Sunday School - Back To Basics Part 4

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Sunday School Back To Basics Part 4 Date: 10/9/2022 Teacher: Pastor Brian Garcia

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Sunday School - Back To Basics Part 5

Sunday School - Back To Basics Part 5

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Father Leavitt, let's open in prayer. Gracious Father in heaven, we thank you, Lord, for your goodness this morning.
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Blessing over our activities and our worship. Pray, Lord, your blessing over the teaching of your word as we endeavor to seek the truth of your word.
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All right, today is back to basics on who is
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Jesus Christ. Everyone get one of these? Everyone has one so far? And again, really, the whole series is supposed to be simple.
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So I want to present to you kind of a systematic overview of these particular subjects.
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So the Bible, you know, God, the Trinity, and now we're gonna get into the person of Jesus Christ.
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But we're gonna kind of look at this from what's called a meta -narrative. Anyone know what a meta -narrative is? What is a meta -narrative?
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Yeah, so you know, think of a narrative, think of a story, and sometimes when you're reading a story, you're reading the specifics of a story.
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You know, the what, when, where, how. But a meta -narrative doesn't necessarily just focus on the particular details, more so the whole entire picture, right?
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So it's like either having a microscope going in or out and seeing the fuller picture. And so we're gonna look at a meta -narrative of who
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Jesus Christ is. So looking at the overview, overall picture that's presented in Scripture.
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Now that's kind of a hard thing to do, but there's really some simple things that we can do in order to see the truth of that.
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And so we're gonna attempt to do that. We're gonna start, actually, with the Bible book of Genesis, chapter three.
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Can someone turn to Genesis, chapter three? The first direct reference to Christ in the
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Scriptures. Now there's, one could argue that Genesis, chapter one has obvious reference to Christ, and I think it does because Jesus is the
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God who created all things. But I'm saying in a very direct way, this is particularly singling out
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Genesis, chapter three. Who'd like to read starting in verse 13?
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Notice the conflict that's at play at the beginning of Scripture, conflict between man and, well, really particularly with regard to the woman.
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Who is who? Who is the woman? Eve, and then there's a serpent.
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Who's the serpent? Particularly in the text, it's the seed of the woman.
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Who is the seed of the woman? Who is the seed of the woman? Christ. Here's where we get the first prophecy of the
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Bible. The first prophecy of the Bible's right here in Genesis, chapter three, and it's directly referencing
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Jesus Christ, and particularly his redemptive work in crushing our enemy,
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Satan. So our enemy, Satan the devil, is going to be crushed, but there's something that also happens here.
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It says in verse 15, I'll put enmity between you and the woman, that's Eve, and her offspring, that's us, we're her offspring, and between your offspring and her offspring, and you shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.
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So I don't really like the way that the ESV translates this. And both, depending on the context, can mean the same thing.
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Usually means offspring, but in this sense, I think that they're doing a disservice by doing it because it makes it look very generalized, where this is very particularly talking about Jesus Christ, and you see this in other translations, like the
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LSV and other translations. And this will matter in a few minutes just because you'll see the case of it here.
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You're gonna put enmity between your seed and her seed, and you shall bruise your head.
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That means that the heel of the seed is going to be crushed ahead of the serpent.
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So if you crush ahead of a serpent, what happens to the serpent? Die, right, you destroy it.
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But it says, and you shall, to the serpent, and you shall bruise his heel.
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If you get bit by a venomous snake on the heel, what will happen to you? Die too.
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So here's what happens in this conflict. You have two parties. You have the seed of the woman, who
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I would say is Jesus Christ, and then you have the serpent, and they both kill each other.
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Now, does that happen in Scripture in the New Testament? Does it? Yes. Jesus Christ was murdered by wicked men.
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He was murdered. The Bible makes a very odd statement. I believe it's in 1 or 2
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Corinthians chapter two, I think maybe verse nine. It says, had the principalities known, they would not have crucified the
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Lord of glory. And so Satan is a principality.
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We've been going over that in our Ephesians sermon series. And the Bible says that had the principalities known, had
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Satan known what all this would have culminated to, because he didn't know these purposes were kept from him, they would not have crucified the
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Lord of glory. Very interesting statement. And again, that's pointing to the fulfillment of Genesis chapter two.
