was the picture of the husband, the

Bridegroom, and the shulamite girl was the bride. So take a look at that if you get a chance.

I love that song, but the lily of the valley probably shouldn't be applied to Jesus. Then we have the

I Am verses from John's Gospel, proclamations of Jesus. And I'm just going to go through them all.

Now, these are the ones where Jesus says, I am something. These are not the verses that say,

Before Abraham was, I am. Or when the soldiers came to arrest

Jesus and they said, We're looking for Jesus of Nazareth. And He said to them, I am.

And they all fell down dead. We're not talking about those verses. We're talking about the verses where Jesus specifically says,

I am something. I am the bread of life was the first one when

He fed the 5 ,000. I am the light of the world. Jesus is teaching in the treasury of the temple at the time, healing a blind man.

I am the door. And that's coming from John chapter 10, this great teaching on Him being the shepherd of the sheep.

Then He says, I am the good shepherd right after that. And then from John chapter 11,

He calls Himself the resurrection and the life. And we know that's in the raising of Lazarus in that story.

Number six is, I am the way and the truth and the life. And that's

John 14. And the last one is, I am the true vine, John 15. For if you don't abide in me, you can't do anything.

Because life truly comes from the true vine, Jesus. So He made some incredible statements about Himself.

In all those I am verses. He's a high priest. He's a sympathetic high priest.

He's the sacrifice. He's the Lord on high. All of those names that we just mentioned, there's about 40 some names, probably more than that.

This is our Lord Jesus Christ. Can we fully understand who

He is? I don't think so. We're going to have all of eternity to figure that out.

He's going to be revealing more and more things to our finite minds. Him being an infinite being throughout all of eternity.

But we're going to be with Him as our Savior. He is going to keep us and He is going to be with us from this point on.

Anyone that has eternal life has Jesus now. And no one is going to be able to take that away from you.

He's your Lord and your King and no one is going to be able to separate you from Him. That is given.

And eventually our King and our Lord is going to return. Now Matt went over eschatology quite a bit.

He went over all of the different sequences and timelines and the teachings from the scripture.

But there's certain things about His coming that we have to believe in.

We've talked before that He is coming to rule and reign. He's going to establish a kingdom of righteousness. We have to believe that.

Some of the other things that Matt mentioned were, you know, not necessarily things that we would break fellowship over about specific timing and events, things like that.

But we have to believe that our King is going to return. He's going to come for His church and He's going to come to judge this earth.

And He is going to do so. And when He establishes His kingdom, let's read a little bit about what

His kingdom is going to be about. So, let's see, who's next? Next.

Who is it? Oh, Matt, okay. Yep. Okay. We're going to give you,

I'm going to give you

Isaiah chapter 9, 6 and 7. Now, when we say

Isaiah chapter 9, verse 6, we know what that is. Ron, if you could read

Daniel chapter 2, verse 44. And Chad, could you read

Luke chapter 1, verse 33. Isaiah chapter 9, verses 6 and 7.

Yeah. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulders, and His name shall be called

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government and of peace there will be no end.

On the throne of David and over His kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.

The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. Hang on to that, guys.

Hold on for one second, Ron. Worried about the midterm elections or what's going to happen in our country?

We're not sure what's going to happen. We're praying for certain things, but that verse is going to come true.

And if you're worried about justice, if you're worried about righteousness, if you're worried about all things being made right, our

King is going to come and do so. Go ahead, Ron. Is it Daniel 2? Daniel 2, verse 44.

I may have the wrong verse. I hope not. You said 44, right? Yeah, 244. There's a lot of good verses in Daniel, but I think that's not it.

And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people.

It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever.

Amen. That's the kingdom of our Lord. And that's right after the prophecy of the statue, right, with the different parts of the body.

And eventually a rock made without hands is going to come and shatter that statue, and it's going to shatter and the dust is going to fly.

That picture, the kingdom of God coming and shattering the nations and the other kingdoms of the earth.

And Chad, we have a prophecy in Luke chapter 1 fulfilled, fulfilled at the time but also fulfilled in the future as well.

