Bible Service, Edmonton Baptist Chapel, London

I'm with you once again this evening here in Edmonton. Of course, I have absolutely no idea where I am in London right now since when I land, even when I land at the right airport, and I'm told that Heathrow is the right airport and Gatwick is the wrong airport, but even when I land at the right airport, we get on these roads that go in circles anyway, so in that way, those of us who don't know where we are stay completely lost, and so I'm not really sure which part of London I'm in, but I don't know which parts of London I'm going to later on this week, but I do know that I'm looking forward to the encounters we're going to be having, and our topic this evening will be somewhat relevant to that because the second debate that I'm doing is specifically on the deity of Christ.

The first debate, and actually it's a topic that I chose, but I've never heard anyone debate it before, does belief in the Trinity necessitate shirk? Shirk is a concept of idolatry in Islamic thought, and so I hope to have the opportunity to very clearly express what the doctrine of the Trinity is and how the Quran does not accurately identify the doctrine of the Trinity, since of course the Quran is written after the time of the New Testament, and certainly long after the time when the doctrine of the Trinity is well known, then you can see the importance of that particular topic, but turn with me please back to John chapter eight from this morning, we're going to be in a number of different texts, not any one particular text, because I would like to speak with you this evening concerning various ways in which the Bible reveals to us the glory of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and specifically the deity of Christ.

We must recognize as believers that our belief in the deity of Christ is a spectacular thing in the world. It's an amazing thing that we actually are saying the world is enough. We are saying that the creator of all things, the one who made all things, who has eternally existed, who by merely the volition of his will can bring this entire universe into existence, that this one, for his own purposes and for his own glory, actually chose to enter into his own creation.

Just as a given that is rejected by the Islamic faith, it's not possible, Allah would never do something like that. But the Christian message is that in the councils of eternity past, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Son voluntarily chooses, together with the Father and the Spirit, but the Son chooses to enter into human flesh in the incarnation.

That is an amazing thing. There are many who would say, well, that's just not possible. Well, why is it possible? The God who created all things cannot enter into his own creation. Why is this? What is the logical foundation of this?

And really, when you dig deep, what most people say is, well, it's just hard to believe that God would humble himself so. Well, yes it is. That's why we need the Spirit of God to cause us to believe, but it is a radical statement.

This morning, I said to you something, and I try to say this in most of my Islamic debates, because I want this to be communicated to the Muslim people, but specifically, that every breath you take, every beat of your heart, you literally are borrowing that from your creator, Jesus Christ.

You cannot be neutral about this one, about whom the New Testament says that, by him were all things created, whether in heaven or earth, visible or invisible, whether principalities, powers, or meanings or authorities, all things created by him and for him, and he is before all things, and in him all things literally hold together, consist.

You cannot be neutral. You cannot put off to another day dealing with someone like that. And so, ours is an amazing belief. And so, if we're going to tell people about our amazing belief, we might want to have some confidence, should we not, about what we believe.

There are many who have spent much time, invested much effort in finding ways of arguing against the Christian faith, even from our own scriptures. And so, I would like to remind you this evening of the ways in which the New Testament testifies concerning the deity of Christ, and focusing upon a particular one, which we saw this morning here in John chapter eight, this phrase, I am.

There are really about three major ways in which the New Testament reveals the deity of Christ to us. We know about those where the term God is used of Jesus. When Thomas sees the resurrected Lord, he answers and says to Jesus, my Lord and my God.

Now, if anyone were to bow before a mere prophet, a mere human being, and say, my Lord and my God, that prophet should do exactly what the apostles did when people bowed to them. Remember in the book of Acts, people tried to worship Paul and Silas, and what do they do?

Do not worship us, worship only God. Or when John bows before the angel in the book of Revelation, tries to worship the angel, and what does the angel say? Do not do that, worship only God. But Thomas bows before Jesus, and he calls him my Lord and my God, and remember what Jesus does.