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Christ was the seed who crushes the serpent, but in turn, he dies too.
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His heel is bruised. But the difference is that when Satan is defeated, he'll be defeated totally.
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And Jesus, though temporarily under the sting of death, and demonstrating that he has a power over death.
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I want you to write this in here. The Scripture's first prophecy is about the seed who crush the head of the serpent.
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Ephesians chapter three. That's Christ bruising the head of, here we go.
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Bruising the head of the serpent. So it means he will destroy him or crush him. Yeah, speaking to Satan.
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Conflict and they're both going to, you know, we know from Scripture that Christ raised, has power over death and Hades.
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And so let's go to Galatians chapter three. Context, albeit, is a little bit different from what we see in Genesis.
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I want to show you the metanarrative at play here. So you have this discussion of the seed, the seed of the woman. Where do you see the idea of seed jump back into the picture in Genesis?
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A picture of the seed come back into full force. A guy named
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Abraham. Abraham.
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And Abraham was promised what? Seed or offspring because he was a man who was old and dead.
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He had no offspring, he had no children, he had no inheritance. Yet God had made a promise covenant with Abraham saying,
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I will give you descendants as numerous as the stars. Promise to them that they will have an offspring, a seed that will bless the nations.
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Now, Galatians chapter three, the Apostle Paul takes that very same picture in the theme as in verse 16.
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Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. Now the word again should be seed.
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I don't like that the ESV translates this as offspring. It does not say and to offsprings, plural, referring to many, but referring to one.
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And to your offspring or to your seed is Christ. So who is the seed?
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It's Christ. Jesus is the seed. Now this also destroys the false doctrine that's in many church circles that the
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Jews are still God's offspring or chosen people that the Jews are still
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God's offspring or chosen people. The Bible says that truly the offspring, the seed to whom he was going to bless the nations was actually going to be
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Jesus Christ and not simply the Jewish people. This settles that argument as well pretty easily.
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Christ is the seed who was promised. He was the offspring of Abraham. The descendants of Abraham, the descendants of David has the legal right to reign.
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Now I wanna paint again this metanarrative, this big picture. So you have this discussion of seed throughout the
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Bible. It's very consistent, but you also have in the early chapters of the
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Bible, the conflict with the serpent. I went to the Creation Museum and to the
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Archipelago in Kentucky and it was awesome and one of the cool things that they do, kind of like Easter eggs, that when you start at the bottom of the
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Ark, they have like the whole picture, like the whole story of creation and the rebellion and Genesis 6 and the flood and you start with the garden.
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It's beautiful, everything's perfect. But you see this, like a picture of carving on a snake, like on top and it starts to wrap around and you start to see it as you look at all the other exhibitions and it gets bigger and more scarier and then you get to the final exhibition, which is about like Revelation.
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It's about the end times and this snake that started in the garden is now this huge seven -headed dragon and it's amazing and it really shows kind of the overall picture of the
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Bible's painting that's consistent for Genesis, for Revelation, that there's a conflict with the serpent. He starts off as like this snake, but now he's growing an influence and power and he's this seven -headed dragon and he's trying to consume the world and Christ is the seed.
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Really, the Bible can be summed up kind of generically in this term, that it's a hero's tale.
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It's the story of a hero and the hero in this picture is Jesus Christ. Everything in Scripture is setting up Jesus Christ in his feet and his brain and obviously the enemy is going to be, say the devil, the serpent.
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So you have this big picture, this conflict, Satan and Christ, Christ being the hero, the serpent being the enemy.
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As a savior, the king, he gives his life for many. He protects him for many.
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He saves his people by dying, right? And this is why we see all today, all the movies have some type of Christ figure or some type of messianic theme to them.
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If you remember the movie Man of Steel, very messianic.
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They have Superman very much looking like Jesus. There's even a scene in the movie where he shows up at a church and he's got all the messianic trimmings and that's what makes a great story, right?
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They always have
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Anakin who's like born of a virgin and all these things. Very much messianic and there's a redemption, always a redemption on there in these great superhero films.
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Pointing again towards the greatest story ever told. We're cracking so far, any questions?
