ThoughtShades - Sermon Notes

Psalm 24:8-10 Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD mighty in battle. 9 Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. 10 Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory. Selah.

Isaiah 63:1-4 Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save.

Matthew 21:10-11 And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this? 11 And the multitude said, This is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee.

Luke 7:49 And they that sat at meat with him began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgiveth sins also?

Bethlehem was Act One in the drama of redemption. The curtain lifted on a baby; not just any baby, but the single, most unique, most special creature ever to enter the world. This baby is not just a player in the drama, he is the entire story. He is not just an actor; he is the act itself.

Jesus is the unbroken thread that runs from Genesis to Revelation. The lineage of all the patriarchs envisioned him; the visions of all the prophets embraced him; the stories of the hundreds of characters woven into the Bible revolve around him. Any seeker who begins his quest for God in Genesis and leaves Revelation without this revelation has failed. Anyone who receives this one revelation possesses the key to every other promise, truth and blessing in the Bible.

We need to know everything knowable about Jesus. We need to comprehend everything comprehensible about Jesus. We need to know who he was before he came; who he was after he came; who he is now and who he will be throughout the eternal ages.

Our greatest mission in life is to discover the identity of the occupant of the manger. Why? Because in him we live and move and have our being.

First, Jesus got here through the body of Mary.

Mary was not a mere surrogate mother for a flesh created by God.
She was not some sort of incubator which contained a “heavenly flesh.” The flesh truly originated from Mary’s egg. If Jesus did not receive His humanity from Mary, then He could not be said to have been “of the seed of David.”
Mary contributed the flesh to the existence of Jesus. Galatians 4:4 says, “But when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law.”
The Greek word translated “of” in the phrase “of a woman” is ek. This word means “out of.” Jesus was made out of a woman, He was not just born out of one.
This is why the author of Hebrews said “he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.” (Hebrews 2:16).
God raised up the Messiah to rule on his throne through David’s line. (Ps132:11). “The LORD hath sworn in truth unto David; he will not turn from it; Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne.”

Let’s focus for a moment on the way in which Jesus was conceived.

The Scriptures simply affirm that Mary conceived a child of the Holy Ghost without ever addressing how she did.
Many think that Jesus received all of His deity from God and all of His humanity from Mary. That’s only partially true.
Jesus could not have received the entirety of His humanity from Mary. If He did, Jesus would have been a female. All that Mary could have offered were X chromosomes. X chromosomes produce females. It takes the presence of Y chromosomes to produce a male child. Only men have this Y chromosome. Without a contribution of this Y chromosome Jesus could not have been born a human male.
Where did this genetic influence come from then? The only answer can be that it was supplied by the Holy Ghost in the conception.
Erickson said, “Jesus was not produced after the genetic pattern of Mary alone, for in that case, he would in effect have been a clone of her, and would necessarily have been female. Rather, a male component was contributed. In other words, the seed placed within Mary was specially created for the occasion.” 10

(Jason Dulle is responsible for much of the research and thought in this section.)

So, the question remains, who is this…baby, child, man, prince? Who is this King of Glory? The best testimony we can get concerning Jesus’ identity is His own. What did Jesus think about Himself? How did Jesus view His relationship to the Father?

Jesus boldly declared the He was God.

He said, “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30). He was of the same essence as the Father (deity).
The Jews’ took up stones to stone Him (10:31). They believed that Jesus, who was a man, had made Himself God (10:33).
This was blasphemy to the Jews and was deserving of the death penalty.
They understood perfectly that Jesus was claiming to be the Father Himself. If Jesus was not declaring equality with the Father, it would have been the perfect opportunity to explain what He really meant. Instead He continued to back up His claim (10:34-38).
Jesus told the Jews, “He that seeth me seeth him that sent me.” (John 12:45).
Jesus declared to Thomas, “If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him and have seen him.” John 14:5-9. (v. 7).
Philip could not understand this statement, so he asked Jesus to show the Father to all the disciples, and then they would be satisfied. Jesus responded, “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?” (v. 9). According to Jesus’ own testimony, to see Him was to see the Father (God). One can not get a much clearer statement than this as to who Jesus claimed to be.

In addition to what he said, Jesus acted like he was God.

If Jesus was not God, indeed his statements would have been blasphemous.
For example, Jesus forgave sins.

