Jesus in the New Testament

Jesus in The New Testament

What do the Followers of Jesus Say About Him?

Introduction

In our last lesson we wanted to learn who Jesus was, mainly from looking at what Jesus had to say about Himself. What we learned is that although Jesus never EXPLICITLY said I AM GOD, there is enough clear-cut evidence, which proves that Jesus was God and is still God.

In this lesson our main goal is to look at what Jesus’ followers had to say about Him. These were the people who were closest to Jesus; many of them were His direct followers, in that they were with Him during His ministry on earth. They heard all He said. They saw all the miracles He did.

There are a few introductory matters we MUST talk about. First off why should we believe any of the writers of the New Testament? Why can we believe what John, Paul or James said? Can we trust any of the New Testament? Can these men actually say anything about Jesus and claim this is the truth about Jesus?

First let’s look at what the criteria is in order for someone to be an author of a book of the New Testament. A person had to be one of two things. They either had to be an apostle directly commissioned by Jesus Himself or they had to be someone who was closely associated with an Apostle, such as Mark who was associated with Peter or James who as far as we know was the brother of Jesus. This was the criterion the early church looked at when the New Testament was developed.

Next the Bible is inspired by God, 2Tim. 3:16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness. Paul says God breathed out all scripture; scripture is directly from God. This is what is called Verbal-Plenary Inspiration. This means God inspired all of scripture, every word of scripture is inspired by God. Here is a definition of this from Milliard Erickson; “The verbal theory insists that the Holy Spirit’s influence extends beyond the direction of thoughts to the selection of words to convey the message. The work of the Holy Spirit is so intense that each word is the exact word God wants used at that point to express the message.” We can trust what the Bible said because God inspired every word of scripture. A problem we face here is people will say, “When Paul wrote this he was thinking only of the Old Testament.” And they are right when they say this. Paul would have been talking about the Old Testament. But we find this from 2 Peter, 3:15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 2Pet. 3:16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. Peter says at the time he wrote this letter that the letters that Paul wrote, which we have in our Bible, The New Testament, were scripture even then. Paul says God inspires all scripture, and Peter is saying Paul’s letters were scripture. The writings of Paul and the other New Testament writers can be trusted because God inspired them.

The Writings of Paul

We are going to start with Paul because He wrote most of the New Testament. Some people believe Paul cannot be trusted because he was not a direct Apostle, in that he was not with Jesus during His earthly ministry.

In Acts 9 we find the conversion of Paul, Paul here was commissioned by the Lord Jesus Christ to be His Apostle. We find shortly after in Acts 9 that Paul is proclaiming in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. This was an astonishing thing to do for a Jew. Remember in our last lesson the Jews repeatedly picked up stones to kill Jesus when He said He was the Son of God.

Let’s take a little while to look at what Paul said about Jesus.

Colossians 1:15-20

Col. 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
Col. 1:16 For by* him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.
Col. 1:17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Col. 1:18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
Col. 1:19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
Col. 1:20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

First in this passage Paul teaches us that Jesus created all things. Jesus was not merely involved in creation, but he created. What do we do with passages like this, which say Jesus does things, which only God can do? Only God and God alone has the power to create. Passages like these only make sense if Jesus is God. If Paul is saying things like this it is the only thing, which will make sense. This passage will only make sense if Jesus is GOD. Remember what we learned in our lesson last week that the New Testament always assumes that Jesus is God, it presupposes the deity of Jesus Christ. Jesus only has the power to create if He is God. Paul says Jesus created all things.

I want to give a real life example of how important passages like this passage are. At the house one day we had some Mormons come to the door. I decided I would talk to them. We started talking about Jesus and who Jesus was. They started saying their view of Jesus, which is not a Biblical of Jesus. We went around and around for a while. I posed the question how can Jesus be anything other than God if Paul said He was creator. He created all things. Then I brought this passage up and they did not know what to do. This is where the conversation ended. They did not know what to do when the truth of God’s word was presented to them.