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Let's move on then. What does the Bible say about this Messiah figure? We see the first prophecy.
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Now, what else does the Bible say in expectation of? First, I want you to turn to Isaiah chapter seven.
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So the Messiah would have to be born of a virgin. Messiah would be born of a virgin.
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The Lord himself will give you a sign.
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The sign will be this, behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son. Now, virginhood is big over this and Alma can mean in the
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Hebrew, maiden. It could mean young lady or it could mean a virgin.
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Particularly, they say, well, no, you guys are misinterpreting the text because I'm in the reign of and not something that was gonna be fulfilled in the future and it was not a virgin, it was a young woman, it just said young lady.
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But when you compare this, the use of the language here of other verses, the thing is that the word
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Alma is used in regard to a virgin. That kind of dispels some of the hard notions that would contradict that this can't be a virgin.
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Of course, there was a fulfillment in the time of the writing of this. This is a prophecy that the import date has, but we do see there's even a greater fulfillment in Jesus Christ and we know this because we look at chapter nine, which we'll look into in a couple minutes here.
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There's a meta -narrative at play. Remember, you gotta think big picture, not just small picture. Sometimes, if we get too narrowly at a scripture, we'll kind of miss the big overall picture, the big point of it.
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So, we don't wanna make that mistake of looking too narrowly at a scripture that we miss the overall date, but not to the exclusion of the overall story that the
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Bible's painting for us. The Messiah would be born of a virgin. Faith, that Christ was indeed born of a virgin.
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He was born of a virgin Mary. Another important aspect of the
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Messiah's identity would be where he was born. So, we know by whom he'd be born, and that's a virgin.
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So, that's a miraculous conception. Then, where would he be born? Micah, chapter five.
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Micah's in the Minor Apocalypse. The clans of Judah.
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From you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, who is coming forth.
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Where would the Messiah, where would he be born? Where would there be?
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Bethlehem, right? Now, this is another example why I'm actually, I think it says, who is coming forth is from a bold.
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The LSB translates it more accurately. His going forth are everlasting. Everlasting.
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The LSB also puts it. Versus Micah five two.
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The LSB makes the point very clearly that you're, that the Messiah's coming from Bethlehem. Who will be among the clans of Judah?
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From you will go forth for me to be ruler in Israel, everlasting.
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In his, and from ancient days. This is an important text, because it shows two things.
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The Messiah actually has two origins. Did you catch those two origins? Well, he's gonna come from where?
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Where is he gonna be born from? Bethlehem. But where is his true origins from? From everlasting, from ancient days.
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His going forth are from everlasting, right? That is to say, we're talking about an eternal person.
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We're talking about God coming down in human form, okay? So he's gonna be born.
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He's got an earthly origin. His actual origins are from everlasting. He's eternal. He's an eternal being.
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And this is very, this is at the heart of Christian beliefs, right? Jesus is
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God, and he's man, he's divine. And yet, to hear a perfect example, a scripture that gives us two origins from the
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Messiah. An earthly one, but an eternal one, as to his deity, as to his name.
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So he would be born in Bethlehem. So I want you to write that down there. The Messiah would be born of a virgin in Bethlehem. So these are all, and so remember, think of yourself, take for a moment as if you were a country
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Jew, and you're looking at the Bible, and you're trying to find all the signs of who the
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Messiah would be. And you have this one person come onto the scene in human history, in the case of Nazareth, and he claims to be the
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Messiah. And so what you have to do is take the scriptures, and you compare, all right, does he meet the requirements?
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Matter of fact, we see this in Acts 17, where Paul goes into the synagogue, and it says, he reasoned from the scriptures, demonstrating that Jesus is the
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Christ, that Jesus is the Messiah. The word Christ, Christos in the Greek, is the equivalent to the
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Hebrew for shock, which is Messiah. So when we say Jesus Christ, we're not saying Jesus' first name, last name
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Christ. That's not what the Bible's painting. Instead, Jesus Christ is a title. Well, Jesus is a personal name,
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Christ being a title. Very similar to how in the Old Testament you have the term Jesus Christ, a personal name,
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Jesus, a title of his divinity as the Messiah, because the Bible teaches very clearly the
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Messiah would be divine, right? We kind of demonstrated that last week as well, when we looked at some of the scriptures.