He said to the paralytic who was lowered through the roof, “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.” (Mark 2:15). The scribes present in the room thought Jesus’ statement blasphemous saying “who can forgive sin but God alone?” (v. 7).
If Jesus truly did not have the power to forgive, He had the perfect opportunity to clear up the matter when the Jews inquired of His words.
Instead of pointing out the scribes misunderstanding of His words, Jesus said, “Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house.” (vs. 9-11).

Jesus claimed authority with respect to the Law of God.

One such example is the law of the Sabbath.
God established the Sabbath for Israel as one of the 613 commandments of the Law of Moses they had to obey.
Because God had made the Law, He alone had the power to alter it. We see Jesus, however, claiming the authority to alter the Sabbath when His disciples were questioned by the Pharisees for picking grain heads on the Sabbath.
Jesus’ response was to remind them of the time that David ate of the shewbread (vs. 25-26). The shewbread was strictly for the priests. For anyone else to eat it was a violation of the Law of Moses, but God never punished David. In conclusion Jesus said, “the Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: Therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the Sabbath.” (vs. 27-28)..
Jesus clearly claimed the right to redefine the Sabbath.

Jesus claimed to have the power of life.

He said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live.” (John 11:25).
The Old Testament declares that only God has this power: “See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.” Deuteronomy 32:39

What did the Jewish leaders think of Jesus?

After Jesus told the Jews, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” (John 5:17), the Jews sought to kill Him.
Why did they want to kill him? “Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his father, making himself equal with God.” (v. 18).
The Jews understood that Jesus was claiming to be God Himself. The Greek word isos is translated here as “equal.” It means to be “the same as” something. Jesus put Himself on the same plane, or grounds of deity as the Father.
When Jesus claimed that He and His Father were one (John 10:30), again the Jews took up stones to stone Him (v. 31).

When Jesus asked them for what good work they desired to kill Him, they responded, “For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.” (v. 33).
The Jews did not understand Jesus’ reference to God as His “Father” to mean that Jesus was less than God, or some sort of a second-rate god. Rather they understood His claim to be that of Yahweh God Himself.

What did the apostles think of Jesus?

Thomas said to Jesus, “My Lord and my God.” (John 20:28).

The Greek word kurios, translated “Lord,” is the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew adonai; and the Greek theos translated “God” is the Greek counterpart to the Hebrew elohim.
So, for Thomas to call Jesus his Lord and God, knowing that the only Lord God was Yahweh (Deuteronomy 6:4), would have been blasphemy if Thomas had not believed that Jesus was Yahweh Himself in flesh.

Peter’s bold declaration to Jesus, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Matthew 16:16), showed Peter’s belief in His deity.

Jesus told Peter that flesh and blood had not revealed this truth to him, but the Father which was in heaven (v. 17).
If “Son of God” here only refers to Jesus’ humanity, no revelation from the Father would have been necessary.

Paul, who wrote the most concerning Christ’s person, said that Jesus “is the image of the invisible God.” (Colossians 1:15; See also II Corinthians 4:4).

What did Paul mean when He declared Jesus to be God’s image?
We know it was not physical likeness because God is a Spirit and cannot have a physical body.1
The Greek word translated “image” in the King James Version is eikon. Its root is eiko, meaning likeness, resemblance, or representation.
Eikon denotes both the representation and manifestation of a substance.
Notice that Paul contrasted Jesus’ image to that of the invisible God. The point Paul was trying to get across to his readers was that Jesus is the visible representation of God to man. That is why Jesus could say, “he that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” (John 14:9; also 12:45).

Jesus is the “express image of his [God’s] person” (Hebrews 1:3).

“Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.”

The English phrase translated “express image” is from the Greek word charakter. It is this word from which we get our English word “character.”
This is the only occurrence of the word in the New Testament. It means “to impress upon, or stamp.” It denotes an engravement from a tool, which impresses an image into that which is being engraved.4
This impression, then, is a characteristic of the instrument used to produce it. The end result corresponds precisely with the instrument.

The Greek word translated “person” is hupostasis.

It is from this word that we get the term “hypostatic union,” the union between deity and humanity in the man Christ Jesus. Hupostasis is more properly understood as “essence of being, or the substance of a thing.” It is like “the sediment or foundation under a building.”5 It is that which underlies, makes up, or supports a thing.
Hupostasis is to God as air is to wind; hupostasis is to God as water is to wave; hupostasis is to God as notes are to music.

