Sunday Sermon: Who is Jesus? (2 Corinthians 5:16)

2 Corinthians 5 and the Ministry of Reconciliation

You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday on this podcast, we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a New Testament book.

On Thursday is our Old Testament study, and then we answer questions from listeners on Friday. Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series, presently going through the letters to the Corinthians.

This is the sermon that was preached last week from our pulpit. Here's Pastor Gabe.

2 Corinthians 5, and beginning in verse 16. From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. All of this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Let us pray again. God, our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the blessings that you have poured out upon us through your Son, Jesus Christ. It is in Christ that we are partakers of the divine nature and have received these very great and precious promises.

The assurance of the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection from the grave, and fellow recipients of the kingdom of God through Jesus Christ. All of these treasures are given to us in your Son, and it is by faith that we receive them, that we can know we have been forgiven our sins, and that we might enter into your presence holy and righteous and acceptable to you because of the garments of righteousness that we wear as given to us by Christ.

He took our sin upon himself with his death on the cross and gives us his righteousness, all those who believe on his name. So as we embark upon the scriptures this morning to know more about who Jesus is, I pray that we would be given eyes to see and ears to hear.

For there are many in this world who have heard the gospel proclaimed and their hearts are hard and closed to it. May that not be anyone here as the name of Jesus is being spoken and what the scriptures say about him goes forth.

May hearts be softened and receiving of this wonderful, great word that you have given through your prophets and apostles. It's in the name of Christ that we pray and all God's people said, amen. Thank you, you may be seated.

Seeing Christ as More Than Flesh

So last week we were looking at verse 16, from now on therefore we regard no one according to the flesh. We who are brothers and sisters in Christ, we don't regard one another according to the flesh, nor do we even consider those who are unbelievers according to the flesh.

But we see in them whether they confess to know the name of Christ or whether they have denounced an understanding of Christ even with their words. So those who know Christ, we continue to encourage with the hope of the gospel and those who do not know Christ, we tell them the hope that is in the gospel so that they might repent of their sins and believe in Jesus and so be spared the wrath of God that is to come.

We regard one another in the flesh no longer, but we regard each other according to the spirit. That in a nutshell was the sermon from last week. And then today we're still going to be in 2 Corinthians 5 .16.

As you can tell, we're just booking through this section here. But we're going to look at that second part. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. So we don't regard one another to the flesh, according to the flesh, and we don't regard Christ according to the flesh either.

But there was a time for all of us when that is the way that we consider Jesus. You did not know Jesus as God. You may have heard of him as some great teacher, or you may have seen him as some sort of a great being to worship.

As Chris had shared this morning, he grew up in the Catholic Church and so he always heard the name of Christ. He even heard the name of Christ proclaimed as Lord, but he in his own heart did not believe it.

He may have even confessed it to some degree, but did he really know what it meant to proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord? In the Bible, we're even given examples of people who at one point confessed Christ as Lord, but did not actually know him as God, and later revealed in their hearts that they were not true followers of Jesus.

On the podcast a couple of weeks ago, I talked about one of those men, Demas, who Paul mentions at the end of his second letter to Timothy, had deserted him and gone back to Thessalonica because he was more in love with this world.

The temptations of this world had ensnared him and he was no longer one who would proclaim the gospel along with Paul and his missionary brothers, but seeing that this mission was too hard and not rewarding enough.

He abandoned Paul while he was in prison and went to a place that was full of all kinds of riches and wealth in the Roman Empire, that being Thessalonica. And so there are certainly people who maybe with their mouths have proclaimed this at one point, but over time it is revealed that their hearts were not genuinely for Christ, our God and Savior.

They regard him in the flesh rather than knowing who he truly is. If anyone knows for certain that Jesus Christ is God, how could you possibly deny with your life that understanding? If you know that he is God, if you know that he is he who searches mind and hearts, if you know that it is he who has been given all authority in heaven and on earth, if you know it is he who is going to be sitting on the great white throne of judgment as all the nations will be brought before him and he will separate them out as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats and the sheep on his right hand will be recipients of the kingdom, but the goats on his left hand, he will say, depart from me, you worker of iniquity.

I never knew you. And they will go to a place of eternal torment. If you know this about Christ, how can you not but help to worship him? We all become worshipers of God when we know him as more than a man in the flesh, but we know him also as God who is from heaven.