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Jeremiah 23, verse five and six says, what would be the Messiah's name? Does anyone remember? Jeremiah 23, verse five and six.
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What's that? Emmanuel. Emmanuel, well, that's in Isaiah chapter seven, verse 14. We did read that. That also means God with us, which is a good point.
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But in Jeremiah 23, verse five and six, Jehovah is our righteousness, okay?
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So the name of the Messiah would be the divine name. Jehovah is our righteousness, which is beautiful because Jesus Christ is
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Jehovah, our righteousness, because from whom do we receive righteousness, the imputed righteousness of the perfect one?
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It's through Jesus Christ. Along the same lines, let's go back to Isaiah chapter nine as we've been in Isaiah seven.
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Again, we're looking at the meta -narratives. We're not just looking at one part of scripture. We're trying to look at the big overall picture here.
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So back to Isaiah nine, this is a prophecy concerning the Messiah. Isaiah being a very prophetic and messianic book.
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Verse six, it says this about the Messiah. For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us, and the government will rest on his shoulders.
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And his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
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There will be no end of the increase of his government or of peace on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness, and then, from then on and forevermore, the zeal of Yahweh of hosts will accomplish this.
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We have a child who's gonna be born to us. So I want you to see very clearly the beginning of the doctrine of the incarnate
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God -man. I will say as it did be a son, human, a human son.
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Verse chapter seven, verse 14, we know that it's gonna be a virgin. Chapter nine, this is why we obviously know that when critics say that, oh, this had to be accomplished only in the times of King Ahaz.
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Well, you can't have that because you can't divorce chapter seven, verse 14 and chapter nine, verse six and seven.
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In chapter nine, verse six and seven, you see the continuation of the theme of the son. So you gotta think, again, metanarrative.
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There's a son who's promised, a son who'll be born, and then it's gonna be Emmanuel, God with us, okay?
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And then the prophet Isaiah goes to expound that even more, this eventual
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Emmanuel that will come, and a son will be given to us, and the government will rest on his shoulders, okay?
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And so these are the criterias. He's gonna be born, obviously, human. He's gonna receive a kingdom or a government that will rest on his shoulders, and these are his divine titles, wonderful.
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Now, some Hebrew scholars say that we probably, wonderful counselor probably isn't correct.
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Maybe it's actually wonderful, then counselor, then mighty God, and one interesting point of this is when, yeah, it's in Joshua, I think, where the angel of the
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Lord appears, and they ask him, what's his name? And he says, why do you ask my name?
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Well, it is, an angel of the Lord is often, and so he asks, why do you ask my name?
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It is wonderful, and so this could be pointed to Isaiah 10 as well.
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So it could be wonderful, counselor, mighty God, eternal father, prince of peace, divine titles of the
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Messiah. Verse seven is very important. There will be no end to the increase of his governance.
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Okay, so we're gonna say this is fulfilled primarily in the, there was a stop to the increase of peace and government for Israel after that child was born, right?
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So this is looking forward towards a great, just as Moses plays a role as being a forerunner to Jesus Christ, so therefore, the promised child, the eventual child who would come, you wanna establish from chapter six that this
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Messiah would be human and divine.
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Human and divine. His son is a child that will be born, yet he will be called mighty
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God. In the Greek, in the Hebrew, it's El Gabor. El Gabor.
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Now, El Gabor is a title that's used in chapter 10 of Isaiah, verse 21, in reference to Yahweh, or Jehovah God.
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So clearly, this is a divine title. It says he's the eternal father.
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In what sense is Jesus Christ the eternal father? And that, then, promote modalism.
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It's kind of a tough one. I like where you're going with that.
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This is probably the use of the language. One way of translating this would be very easily the father of everlasting.
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Basically, the father being the origin. That's one way of looking at it.
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The second way, which I would prefer, actually, is that Jesus, it's showing that Jesus Christ is the father, the spiritual father for new humanity.