In verse 17 Paul says all things hold together in Christ. What Paul is saying here is that if Christ were to stop holding things together everything would fall apart, and even further if there were no Jesus Christ nothing could hold together. Jesus Christ holds all things together.
In verse 19 Paul says all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in Christ. All the divine Excellencies of the Father dwelled in Christ. What God is Jesus is. Jesus is God.

Jesus is Paul’s LORD

Col 1:3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you,

Now what is the significance of this statement our Lord Jesus Christ? To see the significance of this we must look at the Old Testament.

Lev. 19:2 “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.

Deut. 4:35 To you it was shown, that you might know that the LORD is God; there is no other besides him.

Deut. 6:4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.
Ps 18:31 For who is God, but the LORD?
And who is a rock, except our God?

Zeph 3:17 The LORD your God is in your midst,
a mighty one who will save;
he will rejoice over you with gladness;
he will quiet you by his love;
he will exult over you with loud singing.

The significance of what Paul says here is astounding. In the Old Testament a name, which was used for God, was Lord. The Lord your God is something we see all over the Old Testament. When you see LORD in the Old Testament it is talking about God. So here where Paul says our Lord Jesus Christ what is He saying? If Paul is here using Lord here of Jesus Christ, then what else could Paul be saying than Jesus was God.

The Greek term, which Paul employs here, is kurios, which means Lord, This Greek word is the usual translation of Jehovah in the Septuagint. This term is used in many different places for God the Father, and for Jesus. One example is Acts 17:24 where it is used of God the Father: Acts 17:24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man. For the Jews this term would have suggested that Christ was equal with the Father.

Paul Calls Jesus God

Titus 2:13 waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,

This is a very EXPLICIT statement about who Jesus is. This is one of the clearest affirmations of who Jesus is. Paul, a Jew, says Jesus is God. There is no beating around the bush here Jesus is God according to Paul, who was inspired by God to write this statement. I am not going to say much more here the verse pretty much speaks for itself.

What is Paul Saying?

When dealing with the topic of the Person of Jesus there is one passage in Paul we must look at.

Phil. 2:4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.
Phil. 2:5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
Phil. 2:6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
Phil. 2:7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
Phil. 2:8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.
Phil. 2:9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,
Phil. 2:10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
Phil. 2:11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Many different people have misconstrued this passage, but none of their speculations and ideas line up with what Paul says here. To adequately explain this text I am going to turn to someone smarter and wiser than myself. What follows if from Dr. Barry C. Joslin’s class notes from Theology Two where we covered this topic.

The Kenosis Theory (Philippians 2:5-11) – Specifically Phil 2:7
(a) The theory- Christ “emptied Himself” of some of His divine attributes at the Incarnation
(b) Problems with the theory
(1) Exegetically
(i) The text says nothing about Divine attributes, it is put there
(ii) However the text does describe what this self emptying means
(2) Theologically – Presents huge Christological problems in that it denies the full deity of Christ. Christ would not have been fully God when He were on earth were He to divest Himself of any of His divine attributes.
(3) Biblically – There are many NT texts, esp. in the Gospels, in which omnipotence (healings, exorcisms, etc.), omnipresence (John 1:48-50), and omniscience (Luke 9:47; John 1:47-48; 2:24-25; 4:18; etc.) are seen in Jesus.
(c) The Meaning of Phil 2:7
(1) Context – Paul urges them to live for one another and not to live for themselves (2:3) so as to live lives worthy of the Gospel (1:27)
(2) Meaning – The “self-emptying” concerns:
(a) The Incarnation, taking on the form of a man and all of its weaknesses and His willingness to give himself up on the cross
(b) Glory, Jesus temporarily had His glory veiled by His flesh; He did not become less glorious
(3) Conclusion, Christ changed his role and status not His attributes when He took on the form of a man.

The Book of Hebrews

Heb. 1:3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

The book of Hebrews has a very high view of who Jesus is. The author opens up the book with a clear picture of who Jesus is. Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God. Jesus is the EXACT imprint of his nature, of the glory of God. The exact nature, Jesus does not merely have some of the nature of the Father, but Jesus has the exact imprint of the Nature of the Father. Jesus Christ upholds the UNIVERSE by the WORD of HIS power.