There was a time even for the disciples that they did not know him as God, but knew him as a great teacher. And it was only as these things were revealed to them, the fulfillment of the scriptures, the law and the prophets that they came to know Jesus Christ as God.

Peter's Pentecost Sermon and Jesus as Lord and Christ

Let's look at that together in Acts chapter 2. Turn with me, if you will, to Acts 2. Acts chapter 2, we have the first great sermon that is preached following Christ's ascension into heaven. And this is immediately following the receiving of the Holy Spirit, which was given to the apostles as Christ promised them they would receive.

After Jesus ascended at the start of Acts chapter 1, they went back to the same upper room where they had gathered with him for that last supper. And it was decided among them which was going to replace Judas, the fallen disciple.

After that decision was made, they continued to pray and ask God what it was that he was going to do with them. And then the coming of the Holy Spirit we have at the beginning of Acts chapter 2. Divided tongues as of fire appeared and rested on each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

We go on into verse 5. Now, there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And we know from the scriptures that they were there to celebrate Pentecost. They were there celebrating a holiday in which the Jews lift praises to God for giving them the law.

That's what they did at Pentecost. They praised God for the giving of the law. And here they were about to hear of one who was the fulfillment of the law and the prophets. Because as Christ even proclaimed, it is impossible for man to keep the law.

And Paul fleshes this argument out even more in the book of Romans. None of us, by our power, are capable of keeping the law. We will fail and we will stand in judgment before God because we couldn't keep the law, as Paul mentions in Romans chapter 2.

So as the Jews are there celebrating the giving of the law, and they've come from all different places in the Roman Empire, which is why we see so many different languages that are spoken among them. The Holy Spirit was given to the apostles and they spoke in everyone's native tongue to share with them the gospel that is given in our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Verse 6, at this sound the multitude came together. The sound of the rushing wind that we read about earlier in the chapter, the Holy Spirit that came upon them. At the sound of this. So not only the apostles heard this, but everybody else that was there in Jerusalem.

They came together and they were bewildered because each of these apostles were speaking in a different language. Each person there in Jerusalem was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, are not all these who are speaking Galileans?

The point that they're making here by this confession is that aren't these guys not educated? Look at them. How is it that they know so many different languages and they're able to proclaim to us so clearly an understanding of Jesus Christ?

Well, that's what's coming. That isn't what they've said yet. But they're saying words that we get. We can hear it. We can understand it. And they're Galileans. These are uneducated men. How is it that we hear each of us in his own native language?

And then it lists all the different people, all the different people groups that are represented there at Pentecost. The others, verse 12, all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, what does this mean?

But others were mocking and said, they are filled with new wine. These guys are drunk. How do they speak so articulately in your own language that you can understand it if they're drunk? But Peter, verse 14, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them, men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give ear to my words.

For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel. And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.

And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. And your young men shall see visions. And your old men shall dream dreams. Even on my male servants and female servants, in those days I will pour out my Spirit and they shall prophesy.

And I will show you wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.

And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. And this is the fulfillment of that prophecy from Joel chapter 2. Men of Israel, Peter goes on to say, hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst as you yourselves know.

Notice the way that Peter has started this sermon and how he is talking about Jesus Christ. He says, Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God. A man that you know did all kinds of mighty works and wonders and signs that God did in your midst.

You know that these things were done. You saw them. Some of you who are here right now, you witnessed Jesus doing these miraculous signs, is what Peter is preaching. You saw the sick healed, the lame walked, the blind given sight, the deaf able to hear, the dumb being made able to speak.

You saw these things. You saw the 5 ,000 that were fed. Some of them, as Peter is going to go on, have even seen the resurrected Lord. And so as Peter talks about this man who did mighty works, you know him as a man who did mighty things.

Verse 23, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. You crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. So Peter begins with a sermon in which he talks about Jesus who is a man and as though he is saying here, I'm going to show you now that he was more than just a man.

It is he of whom it was foreknown, it was foretold, would come, would be born of a virgin, would be crucified and would rise again and would reign over all and would save his people from their sins. As Peter goes on to show through the Old Testament Scriptures how Christ is the fulfillment of these things.

Verse 24, God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it. For David says concerning him, and this from the Psalms, Psalm 16 and Psalm 110, I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken.

Therefore my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced. My flesh also will dwell in hope, for you will not abandon my soul to Hades or let your Holy One see corruption. You have made known to me the paths of life.