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We know this because, in the Bible, Adam is our father. We're under the federal headship of Adam. And Christ, according to the
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Bible in 1 Corinthians 15, he is the second
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Adam, okay? So if we're under the federal headship of Adam, our father, Adam is our representative by means of being the second
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Adam. And he's not the father. He's the father of a new humanity by means of sacrifice, his redemptive work, and that he purchases for God.
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That makes a little bit more sense. All right, let's go to John chapter one real quick.
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Controversial text for Jehovah's Witnesses, for instance. Reality.
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Anyone know John 1, 1 from memory? Without looking down at your
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Bible. Very easy text. If you know Genesis 1, 1, you should memorize John 1, 1 like that.
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In the beginning was what? I even know it in the
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Greek. Anarchy and power. Pretty simple.
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That's first semester Greek. And in the
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Greek, it's actually pretty incredibly interesting. The Jehovah's Witnesses say that he is not
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God and that John 1, 1 should be translated, the word was a god. And they say the reasoning is because in the second clause of John 1, 1, you have this term, prosontheion, which is the
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God. So the word was with the God, prosontheion, and kaitheos in halagos, and God was the word.
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So there's no definite article that comes in clause C. So in clause B, you have a definite article associated with the
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God, and then it says, and God was the word.
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And so they say, well, because in clause two, there is a definite article, and there's no definite article in clause
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C, and the reason why clause B has the definite article is to distinguish it from the third clause, that's kind of complicated, from the third clause, and therefore we have to insert the indefinite article
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A. So that's how they come to that conclusion. The problem is that they're completely wrong, and they don't know what they're talking about.
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John 1, 1, C is what we call a qualitative and a theos in relation to halagos, theos being the
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Greek word for God, halagos being the word, and so it's a quality of the word, and so it's not, and it's actually, it's important because John is
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Trinitarian. The Apostle John is explicitly Trinitarian in the way that he constructs this text.
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Had he used a definite article in the third clause in relation to the word, it actually would have probably proved modalism.
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It would have identified Jesus as the same person with whom he was with, which is modalism, but he doesn't do that, he distinguishes it by the use of the quality of noun in theos, okay?
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And he's showing that there's a distinction in person between the one who is with God and the one who is
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God. The one who is, the word who is God is to, he's demonstrating to the quality of his divinity, and he shares the same essence of nature as the one with whom he was with.
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So it's really brilliant, and so the
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Bible teaches clearly that Jesus Christ, the word, is God. Verse 14 says, and the word became flesh and flowed from the
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Lord, as the only begotten from the Father. This word became flesh, truly human, and he dwelt among us, we beheld his glory.
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I love what verse 18 says. I don't think the ESV does, I'm not trying to be a harsh critic today of the
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ESV, but yeah,
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I would have chosen a different translation. The only
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God, who's at the Father's side, has made him known, if you look at the footnote, where it says the only
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God, it says the one who is
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God. So I mean, here's what the LSA says, and I quite prefer this text, you'll see
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God at any time, the only begotten God. That's actually what the
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Greek term is used here, it's monogenesis theos, in John 18, and sometimes it's okay to translate it well again.
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It doesn't do justice to the doctrine of the incarnation. We're talking about the incarnate one, the Christ is the only person of God who is who's begotten.
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And so this is where the Church Fathers get the language, in the Nicene Creed, that he was begotten, not created.
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And it shows the distinction, he was begotten, but not created. And I think the ESV loses some of that point.
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Clearly, can we all see that Jesus Christ is both human, John chapter one is one of the most, really throughout the entire first chapter, and even after the narrative, you have this story where Jesus is, as he shows his omniscience to him, by seeing him under the, after he just loses powerful
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Christological implications to the next scriptures, all of it, the whole
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Bible is testifying to, what does,
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Christ, everything in scripture.
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There's an installer today who I really enjoy, actually, Michael Heiser, who doesn't like that, who doesn't like when people say that.
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Because he thinks that we're, and I would say simply to that, that we don't need to force
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Jesus into the text of the Bible, because he's forcefully there. You know, all the scriptures point to Jesus.
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Listen, resurrected, prior to his ascension, he went and preached and taught his disciples, scriptures, he opened their eyes to the word of God.