He says, because you've seen me, have you believed, Thomas? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe. No rebuke, instead he identifies what Thomas does as an act of faith. There are other places where Jesus is described as God.

In John 1 .1, he is said to be the eternal Logos, the Word, who has always existed. In Titus 2 .13 and 2 Peter 1 .1, he's called our Lord and Savior, our God and Savior. And so these terms are used in Jesus, and those are normally the texts that you end up arguing about on the street corner when Jehovah's Witnesses happen by or something like that.

But those are not the only evidences of the deity of Christ. We also have Jesus described as deity as being creator, as having eternally existed, exercising the prerogatives of God. All those texts that speak of Jesus in this way.

That's the second category of evidence. And probably the text we'll look at this evening will fall into that second category. But there's a third category we dare not forget. If you have been blessed to be raised within a Christian family as I was, as far back as we can find on my father's side, we've always been ministers.

And despite all the mockery I get from my dear brother, Roger, we do trace ourselves back to Scotland and were ministers in Scotland at times long past. Of course, my brother Roger and I have tromped around through graveyards in Dundee looking for whites to take pictures of the headstones.

He's been a dear brother along those lines in putting up with my pseudo-Scottishness as a friend of ours says up in Glasgow. But be that as it may, if you did not have the privilege that I have to grow up hearing the word of God, then you might not be in the same situation those of us who had that education have.

But when we hear Jesus saying things in the New Testament, since we're used to hearing Jesus, sometimes our ear is not quite in tune to recognizing how amazing his speech really is. Think of the things that Jesus says and does that no mere prophet could ever do.

In other words, take some of Jesus's words and put them into the mouth of, well, think of the greatest prophets you might wish to think of. Think of Abraham, think of Moses, think of David. Would any of them have ever said, come to me, all of you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest?

Take my yoke, my burden upon you? Of course not. Would any of them have made the claims that Jesus did where he identifies the scriptures as his own words, to hold on to his own word as to have eternal life?

There are so many things that Jesus said and did that could never be said of a mere prophet. In fact, very often when, again, those individuals called Jehovah's Witnesses come to the door, we forget about those things and we forget to say, wait a minute, you're telling me that Jesus is Michael the archangel.

So you're telling me that Michael the archangel would say the things that Jesus says. Or that the early Christians would speak of Michael the archangel the way that the apostle Paul does or John does, are you serious?

We don't ask them to give a defense of what they believe. We frequently allow ourselves to be put into a position where we're only defending what we believe rather than turning the shoe around, shall we say, putting it on the other foot and saying, does it fit there?

And so especially that third category of evidence of the deity of Christ is frequently overlooked in our conversations. So with that, let's look at this particular aspect of the demonstration of the deity of Christ we find in John chapter eight.

If you were here this morning, you know that we encountered a couple of verses. For example, in John chapter eight, verse 24. And what I'm gonna be doing now, just in case there are some differences in how I read this, I'm translating directly from the Greek so I'm not using an English translation this evening, just looking at the Greek because the phrase we wanna look at is found in the original language and it's translated a couple of different ways in our various English translations.

But Jesus, therefore Jesus said to them, therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins for unless you believe that I am, and most translations say I am he or I am the one or something along those lines, you will die in your sins.

Now that phrase I am is the Greek phrase is ego I mean, ego I mean. It's really just an emphatic way of saying I am, a very strong way of saying I myself am. And it is not true that every single time this phrase is used, well that means the person's claiming to be deity, no that's not the case.

And you may even have in your Bible a cross reference that might immediately throw you all the way back across the canon of scripture to Exodus chapter three. Remember Exodus chapter three and the encounter between Moses and Jehovah God Yahweh at the burning bush and when Moses says who will I say has sent me?

What does God say to him? I am that I am has sent you. Now in the Hebrew language in which that was written, God is saying I am that I am, but you must remember that that Hebrew language is not what the New Testament was written in.