You will make me full of gladness with your presence. As Peter preaches from these Psalms here to the people that were there, he is showing to them that this Scripture, David himself, from whom Jesus is descended, was talking about Jesus Christ.

Verse 29, Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried and his tomb is with us to this day. See how pointedly Peter puts that. I can say confidently David died and his tomb is right here in Jerusalem.

Being therefore a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades nor did his flesh see corruption.

This Jesus God raised up and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.

For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. And this is something, by the way, even reading the book of Matthew, Jesus referenced this same Scripture to say that David was talking about him.

Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. Have you stopped to consider and think about what it means to know Jesus Christ as Lord?

We proclaim it from the Scriptures. He is King of kings and Lord of lords, right? So we know Jesus is Lord. You've probably even grown up in churches where there are those big banners up here, right? One says Jesus is Lord and one says Jesus is King.

What does it mean to call Christ Lord? This was perhaps one of the first and certainly the shortest creeds that were shared in the early church. In the Greek, they would say Kyrios Iesus, which means Jesus is Lord.

This was opposed to saying Kyrios Caesar, which means Caesar is Lord. One of the first and shortest creeds, Jesus Christ is Lord, and Christians were known because of this confession. They would say Jesus is Lord instead of Caesar is Lord.

To call Jesus Lord means that he is ruler of all. He rules everything. Jesus proclaimed this of himself in Matthew 28, 18. Right before he gives the disciples the Great Commission, he says to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

There are many critics who will say that there was never a time in the Gospels where Jesus proclaimed of himself that he is God. He never said, I am God. And so they'll say it's something that we attribute to him because Jesus never said it of himself.

But let me ask you, what does it mean to say of yourself, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me? Can not only God say that? Who else but God can proclaim, I have all authority in heaven and on earth?

And this was Jesus' proclamation of his lordship. He is Lord. And to call him Lord, not just God but also Lord, is to know that he is fully man and fully God. It would certainly be one thing to call him God, which he is indeed God, but it is extra that we would proclaim him as also Lord, knowing that he is God over all, and he is even man who was fully God.

This is who Jesus is. This is who we proclaim him to be when we call him Lord. One of the first confessions of Christ as Lord, we see in Matthew 8, when a leper came before him and fell down before him and said, Lord, if you are willing, please heal me.

Please cleanse me of this leprosy. And Jesus said, I am willing, and cleansed him. For this leper to come before Jesus and kneel before him like this and say, Lord, if you are willing, this leper is saying, I acknowledge that you have power even over this sickness that is ravaging my body.

Lord, heal me. And Jesus did so. This was the confession even of this leper. And so Peter preached this at Pentecost that everyone who was there would hear it proclaimed that this Jesus who was crucified by the hands of lawless men and which was done by the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, he was not just man, but he is God in the flesh.

And because he is God, it was impossible, Peter put it, it was impossible for him to be held down by the bonds of death. But he was resurrected. You're looking for a great king like David? David's still in his tomb.

His body is still there. Jesus Christ is risen. And this has been proclaimed not just by us, but hundreds of witnesses had seen him in his resurrected body for 40 days between the resurrection and the ascension into heaven, as we read at the start of Acts 1.

Paul proclaims it also in 1 Corinthians 15. More than 500 brothers, and he just mentions the brothers, that had seen Jesus Christ alive in those 40 days. So this being attested to, and many of the people that were there had even seen and witnessed these things.

And so as this gospel was proclaimed by the power of the Holy Spirit, what we read here next in verse 37 is a change of heart from what we saw at the beginning of this sermon. When some of the people there in Jerusalem were making fun of them and saying they're drunk, they're filled with new wine, these guys have no idea what they're saying or what they're talking about, and here we see in verse 37 a complete change of heart.

Now when they had heard this, they were cut to the heart, and they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Brothers, what shall we do? They are now convinced that in their sinfulness they crucified God.

Who of us could survive the judgment if we had put God himself to death? And the only reason we were successful at doing that is because, as Peter said, it was the definite plan and foreknowledge of God for it to be done.

But now they're cut to the heart and realize they stand in judgment before God because of what they have done to Jesus, who is Lord and Christ. He is ruler and He is Savior. And Peter said to them, verse 38, Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, every one whom the Lord our God calls to himself. And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, Save yourselves from this crooked generation.

So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about 3 ,000 souls. A beautiful change that we see. The very first sermon that was preached there at Pentecost, that people went from hostile and putting Christ to death to realizing what they had done.