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And he says in verse 20, he starts in verse 25, Jesus said to them, all foolish ones, that are slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken, was it not necessary for the
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Christ, that's the Messiah, for the Messiah, to suffer these things and to enter into his glory?
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Then beginning prophets, he interpreted to them the things concerning himself in all the scriptures.
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He related how everything in scripture, which is then really incredible, because when you read some of the gospels, you see how they start to tie in things to Jesus.
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Now, you probably wouldn't have seen at first glance. And it's because Jesus had opened their minds to the scriptures, showing that all of the scriptures were really pointing for gospel narratives.
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You have the commentary from the gospel writers as to, hey, this was to fulfill the scriptures.
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As they look back now, they have this knowledge that Jesus Christ is the only God, that all scripture testifies of Jesus.
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All scripture testifies of Jesus. Now, that scripture is not enough. Let me actually, let me make a statement.
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If someone comes to you with a doctrine that they only have one verse, says that we should baptize the dead, and what they do is that they have these temples, and they'll take a person, you know, and they'll dunk them in the name of someone who's dead.
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Right? So we're gonna baptize you in the name of John Smith, who died in 1858. And they dunk them, and then they keep doing it for three or four minutes, and then it's baptism of the dead.
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And they take that from one text of scripture, 1 Corinthians chapter 12, baptism of the dead.
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And they're totally misunderstanding that. So I say that because if someone comes to you and they say, well,
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I've got proof in a mother God, or in baptizing dead people, and here's a text, and they only have one text, they're wrong.
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Scripture, according to the law of God, everything is established by the matter of two or more witnesses, okay?
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So if you don't have at least two verses, I'm not just talking about like, you know, if you have two solid texts that you can exegete, and you can bring some solid evidence to it, then we can talk.
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And I say that in relation to what I'm telling you about the testifying of Jesus. I can point to you many scriptures.
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I'm gonna give you two right now. I gave you one in Luke 24. I'm gonna give you the word of Jesus in John chapter five.
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It says to his opponents, it says you search the scriptures because you think that in them, you have eternal life.
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It is these that bear witness about me. He's talking to the
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Jews. He's saying, you're pouring over the scriptures, you find eternal life in there, but you have not yet come to me of whom the scripture testifies.
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All the scripture testified points to Jesus Christ. I would say in this regard,
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Michael Heiser, good scholar, good guy, wrong in perfection.
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Christ is a big picture.
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So again, remember, Jesus Christ, beginning in the scripture in the book of Genesis. First of all, we know from John one, and comparing that to Genesis one,
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Jesus is already in the scripture, he's a creator. And then we see a prophecy concerning this particular serpent, and this metanarrative is building, and it's gonna crescendo, and it's gonna be in the book of Revelation.
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So what's your approach to Revelation chapter one? So we see the hallmarks of the
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Messiah, who the Messiah is, who he came to be, he came to be a virgin, not a virgin.
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Well, technically, actually, that's true too. And, but he would, all the scriptures testifying to this one, but then in Revelation chapter one, yeah,
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Jesus is kind of like Dan Brown, Dan Brown.
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And like, you know, the, I think it was the holy grail was actually, that was the holy hallmark, to have children, that he would be buried, that he would not have earthly children.
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Revelation 14 points to the purity that Christ gives, and it talks about a virgin, but in Revelation chapter one, we see, notice what it says, behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who hear say yes, amen.
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Who's the one who's coming? Who's coming again? On the clouds, that every eye will see.
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Jesus. Verse eight, I am the
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Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is, who was, and who is to come, the
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Almighty. So, here's like when, this is actually a really great verse.
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He's like God Almighty. Theos Pankator, in Greek, El Shaddai in the
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Hebrew, and this point, this is where the Torah describes the Almighty, and I want you to put it, this is the last thing
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I want you to put in here. Jesus is the Alpha and Omega. So Alpha, what does
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Alpha and Omega mean? Yeah, another way of putting it is first, and that's the first letter of the alphabet, is
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Alpha, and the last letter of the Greek alphabet is Omega.
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Here God's saying that A to Z, which means he's A to Z and everything in between.
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Everything, he's all encompassed. Which again, points to the fact that I just mentioned beforehand. All the scripture testifies to Jesus Christ.