The New Testament was written in the Greek language. And there was a translation of the Old Testament that the Jewish people had used for about 200 years before the coming of Christ called the Greek Septuagint.

And it rendered that phrase back in Exodus 3 .14, ego I am the being, I am the one who exists. And so I do not suggest that every time we find this phrase that we immediately jump back to Exodus 3. There's a much stronger basis upon which to stand.

Let me explain it to you. First of all, any text taken out of its context is of course a pretext. You've heard that said many, many times before. When looking at the Gospel of John, sometimes we need to stand back.

And this is something that we as Christians, honestly, my fellow believers, this is something I don't care what your line of work is. I don't care what your age is. I believe that it's perfectly appropriate for me to challenge you as a believer to know your Bible well.

And in fact, to know some things about its background. To know some things about the books. We should be able to in our minds have an outline of the major books of the Bible. Know where to find things.

We should be able to look at the Book of John and say, what is John trying to communicate to us? My, look at how he starts his book. He has this prologue and he says, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word was God.

He describes this Word as the unique God who is in the bosom of the Father. In verse 18, he has made the Father known. So we're given an introduction through which we're supposed to read the rest of the book.

And there's all these passages in John about you need to honor the Son even as you honor the Father. Here in John chapter eight, we have this I am, these I am sayings. In John chapter 10, I am the Father of one.

The Jews are all sticking up stones to stone Jesus. Why would they do that? They don't stone angels, they stone people for committing blasphemy. And of course it ends up with the Jews accusing Jesus, we have a law and by that law he ought to die, why?

Because he made himself out to be the Son of God. They understood that the Son of God was a claimed deity. They recognized this. Jesus himself in John five had used the fact that God works on the Sabbath.

He continues to make the sun to shine and the earth to stay in its orbit on the Sabbath day. And he claimed that for himself. He claimed that right for himself. The Father's working until now and I am working.

And the Jews understand he's making himself equal with God. And you of course have Thomas' confession of faith in John 20, 28, my Lord and my God. And so you have all of this material in the Gospel of John.

And so is it really outlandish to come to John and say, does he use this particular phrase in a particular way? Well let's look at where he uses it and let's see if we can find a pattern. We saw verse 24, unless you believe that ego I me, I am, you will die in your sins.

And then in verse 28, that when you lift up the son of man, then you will know that I am. Very same Greek phrase. And at the end of this particular chapter, verse 58, which we saw this morning. Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham came into existence, before Abraham was, ego I me, I am.

And what do the Jews do as soon as he says this? They pick up stones and stone them. They know exactly what he's claiming. Why do they know exactly what he's claiming? Does this phrase appear elsewhere in the Old Testament?

Keep that question in mind. We're gonna answer it once we look at a couple of other texts in the Gospel of John. Now turn with me to John chapter 13. John chapter 13, verse 19. Now, just a brief personal story here.

When I was in Bible college many, many years ago, I had an acquaintance of mine. I learned a lesson from this. This was a man who knew a great deal about Jehovah's Witnesses. He studied them all the time.

But he was not a man who was in the church. He was disobedient to the Lord in the matter of gathering with the people of God. He was imbalanced. And guess what happened to him? Ended up becoming one of Jehovah's Witnesses.

And so I had been involved in writing some letters to him and answering some of the claims that he was making. And this was back in the early, early days of computers. We had just gotten the first computer for our ministry.

It was called a compact portable. It weighed about 45 pounds. It was the size of a sewing machine. It was portable, only in that it didn't break your back to carry it. And it did not even have a hard drive.

It had a six inch green screen, about yay big. I think I still have eye damage from staring at it for so long. And I remember one evening, my dear wife had already gone to sleep and I was sitting there typing away and I was dealing with this subject and writing a letter for this gentleman.

And I was looking at this text, John 13, 19. And if you look at the context, Jesus is talking about the future, that this is to fulfill the scripture, verse 18, the one who eats my bread has turned against me.

