Perhaps we talk about the deity of Jesus in a casual, theoretical fashion, tucking the phrase in the back of our minds as we come to an agreement on a statement of doctrine. We say that Jesus is God; He is deity. But do we really know what we are saying? Do we understand the implications of that statement? Better yet, do we understand how that truth, by nature, puts us all-in as followers of Jesus?
First, let’s establish that the Bible does, indeed, claim that the man Jesus, who walked the earth and performed miracles, was more than a mighty prophet of God. Listen to what the inspired writers of the Bible say about the nature of who Jesus is:
“I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.
I and the Father are one.” (John 10:28-30 ESV).
And
“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,” (Philippians 2:5-6 ESV).
And
“For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority.” (Colossians 2:9-10 ESV).
And
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1 ESV).
All of these verses, and many more, let you walk away with no other conclusion than the Man who lived on the earth 2000 years ago is called God by those who wrote the New Testament. And the contemporaries of Jesus understood His claim to deity. Here are a few passages that show that His claim was put out for all to see:
“The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.” (John 10:33 ESV).
And
“This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.” (John 5:18 ESV).
Whether we believe the claim or not, it is there. The Bible claims that Jesus, son of Mary and Joseph, was indeed the Son of God. It claims that He existed as God before man, that He was our Creator, and that He left heaven to become one of His creation so that He could visit us, understand us, die for us to redeem us back to the Father, and serve as our perpetual High Priest.
If Jesus is not God, then we are all guilty of the vilest and most evil blasphemy of all time. We have stripped what only belongs to God and we have set it upon the creation. That’s the way that the Jews saw it. That’s how Paul saw it until Jesus revealed Himself to the apostle. That’s how Jesus’ own family viewed it until they saw their risen Brother.
On the other hand, if Jesus is our Creator Who spoke everything into existence, then that leaves us only one possible choice to make. If He is God, then we must hunger and thirst after His words and do everything to submit to Him. Not because we like or agree with His teachings; not because He was a powerful and persuasive teacher; and not because we agree with the worldview He invites us to live in.
The only choice we can make if Jesus is the Creator is to fall to our knees, realize He is our Potter and we are His clay, and live every moment letting Him fashion us into the servants He wants us to be. Our choice becomes binary, stark, and unambiguous: Either we accept the will of our Creator who visited us 2000 years ago, or we reject Him and wait to face Him on the Day of Judgment for our rejection.
But if He is God, then we have an amazing life in store if we accept Him and follow Him with all of our life, soul, and mind. For He is above nature. He is supernatural, and our relationship with Him is one based on supernatural existence. In Him, all things are possible that are impossible without Him. In Him, He gives us the grace and power to overcome sin that is impossible to do if we live only a natural life. In Him, we have the ability to overcome all obstacles that the Devil and the world place before us, not in our own strength, but because He does the impossible lifting for us.
If we wholly commit to Jesus, we are committing to more than a great prophet; we are committing to the Son of God, the sovereign Creator of His universe. But the choice is binary. Either He is God or He is not God. There is no middle ground. We must place our spiritual stake in the ground and take a stand. We must either be all-in or we will be all-out.
I boldly confess before you that I believe that Jesus is my Creator and my God. I believe He came to earth to die for my sins. I believe that He is my Potter and I am His clay. I believe His words, and His words alone have within them eternal life. I believe I will kneel before Him in judgment one day.
“for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me.” (2 Timothy 1:12b ESV).
What about you?
I don’t have to figure out everything about God.
I just have to have faith in what He says,
I have to believe He can do all things,
I need to believe that He will reward me for seeking Him,
and I have to understand that He knows all the things I do not, nor cannot know.
“And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” (Hebrews 11:6 ESV).
I’ve just been summoned for jury duty. I’ve been summoned before but never chosen to serve. It’s not something I relish, but it is a civic duty I take seriously.
My biggest concern is in seeking justice and what is right. Putting away my personal inclinations to consider what is just.
I fear God in this role because He expects those who judge to represent His justice. If I am chosen to serve, please pray for wisdom that I will seek righteousness, fairness, and justice.
“You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.” (Leviticus 19:15 ESV).
Moses was one of the greatest prophets and leaders of Israel. He had a special relationship with God, and God defended him vigorously against those who challenged this humble man.
But Moses wasn’t perfect. In one instance, he did not uphold God as holy before the congregation and it cost him the experience of entering the promised land. His whole life’s work for forty years was to lead people to their inheritance, but in His grace, God did allow Moses to see the land he had worked so hard to lead the people to.
“The LORD said to Moses, “Go up into this mountain of Abarim and see the land that I have given to the people of Israel. When you have seen it, you also shall be gathered to your people, as your brother Aaron was,” (Numbers 27:12-13 ESV).
That made me think about God doing a similar thing for us today. In a show of grace, God allows us to use powerful telescopes that rotate around the Earth to see parts of His universe that we may never have an opportunity to visit ourselves.
In a sense, through these powerful telescopes, we can peer across the expanse of space, distances that we have no way of traversing (at least now), and peer into His glorious creation. We see stars, galaxies, black holes, pulsars, supernovas, exoplanets, and so much more await our discovery.
Thanks be to God who has given us this magnificent mountain top view into the expanse of His wondrous creation.
In my daily Bible reading, I am in the book of Leviticus. It’s tempting to rush past all the rules and laws given to the priest to get to the action and inspirational parts of the Old Testament. But there are some important things we learn when we spend time reading about all the rules and rituals that went into the instructions found in Leviticus.
In this book, the people learn about sin and the importance of repentance and atonement. Even in the Old Testament dispensation, God gave an avenue for His grace and His forgiveness.
In the book, the people learn that their sin was so bad, that it cost another living being its blood as atonement. Sin never was something that could be taken away without blood and a sacrifice of the living.
In this book, we see that a sacrifice for the sin which separates man from God can turn away God’s wrath in a way prescribed by God. Going all the way back to Cain, we see that God always prescribed how to deal with sin. It was never left to us to decide how to do that.
And in the book of Leviticus, we see the love that God has for man. What seems like a litany of rules and regulations is, in reality, the path by which sinful man can be reconciled back to a holy and blameless God. God loved His people enough to show them the way back to Him when their sin broke the relationship with Him.
And all of this pointed to the perfect and eternal sacrifice that God made on our behalf. When the blood of bulls and goats could not be the perfect sacrifice that could save us, God Himself became man for the purpose of offering His life as a sacrifice once and for all. This sacrifice was made with holy blood from a blameless God. It serves the spiritual needs of man forever as the enduring sacrifice.
But we learned the importance of this blood sacrifice in Leviticus and we learned just how important that atonement for sin is to our God. When man did all he could humanly do, God Himself stepped in to provide the perfect sacrifice for us.
“But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.” (Hebrews 10:12-14 ESV).