Biblical
concept of God is important to comprehend before understanding its doctrines
and message. God is spirit, transcendent, sovereign, self-existence
and self-sufficient, infinite, eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent,
and omniscient, immutable, love, holy, righteous
and merciful, gracious, good (Kind, cordial, benevolent, full
of goodwill towards men) and faithful, triune and our
Father. The God of the Bible namely I am or YHWH [Exodus
3:13-15] is personal, knowable, possess attributes, and one in three persons
(triune: Father, Son and Holy Spirit). The Bible states that God is the
creator and distinct from the creation [Gen. 1:1]. Furthermore, the Bible
emphasizes that understanding God and his works is beyond human mind and
understanding [Isaiah 55:8, 9].
God is trinity: God is one who reveals himself
in three persons. His revelation as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is
distinct and separate. As these three persons exist from eternity in the
Godhead, the revelation of their function in respect to humanity is seen as
historic events.
Let
us first know the etymology of word ‘Jesus’. It was indeed derived from Greek
word Iesous, a Greek form of Hebrew name Yeshua. The very name Yeshua
literally means to rescue, to deliver. Theologically, it is Y’Shua i.e. Yahweh
is Salvation [Matthew 1:21].
Next,
‘Christ’ in Greek Cristos and Messiah in Hebrew refer to Anointed
One.
So,
literally Jesus Christ is the anointed one who rescues people from their sins. Plus,
I have also mentioned Biblical concept of God. Now, let us see what the Bible
says of Jesus.
Jesus
Christ’s entrance to this world was already predetermined with many prophesies
in the Old Testament. The prophesies were made regarding his genealogy as a
descendant from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah and David, his mission of
reconciliation of people to God, his appearance after rebuilding of Jerusalem
and before destruction of Jerusalem by Rome, his virgin birth in Bethlehem, his
title as Immanuel, his ministry among the people, his appearance in Galilee,
his performance of miraculous deeds, his teachings in form of parables, his
humbleness and meekness, his entrance to Jerusalem riding on a donkey, his
struggles, his betrayal, his rejection from his own people, his silence before
his accusers, his physical torture, his mockery, his numbering with the
transgressors, his cry out to God on cross, description of his death, his
burial on wealthy man’s tomb, he shall not be decayed, his resurrection on
third day, and such many prophesies were done hundreds and thousands of years
ago before he was born. Hence, the history got divided into two era: Before
Christ (BC) and Anno Domini (AD) after his birth.
Christ was designated to be the redeemer even before
the creation of the world (1 Peter 1:20) and he manifested himself in history
at our time. So the triune God was acting through the person of the Son
for the redemption (2 Cor. 5:18, 19) - an act of God but revealed and
explained in our language of time and space.
Read
John 1:1-18 where the author depicts Jesus as the Word of God. The Word who is
eternally existing with God and is God. So, the Word was God from the very
beginning, the Word created all things [Col. 1:15, 16; Gen. 1:1, Heb. 1:2, 3],
the Word is the Source of Life [John 14:6], the Word became a human being [John
1:14, 1 Tim. 3:16, Col. 2:9, Philip. 2:5-11, John 10:30-33, Isaiah 9:6]. God
created the entire universe with his Word [Gen. 1]. God communicated with
people through the Son in last days. Hence, it is clear that the eternal Word
is Jesus, the Christ who had been chosen as redeemer even before the creation,
and by Him God created this universe. God is triune and Jesus is God the Son [Heb.
1:8-12] equal to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. Jesus took on
incarnation for the redemption of mankind. Triune God was acting through Jesus.
Jesus added humanity without giving up his divinity. Fullness of Godhead dwelt
in Jesus bodily. Thus, Jesus is God manifested in flesh.
Jesus
came with a specific mission to accomplish [Gen. 3:15; Luke 4:18-19; Heb.
9:26b; 1 John 3:8; John 1:12; 3:16, 17; Col. 2:15]. He came to give us the
right to become children of God, to rescue us from our sins, to destroy the
works of evil, to conquer the death, to sacrifice oneself for our sake, to make
the way back to God, to return the authority of dominion over the creation
given by God, to return our lost address i.e. eternal fellowship with God and
all in all to make us possess God himself! No mere prophets and great men of
history accomplished this.