And he says, I'm telling you this now before it happens, so that when it happens, you may believe that I am. Ego, I need again. And I remember I was looking at that in my Greek text by one of those little flickering desk lamps that us poor people have that don't stay on without recording real well.

And I was going, I've seen this phrase somewhere before. I know I've seen this somewhere before. This was before the days of Bible works and accordions and all the wonderful software we have now. I actually had to use books to find things back then.

And I started thinking, where have I seen this? Where have I seen this? And I got out my copy of the Greek Septuagint. I said, it couldn't be there, could it? And I turned to the verse that Jehovah's Witnesses use to get their own name.

Why are Jehovah's Witnesses called Jehovah's Witnesses? Because Isaiah 43 .10 says, "'You are my witnesses,' says Jehovah, "'and my servant whom I have chosen. "'You are my witnesses,' says Jehovah.'".

That's where Jehovah's Witnesses got their name, was Isaiah 43 .10. Now, I knew Isaiah 43 .10 very well because it was a verse I used with Mormons all the time. We had been witnessing to Mormons for quite some time, going out to Salt Lake City and out to the Mesa Easter pageants and passing out tracts and witnessing to Mormons for quite some time.

And the end of Isaiah 43 .10 is the verse that we always use with Mormons. "'Before me there was no God formed, "'and there shall be none after me.'". Mormons believe they can become gods, they can become insulted to God, or that in fact the god of this world was once a man who lived on another planet, just like you and I.

And so Isaiah 43 .10 just cut that idea right in half, saying, "'Before me there was no God formed.'". Mormons believe there are literally billions of gods out there in the cosmos, and there shall be none after you.

Well, sorry Mr. Mormon missionary, but you're never going to become a god. And so I knew Isaiah 43 .10, and I knew that the Witnesses had gotten their name from it. But then when I looked at it in the Greek Septuagint, there I found the exact same language that Jesus uses of himself.

In Isaiah 43, God is identifying himself as the one true God over against the false gods. Isaiah 42 .48 is the trial of the false gods. And there Jehovah challenges the other gods. Tell me what's going to happen in the future.

You can't do it. Only the true God knows what's going to happen in the future. In fact, one of the challenges in that section is, tell me what has happened in the past, and why it happened, and tell me what's going to happen in the future.

See, a historian can tell you what happened in the past. He can't always tell you why it happened. The true and sovereign God can fulfill his own challenge at that point. And there in that flickering little light, I looked at the Greek of Isaiah 43 .10, and I took my Greek New Testament that I brought John 13 .19 over, and I found that here the Lord Jesus is using the very same language that Yahweh uses of himself in Isaiah 43 .10 when he's applying it to himself, in the context of revealing the future.

And that's what gave me the key to start looking and seeing how many times this phrase in Hebrew, anehu, I am, is used, and especially in Isaiah. And it becomes one of the primary identifications that Jehovah uses of himself, identifying himself to his own people.

John 13 .19, but we continue on, because this evening we have read to us John chapter 18. Did you notice what took place there? In John chapter 18, the arrest of Jesus. Judas brings the soldiers into the garden of Gethsemane, across the Kidron Valley, and Jesus meets them.

He says, who are you seeking? They said, Jesus, the Nazarene, and he said to them, ego, I am he. Now notice what happens here. John then repeats, he wants to make sure we understand. Judas, the one betraying him, was standing with them, and when therefore he said to them, ego, I am he, repeats it, so we make sure that we know what Jesus said.

When he therefore said to them, ego, I am he, they went back and fell upon the ground. Now please, we have here soldiers, armed men with lanterns, and here comes the carpenter from the Hesedeth. He has no arms, he has no defenders, and all he says is, ego, I am he, and they fall back upon the ground.

It is amazing to me, the efforts that have been used by men to get around what John is clearly trying to communicate. Now if we had not seen ego, I am he, before this, if we didn't see it in John 13, if we didn't see it in John 8, if we didn't have the Jews picking up stones to stone Jesus for saying these words, then maybe I could understand someone trying to find another way of understanding this.