The only other time the word appears in Scripture is Hebrews 11:1 “Faith is the “substance” (hupostasis) of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Faith is the underlying support, or foundation of things that are hoped for.

Jesus does not just represent God. He is the very visible impression of God’s invisible substance and essence.

He is God’s very nature expressed in humanity as the Son of God.
He is the corresponding engravement of God in human form. He is the adequate imprint of God. 6

At Bethlehem, God unrolled a blank sheet of humanity over the invisible essence of divinity and mapped a visible image that we could see. When Mary held up the baby, we could trace all the divine attributes of God through the transference of his image into the flesh of Jesus.

Jesus is everything about God permanently settled in the body of Jesus.

“For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” (Colossians 2:9) The NIV says “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.”7
“Dwelleth” is katoikeo, meaning “to permanently settle down in a dwelling.”
“Fullness” is pleroma indicating that which “is filled up.”
“Godhead” is theotes, meaning “divine essence, or the very person of God.”8
In the Greek, Paul said that the fullness of the divine essence has permanently settled in Jesus’ body.

Jesus did not merely possess some divine attributes, but rather He possessed every aspect of deity.

Who is this King of Glory?

God’s oneness is the absolute doctrine of the Old Testament. But now we know that the Jehovah of the Old Testament is the Jesus of the New:

Jehovah is omnipresent (I Kings 8:27 ). So is Jesus. (Matthew 18:20).
Jehovah is omnipotent (Jeremiah 32:17). So is Jesus. (Matthew 28:18).
Jehovah is omniscient (Psalm 147:5). So is Jesus. (John 2:24-25).
Jehovah is self-existent (Exodus 3:14 ). So is Jesus. (John 8:58).
Jehovah pardons sins (Psalm 78:38). So does Jesus. (Matthew 9:2).
Jehovah is absolute in truth (Ps. 33:4). So is Jesus. (John 14:6).
Jehovah is the source of life (Isa 44:24). So is Jesus. (John 11:25).
Jehovah has all authority (Ps 119:89). So does Jesus. (Matthew 5:18).
Jehovah is the Creator (Genesis 1:1). So is Jesus. (John 1:3; .
Jehovah is the Savior (Isaiah 45:21). So is Jesus. (Matthew 1:21).
Jehovah is the Redeemer (Psalm 130:8). So is Jesus. (Titus 2:14).
Jehovah is the Judge (Psalm 50:6). So is Jesus. (Acts 17:31).
Jehovah is the King (Isaiah 44:6). So is Jesus. (I Timothy 6:15).

How is the incarnation relevant to us today?

Paul spoke of the “mystery of the incarnation” (I Timothy 3:16). This mystery is none other than that “God was manifest in the flesh…”.
What does the Godhead mean to us practically then? Is it just some bunch of theological garb to get us confused? No.

It is the way in which God fully loved us…He identified with us in every way, even to the point of limiting His divinity so that He might face the sufferings and challenges we face.
It is the way that he could fully understand what we face in this existence, and after overcoming the temptations and hardships He could become our example and offer help in the time of need.
It is the way that He showed us to rely strictly upon the Holy Ghost for strength to overcome temptation and be perfectly led of the Spirit.

Jehovah-Jesus knows what you are going through..

When you feel forsaken, so did He on the cross (Matthew 27:46).
When you are struggling with the will of God you can rest knowing that Jesus also struggled in the Garden of Gethsemane. He prayed that His Father would change His will (Matthew 26:36-44).
Jesus is your example for ministry, overcoming temptation, and empathizing with others (II Corinthians 1:3-7).

Christology also demonstrates to us how Christ’s person affects our salvation.

If He was not perfect man and perfect God He could not save us.
When we experience salvation, it is not a mere experience, but it is an encounter with Jesus Christ.

Down from His glory, ever living story,
My God and Savior came, and Jesus was His name;
Born in a manger to His own a stranger,
A man of sorrows, tears and agony!

What condescension, bringing us redemption,
That in the dead of night, not one faint hope in sight,
God gracious, tender laid aside His splendor,
Stooping to woo, to win, to save my soul!

Without reluctance, flesh and blood His substance,
He took the form of man, revealed the hidden plan;
O glorious myst’ry sacrifice of Calv’ry!
And now I know He is the great “I AM”!

Chorus
Oh how I love Him! How I adore Him!
My breath, my sunshine, my all in all!
The great Creator became my Savior,
And all God’s fullness dwelleth in Him!