Jesus
has been entitled with names that has been used for God in the Old Testament.
He has been called the Almighty One [Rev. 1:8], Alpha and Omega [Rev. 22:13],
Advocate [1 John 2:1], Author and Perfector of our faith [Heb. 12:2], Authority
[Matt. 28:18], Bread of Life [John 6:35], Beloved Son of God [Matthew 3:17],
Bridegroom [Matthew 9:15], Deliverer [1 Thes. 1:10], Faithful and True [Rev.
19:11], Good Shepherd [John 10:11], Great High Priest [Heb. 4:14], Head of the
Church [Eph. 1:22], I AM [John 8:58], Immanuel [Isa. 7:14], Indescribable gift
[2 Cor. 9:15], Judge [Acts 10:42], King of Kings [Rev. 17:14], Lamb of God
[John 1:29], Light of the World [John 8:12], Lion of the Tribe of Judah [Rev.
5:5], Lord of All [Phil. 2:9-11], Mediator [1 Tim. 2:5], Messiah [John 1:41],
Mighty One [Isa. 60:16], One who sets free [John 8:36], Our Hope [1 Tim. 1:1],
Peace [Eph. 2:14], Prophet [Mark 6:4], Risen Lord [1 Cor. 15:3, 4], Rock [1
Cor. 10:4], Sacrifice for our sins [1 John 4:10], Savior [Luke 2:11], Son of
Man [Luke 19:10], Son of the Most High [Luke 1:32], Resurrection and the Life
[John 11:25], the Way, the Truth and the Life [John 14:6], the Door [John
10:9], the Word [John 1:1], True Vine [John 15:1], Victorious One [Rev. 3:21]
and many other entitles.
Compare
Isaiah 6:5 with John 12:41, Psalms 23:1 with John 10:11, 14 and Hebrew 13:20;
Deut. 32:3, 4, 18; Psalm 18:2, 62:1, 2 with 1 Cor. 10:4, Exodus 3:14-15 with
John 6:35, 8:12, 8:24, 8:58, 10:9, 10:11, 10:25, 14:6, 18:5-6, Isaiah 43:10-11,
45:21 with Acts 4:10-12, Isaiah 45:21-23 with Phillipians 2:9-11, Isaiah 40:3
with Mark 1:1-3, Joel 2:32 with Act 2:21, 36 and Romans 10:9, 13, Isaiah 44:6
with Revelation 22:13.
We
must notice that it is the same Person, Who was in the beginning, who was God,
and who made all things, who is here said to have become flesh. The Jesus of
the gospel story is the God of eternity, the Jehovah of the Old Testament. The
reason for the incarnation was the salvation of man. The Good Shepherd came to
seek and to save His sheep which were lost. He came in human form that he might
get nearer to the sinner.
A
Moravian missionary went to preach the gospel to the slaves in the West Indies.
Failing as a free man to reach them, he became a slave himself, and went with
them to their toils in the field and into all their hardships and sufferings,
thus getting close to them. Then they listened to him. This illustrates
Christ’s condescension to save the world. We couldn’t understand God in His
invisible glory; and Immanuel came, and in human form lived out the Divine
life, showing us God’s thoughts, character, and feelings, especially God’s
grace and his love for sinners. This was one object for incarnation- it
revealed in a way which men could understand the invisible things of God.
Then
Christ became man also that He might learn life by actual experience, and thus
be fitted to be our Savior, and to sympathize with us in all our experiences of
temptation, struggle, and sorrow [Heb. 4:15]. We are sure now, when we come to
Christ in any need, that He understands our condition and knows how to help us.
We have a High Priest (Jesus Christ) in heaven who can be touched with the
feeling of our infirmities, because He was tried in all points of temptation as
we are. Christ became man also that He might taste death for every man, thus
abolishing death for His people. He remembers what He suffered being tempted;
and when He sees His people in their struggle, He remembers when He endured the
same, and is ready to sympathize with and help them.