But I get just a little bit suspicious when people start going, well you know, there'd be a lot of vines on the ground, so maybe someone tripped and knocked someone else over. Really? Yes. Or, well, it was his great moral purity that knocked him backwards.

Well, I've seen soldiers knocked backwards by moral purity every day, haven't you? Not quite. What amazing feats of imagination people come up with to try to get around the fact that it is painfully obvious that in a book that begins with, in the beginning was the word, the word is with God, the word was God, the word became flesh and dwelt among us and beheld as glory, the glory is of the only God, the Father.

He is called the unique God in John 118. He is called my Lord and my God in John 20, 28. In a book that says all those things, doesn't it make sense that having said, unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins?

Does it not make sense in quoting the Old Testament scriptures of himself in John 13 that here at the arrest of Jesus, when Jesus says, I am, the soldiers fall back upon him? What is John trying to communicate to us here?

What does John want us to understand? Is it not clear that in this self-identification, in this very use of the language of the Old Testament to describe himself, that Jesus is revealing his true nature?

Now these soldiers, they're not experts in the law, they didn't know anything about the Greek Septuagint or something like that, and yet they still fall back upon the ground, not because they've understood what he's saying, but because of the very power of the words that he speaks.

And so we have these uses of this phrase. Are we overreaching the text to conclude that this is another of the many evidences of the deity of Christ? I do not believe that we are. I believe we're being completely fair with John.

When we ask the question, does John just in a willy-nilly fashion use this type of language? Do other people use this type of language in the same type of context? No, of course not. And certainly when we are first introduced to this phrase as an issue of faith, unless you believe that I am.

Now some will say, well, it's just that I am the Messiah. Well, that's partly true. I can certainly understand that some will say, well, what he meant was that I am the Messiah. All right, but then why does he attach faith to believe that he is the I am, and then attaches this to existence before Abraham?

Why does he allow the men to pick up stones to stone him for blasphemy in the end of the chapter? Why does he say, no, you don't understand. I'm just saying I'm the Messiah. That's not what he does. No, it is the text itself that makes the connection in saying unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins.

He quotes from the Old Testament scriptures where Jehovah was revealing his ability to know the future and to reveal the future, and then as Jesus reveals the future to his disciples, he uses the exact same context to use the exact same language of himself.

And then here in chapter 18, when he says the words, the men fall back upon him. Do you see now why I do not suggest that the first thing we do when we're discussing these passages with someone is to immediately fly back to Exodus chapter three.

Instead, we need to go to Isaiah. We need to go to the line of the prophets where this phrase, anahu, egoimi, is used of Jehovah God, especially in those contexts where he's revealing the future. Now, let me sort of add to this demonstration not another use of I am, but someone might be thinking, well, would John use this kind of tremendously exalted language of Jesus?

And we must recognize, again, as I said at the beginning, we are making an amazing claim when we speak this way about Jesus Christ, when we claim that he's the creator of all things. The creator entered into his own creation.

How can this be? And yet, that is what Christians have proclaimed from the very beginning. In fact, I don't know if you noticed this. On Thursday evening, I will be showing this in my presentation on the deity of Christ in the debate, but within just the past couple of years, they were doing some renovations at a prison in Megiddo in Israel, and they were digging down, and I guess it's a fascinating thing to dig anywhere in Israel.

You're always in danger of running across some major archeological find because it's been inhabited for so long, and here we had a prison. They've got prisoners, and they dig down. All of a sudden, they discover a mosaic floor, and they start clearing the dirt and debris off of this floor, and they realize this is a major archeological find, but then as they're clearing the debris away, they start reading what the mosaic said, and they discover that this was once the site of an extremely early, maybe the earliest Christian church that has ever been found in history, and they can't date it perfectly yet, but it is very, very early, long before the Council of Nicaea.