Luke 1, 33. And he will reign over Jacob's descendants forever. His kingdom will never end.

That's a prophecy by Zechariah. That is Zechariah that's prophesying right there, right?

Or am I wrong? Oh, that might be the angel talking to Mary, I think. I think it is.

Later on, when Zechariah is filled with the Spirit after John the Baptist is born, he has another beautiful tribute to the

Lord and his kingdom. But that was the angel. So, Jesus.

How can we describe him? We do our best. We search the Scriptures and we see all these wonderful things, and we're just in awe of who this one is.

He's our life, and we owe everything to him. So, you know,

I think we should sing a hymn or something, but I don't have the hymn books here. Just exalt his name forever. Anybody have any questions about Jesus or what we went over the last couple times?

I feel like I flew through some things here on purpose, but we made it.

And there's a lot of things that will just come out, and I'll type everything up and send it out via e -mail for everybody.

So, Mike, I don't know if I have your e -mail and that. And, Mike, I don't think I have yours either. Not to get hung up in pronouns, but isn't in the beginning, in Genesis, in chapter 1, verse 26, he says,

Then God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let us have dominion over the fish in the sea and the birds in the heavens, over the livestock, etc.,

etc. So when he says let us, that points to the fact that Jesus was there in the beginning with God.

So us is also a term for Jesus. I mean, in a part of the Trinity of that time.

And that's why when you were coming up with names for Jesus, he was there in the beginning.

When we go over the Holy Spirit, we're going to go over more verses on the Trinity. We actually covered the

Trinity before, God being three and one, which is another concept that Bob was talking about back there with the parallel rails there.

Eventually, maybe in heaven we're going to figure out how all that intersects. But when we go through the

Holy Spirit, we're also going to talk about those Old Testament verses that talk about the plurality of God.

Very, very revealing and very interesting. Because all of them, the Father, Son, and Spirit, were involved in creation.

All of them were involved with Jesus' sacrifice. All of them were involved with his resurrection.

We're going to cover still a few more things about the Trinity as we go forward.

In particular, when we talk about the Holy Spirit and his role in our lives and who he is.

Because there's a lot of misconceptions about who the Holy Spirit is as well. Anything else come to mind tonight as far as the

Lord? Actually, I have one. I never heard much about him being a child.

That was the first time I heard any reference to him being a child in the Bible. Is there much more than John, you mentioned that?

There's not a lot. It's in Luke. It's actually a little bit in Matthew as well.

Because in Matthew it talks about them being taken out of Egypt.

God the Father calling his son out of Egypt. But in Luke in particular, it talks about Jesus as a young boy.

Growing in stature with God and man. And somebody could turn there while I'm talking.

It's going to be Luke chapter 2. Probably around verses 30 -something.

Somewhere in there. We could read those. We don't get a lot on Jesus' early years. But we do find out a couple of things.

Certainly that he grew up as a young boy and continued to grow into a man. I would think that would be one of the greater tests of purity to be as a child.

And to stay sinless. I would think that would be one of the harder tests. People thought that.

What was Jesus like as a young boy? What was he like as a toddler? What was he like as a teenager?

All these things. Maybe we'll get to see a replay of some of these things.

But obviously he fulfilled everything. And was sinless all along the way. Does anybody have that?

David, did you look it up? Yeah, I've got it. Go ahead, Matt. It starts at Luke 2 .22.

It says, And when the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the

Lord. As it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the

Lord. And to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the

Lord, a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons. Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was

Simeon. You can skip over the Simeon and the prophetess there.

We'll be right after that. 27. 49. 41. 12 when he was 12.

Yes. So in 27 it says, And he came in the spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought in the child

Jesus to do for him according to the custom of the law, he took him up in his arms and blessed

God and said, Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace according to your word. For my eyes have seen your salvation, that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples a light for revelation to the

Gentiles and for glory to your people in Israel. And his father and mother marveled at what was said about him.

That is when he was eight days old. Right. And he's being circumcised at the temple to fulfill the law.