The next verse we are going to look at is a rather amazing verse, as we read this verse keep in mind the author of Hebrews is saying that God the Father is saying this about Jesus.

Heb. 1:8 But of the Son he says,
“Your throne, O God, is forever and ever,
the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom.

The Father says to the Son Your throne O God is forever and forever. The Father calls the son God. This is something he never says about the angels. This first chapter shows that the Son is superior to the angels. The Father never said this to the angels, but has said it to the Son. The author here is quoting from Psalm 45:6, this is a direct quotation. This passage once again proves the deity of Christ and that Jesus is God, and the Old Testament looked forward to this as well.

Heb. 1:10 ¶ And,
“You, Lord, laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning,
and the heavens are the work of your hands;
Heb. 1:11 they will perish, but you remain;
they will all wear out like a garment,
Heb. 1:12 like a robe you will roll them up,
like a garment they will be changed.*
But you are the same,
and your years will have no end.”

This verse again is talking about Jesus. Jesus laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning, which may be looking to Genesis 1:1. The heavens are the works of the hands of Jesus. Jesus once again created. Jesus is doing what only God can do he created the world. There will never be a time when Jesus will not be. Jesus always has been and Jesus always will be. Jesus will never die. He will never perish. Jesus is never going to change. He will always be the same. His years will have no end. These are all things, which we see the Bible speak of about God. But here we see them in relation to Jesus. What possible explanation could there be except that Jesus is God? There can be no other explanation, Jesus is God, He has always been God and He will always be God.

Conclusion

There is so much more we could look at. We could literally study the person of Jesus for months, and if there are still questions we can take another week or so to look at them next week. But for this lesson we must conclude. As we concluded in our last lesson we will conclude this lesson. Why must Jesus be God? There must be some reason. The reason we learned in our last lesson is that the New Testament will not make sense if Jesus is not God, the whole New Testament assumes that Jesus is God, this is why there is no lengthy defense of the deity of Christ. For a detailed argument of this we should look at the Church Fathers.

Here are a few reasons why Jesus must be God and what the significance of this truth is.

(a) “One cannot be a Christian without affirming the deity of Jesus Christ
(b) Only someone who is infinite God could bear the full penalty for all the sins of those who would believe in him.
(c) Salvation is from the Lord, and the whole message of the Bible is designed to show that no human being, no creature could ever save man—only God (Jonah 2:9). He does a work God can only do, because he is God the Son.
(d) Only a God-man can function as Mediator between God and man. Only someone who was truly and fully God could be the one mediator between God and man (1Tim. 2:5), both to bring us back to God and also to reveal God fully to us. See also Hebrews and Christ’s role as Melchizedekian high priest.
(e) Why the God-man? Only the God-man could provide a sacrifice that could:
(1) Bear God’s wrath and penalty of sin, i.e. satisfy himself (infinite value)
(2) Represent us in our humanity
(3)This why sacrificial animals could never take away sin Heb 10:4.”

The last reason I want to focus on tonight is NO ONE at anytime can be a Christian without believing that Jesus is God. The reason is if we do not believe in the Jesus of the Bible, the Jesus who Jesus said He was, they cannot be saved. Paul says in Rom. 10:9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Jesus is crucial to salvation, in fact HE IS ESSENTIAL. Apart from Jesus there can be no salvation. If Jesus is not God Christianity is just another cult. There is no reason for Christianity to exist. We believe in some merely human person. This is insufficient and with any other view than that Jesus is God their can be no salvation.

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i) Milliard Erickson, Christian Theology 2nd Ed., 232
ii) Culver, Raymond Duncan, Systematic Theology, 446
iii) Milliard Erickson, Christian Theology 2nd Ed., 707
iv) ibid, 708
v) Dr. Barry C. Joslin, Theology Two Class Notes Christology, 4-5
ibid, 5