Some people believe in the second century, and I have a picture of part of the mosaic floor because they've cleaned it off very, very well. It's very easily read, and there you have an ancient Christian woman, and evidently, there had been a table that had been a part of the church, and I suppose this is the ancient equivalent of our pudding in some churches, you know, at the end of a pew, donated in memory of such and such a person or something like that.

We've certainly seen things like that, but here in this mosaic floor, you can very clearly read that this woman has given this table in honor, in blessed memory and remembrance of our God, Jesus Christ.

It's very clear. The exact same type of language we find in one of the earliest writings outside the New Testament. The bishop of Antioch named Ignatius was on his way to Rome to die a martyr's death.

He was to be thrown to the animals, to be torn apart as a very aged man, and he wrote seven letters as he was traveling to Rome, and a number of times, more than a dozen times, in those genuine letters written around no later than 108 A .D., because that's the date of his death.

He uses the language of our God, Jesus Christ. See, many people will tell you, ah, you're misreading John, because that's a theology that developed long, long down the road. In fact, if you had gone to seminary, even here in the majority of the seminaries, 150 years ago, you would have been told that the conclusion of modern scholarship, the assured results of modern scholarship, is that the Gospel of John could not have been written by anyone who knew Jesus, because you see, its Christology is so high, its view of Jesus is so high, that it was probably written late in the second century, maybe even the beginning of the third century.

That's what you would have been told by men with May degrees after that. I think our Lord has a divine sense of humor, because while the learned men had come to decide that the New Testament was unreliable, that John could not be trusted because of this, it's fascinating to me that as archeology has discovered the papyri fragments, papyri were the form of paper used in the ancient world, and especially in the 1930s, through the 1940s and 1950s, major finds of papyri were found in the desert sands of Egypt.

And guess what book of the New Testament has the earliest attestation amongst those papyri? But of course, the Gospel of John. And in fact, without much argumentation at all, we can clearly demonstrate that there's at least one papyri fragment from around the year 125 AD, and guess what that papyri fragment is of?

The 18th chapter of the Gospel of John. This very same. And all the scholarships agreed on that. There might be a couple of other fragments that are even earlier, not all scholars agreed about that, but again, the Gospel of John.

So the scholars had stood and said, oh, written around 200, 220, and we find papyri copies that are 100 years earlier than that. And so we look at this, and we hear people saying, you're reading too much into this.

Let me show you one other amazing text in the Gospel of John, just to sort of cement this, or turn back with me to John chapter 12. I mentioned this in passing this morning. But it's one I think that the believers really should be aware of and know about.

Because it's one we fly past, in essence, when we're reading. Here at the end of Jesus' public ministry, he's wrapping things up. Remember, the Greeks have come seeking him. And so in response to this, Jesus gives this last portion of his public ministry.

John 13 onward is just for the disciples. No more public ministry recorded by John at all. But I think one of the reasons this passage is missed is because it requires us to know the Old Testament real well.

Let's face it, in much of modern evangelicalism, there are only 27 books in the canon of Scripture. And we don't know the Old Testament very well at all. But if you go back to verse 37, although Jesus had performed so many miraculous signs before them, they still refused to believe in him.

So that the word of Isaiah the prophet would be fulfilled. And then we have some quotations. The first quotation, Lord who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed, comes from Isaiah chapter 53.

But then we have this amazing statement, verse 39. For this reason they could not believe because again Isaiah said, and then verse 40 is a citation from the book of Isaiah. He is blind in their eyes, hard in their heart, so they will not see with their eyes but stand with their heart and turn to me and I will heal them.

Where is that from? Well, that's from probably one of the most famous sections in the book of Isaiah, Isaiah's temple vision. Remember in Isaiah chapter six, where Isaiah is commissioned as a prophet.