And they're also offering sacrifices of the two pigeons. And then verse 41 is when it says the boy

Jesus in the temple. So you want me to read that? Yeah, that's what we're looking for. Yep. So verse 41.

Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover. And when he was 12 years old, they went up according to custom.

And when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem.

His parents did not know it, but supposing him to be in the group, they went a day's journey.

But then they began to search for him among their relatives and acquaintances. And when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem searching for him.

After three days, they found him in the temple sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.

And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. And when his parents saw him, they were astonished.

And his mother said to him, Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress.

And he said to them, Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my father's house?

And they did not understand the saying that he spoke to them. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them.

And his mother treasured up all these things in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in the favor of God.

Amen. So increased in wisdom and stature. That's a man. And that's what we know of his early childhood.

But we know his early childhood was perfect. So... I mean, what if he slept at night during those couple days and he was there by himself?

I mean, there's a lot of questions there. I know. It's genius. The Bible has revealed to us exactly what we need to know.

It also makes you wonder why they didn't miss him. I mean, I know part of the Catholic Church says that Mary didn't have any other children,

I believe. But I mean, you think she must have other responsibilities that she wouldn't even notice he was missing.

Well, they traveled in a large crowd with their other friends from the areas they came from to get to Jerusalem.

And probably on the way, you can make the assumption on the way that Jesus went along with the guys and Blake kicked the stones or whatever on the way.

And on the way back, they assumed he was with them.

Yeah, big caravans. Because they're coming up for the mandatory feasts and celebrating with a lot of their big families.

So they figured, well, it's just with cousin Edna or something. I don't know if you've ever lost a child in the airport or if you lost a child in the supermarket or something.

That streak of fear goes through you, right? I think it was maybe a little bit different, though. Her knowing that God was the

Father and that God was going to take care of her no matter what, too. I don't know. I don't think so. Because she said, hey, why are you treating me like this?

I think she was fearful. She's got that terror in her heart for a lost child. Yeah, she was fearful. But obviously,

Jesus was just listening to his Father at that particular point. Not trying to be disobedient to his earthly parents at all.

But that's what we know about his early childhood. Anything else come to mind?

Go ahead, George. Not his early childhood, but referring to this doxology that's given in 1

Timothy 1 .17. And it's obviously referring to Jesus, because in the context of that paragraph.

To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only

God, be glory and honor forever and ever.

Amen. Amen. 1 Timothy 1 .17. Amen. And, you know, as we go forward with this, knowing these things for ourselves is great.

And we need to be rooted and grounded in our faith in Jesus. Sharing these truths with others is a big part of this class.

We want to be able to share the truth of Jesus with other folks that we know. We pray for hearts that want to hear, though.

Because, as I told you guys, we were just on vacation recently. We were trying to share with different people.

People on the airplane are kind of captive. So they have to sit next to you for three hours or four hours, whatever it is.

And we did not have hearts necessarily that wanted to hear. We tried to share, but let's keep doing it.

Let's keep praying. Let's keep sharing the truth about Jesus in this lost world. Because this world needs him terribly.

Terribly, very much so. So with that in mind, can I ask someone to close us in prayer tonight?

Matt, do you want to close us? Sure. Lord God, I just thank you for this day. I thank you for these brothers who have come out to listen to Drew.

I thank you for Drew and his preparation. I know how difficult it is to juggle all the life throughs of us,

Lord. And so we thank you for Drew and his preparation, God. I thank you that you were there at the beginning of time,

God, and that you loved us so much that you condescended to take on human flesh and die for our sins.

I just thank you so much for that, God, and for the blood that washes us clean. I pray,

God, that you would illuminate our hearts, that you would help us to understand your word, to constantly turn to your word,

God, for answers for what's going on in our lives, God. I pray again for those of us who are sick in the church,

God. I pray for Kathy Appleton, that her recovery would continue. I pray for Ivan, that you would heal him,

Lord. And I pray for anyone else who may be suffering in our church, God. I pray that you would give us safe travels home and that you would bring us back together again to hear the preaching of your word.