They had crucified the Lord and the Messiah, which is what Christ means, means Messiah. He is the Messiah that we were looking for. He came and we put Him to death. Now what can we do? Well, this Messiah has died for your sins.

He's done everything that He said that He would do, and He has done all that had been foretold by the prophets. So now for this salvation that has been promised through Jesus Christ, repent, turn from your sin, worship Christ, confess Him as Lord, be baptized in His name, save yourselves from this crooked generation, and you will be saved.

And those who received His word were baptized and added that day thousands into the family of God. The church was now larger than it had ever been. There were now more followers of Jesus Christ after Pentecost than there were even during Jesus' earthly ministry.

For there were certainly times when we saw hundreds, if not thousands, of people following Jesus. As I said earlier, He fed 5 ,000 people who had come to hear Him teach. That did not mean that they were there to worship Him as Lord because they still considered Him in the flesh.

They were there because they wanted to hear the great things He said, or they were there because they wanted Him to heal them of their diseases. But the reasons that they were there were selfish not to glorify God.

And my friends, this is the story of every single one of us. All of us have at one point regarded Christ only in the flesh, and we did not know Him truly as God until it was the power of the Holy Spirit in us that changed us so that we might know and we might see what we did not see before.

That Jesus is more than a name written in an old dusty book, but He is King of kings and Lord of lords. And that this word that we read is more than just a great ancient text, but it is the very Word of God.

These things are even revealed to us by the power of His Spirit. Jesus said in Matthew 11 that no one knows the Father except the Son and no one knows the Son except the Father and anyone whom the Son chooses to reveal to Him.

So we come to know who God is because Christ has chosen to reveal it to us. In 1 Corinthians 2, when we were last going through our study in 1 Corinthians, we read that these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit.

For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we embark this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

This is 1 Corinthians 2 14. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God for they are folly to him and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things but is himself to be judged by no one.

For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ and that's how we know that Christ is Lord and God because the Spirit has revealed it to us. All those whom Christ has chosen to reveal these things to.

And as Paul goes on to say here in our passage in 2 Corinthians 5, all this is from God. So having read here in Acts 2 and 1 Corinthians 2, coming back again to our text in 2 Corinthians 5, here is how I want to continue and we will even come to our closing the same way.

Forty-One Verses on Who Jesus Is

In your bulletin, if you had grabbed one on your way in, I wrote down 40 verses that tell us who Jesus is. And even after doing this and printing this off, there was one more that came to mind. It was like, oh man, I wish I'd put that in there.

So you're going to get 41 today as we go through this list. If you care to write it in there, I'll show you where when we get to it. But I wanted to put this in writing so that you might see these passages and you might go and test these things for yourself and read them in context and come to know all the more deeply who Jesus is.

Because though you as a confessing Christian may know who Jesus Christ is, there's only a certain level of your maturity that you are at right now in your knowledge of God. And as long as you are still breathing and existing in these fleshly bodies, there is still more about God for you to learn and know according to what he has revealed to us in his word.

And so I'm going to give you some stepping stones, some stones that you might lay down in your path that you might know all the more who Christ is. But there are certainly more verses than these that I have written down for you that reveal to us the greatness and the majesty of Christ.

The first verse that I have listed there is that Jesus is the promised seed who would crush the snake's head according to what we have come to know as the Proto-Evangelion in Genesis 3, verse 15. That's just a fancy Greek word that says first gospel.

Proto-Evangelion means first gospel. The first time the gospel is proclaimed is there in Genesis 3, verse 15. After Adam and Eve had sinned against God and they were being removed from the presence of God because now they were no longer clean and righteous to enter into his presence but had to be cast from his sight.

Yet God gave them the hope of the gospel in the curse that he levied upon the serpent. And he said of the serpent, I will put enmity between your offspring and the woman's offspring. And this offspring will crush your head and you will bruise his heel.

And this is a reference to the coming of Christ. And Jesus accomplished at the cross the crushing of the head of the snake. His heel was bruised. That's it. He was crucified. He was put to death. But the power of the serpent was utterly crushed.

And so this is the first thing that we read about Christ in the Bible, that he is the promised one who would crush the head of the snake. As John would say in his first epistle, that the reason why Jesus came was to destroy the works of the devil.

And that was what was accomplished by Christ. Number two verse, who is Jesus? He is the wonderful counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace, Isaiah 9 .6. Now you may have those who hate the doctrine of the Trinity that will say of that passage, see it refers to him there as Father, so Jesus is God the Father.