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He's the Alpha and the Omega. He's everything in between, and particularly, this is a divine title,
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Alpha and Omega. He's the one in verse seven who's coming to the clouds, Acts chapter one, verse 11, and he says,
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I am the Alpha and the Omega. This is the words of Jesus. This is the one, and it identifies him in the text as the
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Lord God, the Almighty. Well, you could say, like the
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Jehovah Witnesses. Well, no, there's Jesus, and then there's the
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Father, the Father coming as the
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Almighty. Well, that doesn't make sense, because notice there's a picture that we get starting in verse 14.
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John sees a vision of this one, and he describes it in these ways. And his head and his hair were white like white gold, like snow, and his eyes were like a flame of fire.
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His feet like the burnished bronze when it has been made to glow. And his voice was like the sound of many waters, and having in his right hand seven stars, and a sharp two -edged sword which came out of his mouth, and his face was like the sun shining in its power.
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And when I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man. He placed his right hand on me, saying, do not fear.
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Stop there for a moment. The depiction that we see in verse 14, identical to the scripture, and yet this one, he says in verse 13, he starts off by saying, do not fear.
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Now, if you know your Old Testament well, Jehovah says that quite a bit to his people.
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Do not fear, do not fear, do not fear. He gives that assurance. The word, that phrase, do not fear, appears 365 times in the
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Bible, okay? And it's mostly from Jehovah God. God says to his people, do not fear,
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I think in Isaiah chapter 41, do not fear, for I will uphold you with my right hand, and notice what happens.
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He placed his right hand on me, saying, do not fear. Isn't that cool?
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Isaiah 41 says, the Lord, with his right hand, will say to you, do not fear.
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And then Jesus is the one who's putting his right hand on John, his servant, and he says to him, do not fear.
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I am the first and the last, okay? What does alpha and omega mean again?
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First and last, because it's gonna be any clearer to you, Jesus is trying to do his best to make it clear.
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I am the living one, I was dead, and behold, I am alive forever and ever, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.
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Now, what's interesting is that nowhere here does he say, I, Jesus, but you gotta ask the question, if you're expressing your time to Jehovah, you have to ask the question, alpha and omega, that's
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God, right? Yes. Alpha and omega means first and last, right? Yes. When did the alpha and the omega die?
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Because the alpha and the omega says, the first and the last is, I was dead. Remember the bruised heel from Genesis chapter three, that the
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Messiah would suffer? I was dead, but now
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I am alive forever and ever. And I have the keys of death and of Hades.
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The Messiah died by the serpent, but he was raised again on the third day, demonstrating that death had no power over him, and he's indeed the one who is the first and the last alpha and omega, he is the
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Lord. That isn't enough evidence.
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Let's go to the last chapter of Revelation. Last chapter, 22, 12, the alpha and the omega.
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Behold, I am coming quickly, and my reward is with me, to render to every man according to his work.
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I am the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.
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And in Revelation chapter two, one of the titles that's used of Jesus in regards to the Son of Church is the beginning and the end.
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There's no way this could not be Jesus, okay? That's not conclusive enough.
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I'm the alpha and the omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are those who wash their robes, so they may have the authority to enter by the gates into the city, outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the sexual immorals, and everyone who loves and practices lying.
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I, Jesus, the alpha and the omega, tells us clearly.
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I, Jesus, sent my angel to bear witness to you of these sins for the church, and I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star.
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Isn't that marvelous, that we're the alpha and the omega?
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He's a God who was dead, but is alive forevermore. Jesus that we present to you, this is the
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Jesus of the Bible, and it's all about Jesus.
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In every way, your life, your story, your narrative, the Bible's narrative, everything revolves around Jesus Christ.
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Father, we thank you for the revelation that your son,
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Jesus Christ, born of the virgin, in the small town of Bethlehem, who had humble origins, yet his origins were from everlasting, was the promised seed that you had predestined at the beginning of time, who you set forth into motion, right as man fell into the ice of sin, who you have ordained for our redemption and for the redemption of the cosmos, for the glory of your name.
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We render service and worship unto this one. Lord, help us to grow greater appreciation for the truth and clarity, not just in our doctrine, but in our worship, and we do pray for you.