And he has a vision of Jehovah sitting upon his throne, lofty and lifted up. And he has the experience of saying, woe is me, I am undone, I am a man of unclean lips, I live amongst a people of unclean lips and God provides forgiveness for him and he's commissioned to go and he's given a message.

The message is one of judgment. So he says, how long, O Lord? And I think that was how long, O Lord? Can't necessarily read that into it but probably that's what it was. Well, this is where these words came from.

They come from Isaiah chapter six, verse 10. Then we have this one critical statement in verse 41. And I think we just go flying past it and never stop and think about what it's saying. Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke about him.

Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and he spoke about him. Well, who's the only his in the context? Look at the very next verse. Nevertheless, even among the rulers, many believed in him.

Well, who's the him? The him is Christ, the him is Jesus. So when did Isaiah see his glory? Well, who did Isaiah say he saw in Isaiah 6 -1? I saw the Lord lofty lifted up, sitting upon the throne of his temple.

And here's just a small fact that I went through Bible college. I went through seminary and I never learned this. I was working on my first doctorate before I ever learned this little fact. Notice it says Isaiah said these things because he saw Christ's glory.

That's his glory, literally, he saw his glory. Once again, if you get out that volume that I got out under the flickering little light called the Greek Septuagint, you discover that there's a small variation in the wording of that translation in the Hebrew Masoretic text.

Hebrew Masoretic text, the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. And it's fascinating to me that when you read Isaiah 6 -1 in the Greek translation, which is what John's quoting from, he's quoting directly from the Greek translation.

He's not directly quoting from the Hebrew, he's directly quoting from the Greek. The difference is that at the end of verse one of chapter six instead of the Hebrew where it says, and the train of his robe was filling the temple, the end of verse one, the Greek Septuagint says, and I saw his glory.

In the exact same words that John uses in verse 41 of John chapter 12. And so anyone who's sitting there with the Greek translation of the Old Testament, they've just read verse 10 that he's just quoted from that Greek translation.

They look up the beginning of that section. There Isaiah sees the glory of Jehovah. What does John tell us? Isaiah said these things because he saw Jesus' glory and spoke about when the New Testament writers who are monotheistic Jews, they believe there's one God.

They would get up in the morning and they would repeat the Shema. Shema Yisrael, Yahweh Eloheinu, Yahweh Echad. Here Israel, Yahweh is one, Yahweh is our God. They didn't believe in two gods. They were not polytheists.

And so when those men are willing to take the very words of the Old Testament that can only be applied to Jehovah and bring them in the New Testament, apply them to Jesus, what does that tell you about what their faith is?

Who did they believe Jesus was? A mere prophet, Michael the archangel? No. They recognized that Jehovah himself had entered into human existence, the person of Jesus Christ. He truly is the eternal son.

Now I think I might have another five minutes to show you one of them. All right, let me show you one of them because this one, this one is so exciting to me. We're gonna leave John for a moment and I wanna show you one other place because I wanna demonstrate this is not the only place where the New Testament identifies Jesus as Jehovah, as Yahweh.

Yahweh is the better pronunciation. There wasn't any J in Hebrew to begin with, so Jehovah is not even a possibility, though that's our traditional way of rendering that particular word. Turn with me to Hebrews chapter one.

Now just on a level of usefulness to you, this is just, if you are ever in a situation, maybe at the door, maybe on the tube, whatever it might be, and you're speaking life with one of Jehovah's witnesses or someone like that, what I would exhort you to do is, if you want to show someone, and I did this, I had a couple of elders, Jehovah's Witness elders, a number of years ago, and they just straight up started off by saying, look, we know that you're a minister.

We just have one question for you. Why in the world would anyone who knows what you know believe in the doctrine of the trinity? Why would they do it? I said, well, let me tell you why. I said, because the name Yahweh, the name Jehovah, that makes Jehovah's Witness perk up.

They're not used to hearing people use that name. They think nobody else uses that name but them. And so, I said, because the name Jehovah is used in the New Testament of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Spirit.