But that's not the reference there. Knowing Jesus as Father means that we know he is the benevolent one. He is the one who is the author of our faith and the perfecter of our faith, as we'll also see in the verses that I have written down.

And so everlasting Father means that he is simply the one who gives and he is the one who takes care of us. As Jesus said in Matthew 28 verse 20, I am with you always, even to the very end of the age.

Who is Jesus? Number three, he is our salvation from sin. And that's in Matthew 1 .21. And it is there that an angel has appeared to Joseph in a dream and has said to him, you will call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

Now, if I was going to add another verse in here, it would appear right between 3 and 4. I would add in Matthew 1 .23, where it says that this was to fulfill what had been prophesied by Isaiah, that he would be born of a virgin.

That's actually very important to know that, in coming to understand Christ as Lord and God, that he is born of a virgin. Why is that important? Because this means that Jesus was not born of the seed of man, but he was born of the seed of the Spirit.

If he was born of the seed of man, then he would be born under the sinfulness of Adam, because Adam would still be his federal head. But since he was born of a virgin and not of the seed of a man, then God is his federal head, and Christ is conceived in righteousness.

He wasn't just righteous because he did not sin. He did not sin because he was righteous. Now, there's often a dispute and a debate regarding the doctrine of his incarnation, that Jesus was born of a virgin.

There are some that will say, well, that one doesn't really matter that much. You can take it or you can leave it. But again, folks, I say to you, if Jesus was born of the seed of man and not of the seed of the Holy Spirit, then he's not our Messiah, because he wasn't sinless, and he cannot be the spotless Lamb who came to take away the sin of the world.

So it is an essential doctrine, and it is important to know that Jesus was born of a virgin, fulfilling that prophecy that was made about him, that he did not come by the seed of a man, but he was incorruptible even in his conception.

I was talking to an atheist not long ago where he said to me, he said, I can't understand the Bible, and I can't believe it, and I don't understand how anybody can. And the first thing he said was, when it's got stuff in there about babies being born of virgins, I said, no, it doesn't have anything in there about babies being born of virgins.

He goes, you don't believe in the Virgin Mary? I said, no, it says there is a baby who was born of a virgin, but not babies born of virgins. You don't even understand the point of this doctrine, that Christ is the only virgin born, that there has ever been, because he was conceived without sin, that he might be the holy, spotless, sacrificial Lamb of God.

And he said, well, if stuff like that wasn't in the Bible, then maybe I could believe in this Jesus that you're talking about. I said to him, if the virgin birth was not in the Bible, not only would you not believe in Jesus, I would neither.

But Jesus is virgin born, because he is our sinless sacrifice that gives us our salvation from sin. Who is Jesus? Number four. He is the Son of God, in whom the Father is well pleased. Matthew 3, 17, you know where those words were spoken, right?

It was at the baptism of Christ, when the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus and a voice was heard from heaven, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Who is Jesus? Number five. He is the fulfillment of all the law and the prophets.

This is what Jesus said of himself in the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5, 17. Who is Jesus? Number six. He is the Son of David, who comes in the name of the Lord. This is what the people were even proclaiming, according to what the prophets had said about him.

This was at the triumphal entry that we read about in Matthew 21, verse 9. Hosanna, Hosanna. Blessed is he, the Son of David, who comes in the name of the Lord. This is the promised one. The one who was said would be of the line of David, who would ascend to the throne.

And upon the throne of David would the kingdom of God be established forever. This one's one of my favorites. Who is Jesus? Number seven. He is good. Our God is good. Who is Jesus? Number eight. He is a ransom for many.

In Mark 10, 45, Jesus said that the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to lay down his life as a ransom for many. Who is Jesus? Number nine. He is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

According to John the Baptist in Luke 3, 16. Who is Jesus? Number 10. He is the Son of Man who came to seek and save the lost. Luke 19, 10. And this reference that Jesus made of himself as the Son of Man was to show that he was the fulfillment of a prophecy that was made by Daniel, that the Son of Man would come.

To refer to Jesus as Son of God and also as Son of Man is to know that he was truly man and truly God. Who is Jesus? Numbers 11 through 14. He is God, according to John 1, 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He is the Lamb of God. Chapter 1, verse 29, as John the Baptist sees him coming and says, Behold the Lamb of God who has come to take away the sin of the world. He is the light of the world. Chapter 8, verse 12.