Now,
let me discuss on his miracles. His miracles were performed to prove his
divinity and accredit his message. People saw his glory and believed him [John
2:11]. In the gospels, his 35-40 miracles had been recorded. Apostle John in
his book 20:30 proclaims that Jesus had done many other signs but not all have been
recorded. However it is written that you may believe that Jesus is Son of God,
the Christ and by this faith you may have life in his name. Next, in 21:25, he
says that Jesus had done many other things that were if to be recorded then
there would not be enough space in this world to fit in! His miracles were
demonstrated over nature [Matt. 8:26-27], over devils [Mark 5:12-13], over
diseases [Matt. 8:13; 9:6, John 5:9, et.al], over death [Matt. 9:18-26; Luke
7:12-15], miscellaneous miracles like multiplication of 5 breads and 2 fishes
to feed 5000 people, transforming water into wine, walking on water, et.al.
Finally, the greatest miracle was his own resurrection! [1 Cor. 15:4; Romans
1:4]. His miracles were performed in public and were unique. His miracles made
people to believe he was the Christ, sent by God. His resurrection proved his
divinity i.e. Jesus is God in flesh. Many critics and scholars had tried to
debunk this but no one ever could disprove it. Frank Morison, a lawyer who was
in attempt to disprove, later he had to believe in it which became his
obligation after the evidences he found.
Regarding
his teaching, Matt. 7:28, 29, "The people were astonished at His doctrine,
for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes." Luke
4:32, "And they were astonished at His doctrine: for His word was with
power." Luke 4:22, "And all bare Him witness, and wondered at the
gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth." In some ways His
teachings were new, revolutionary and contrary to human reasoning. He
summarized the 600 commandments that the Orthodox Jew lived under to two commandments:
(1) love God and (2) love your fellowman, Matt. 22:37-39. John 13:35, "By
this shall all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love one to
another." In John 15:13, Jesus referring to His substitutionary death on
the cross says that He was demonstrating the greatest love possible to an
individual. Jesus' doctrine tells us not only to love the lovely but to love
everyone, even our enemies, for He already loves them, Matt. 5:44; I John 4:19;
Rom. 5:8. The most fascinating thing is that Jesus did in action what he said,
taught and claimed. He was indeed real practical life examples for all
humanity.
Jesus
came to die to absorb wrath of God, to please the heavenly Father, to learn
obedience and to be perfected, to achieve his own resurrection from death, to
show wealth of God’s love and his grace for sinners, to show his own love for
us, to cancel the legal demands of the law against us, to become a ransom for
many, to forgive our sins, to provide the basis for our justification, to
complete the obedience that becomes our righteousness, to take away our
condemnation, to abolish all rituals as basis for salvation, to bring us to
faith and keep us faithful, to make us holy, blameless and perfect, to give us
a clear conscience, to obtain for us all things that are good for us, to heal
us from moral and physical sickness, to give eternal life to those who believe
in him, to reconcile us to God, to free us from slavery of sin, to enable us to
live for Christ and not for our sake, to free us from bondage of fear of death,
to disarm the rulers and the authorities, to destroy the hostility between
races, and to rescue us from final judgment.
Jewish
leaders were able to recognize correctly how the miraculous deeds of Jesus, his
spoken words with authority, his act of forgiving, his claim of Son of Man and
Son of God, etc. all pointed to his indirect claim of being God himself! No
mere man can accomplish these all what he had done.
Finally, one person can’t pay for the sins of another, much less all people. Therefore only one who was God himself pay for sin. Psalms 49:7-9 and Col. 1:19-20. Hence, this is the reason for Jesus to be true God.
Now,
it’s obvious that you may insist that I had just taken Biblical or theological
approach for divinity of Jesus but why you should believe in it.
After
evaluating Jesus’ claims about himself and his titles, you may argue that it
seems very much like a pantheistic concept. But, Gen. 1:1 and John 1:1 clearly
shows it is not. God is distinct from this universe that he created but He is
indeed essence of this universe. I will soon help you to grab understanding of
His claims and why it is sensible to believe a man like Jesus to be God. Next,
I want to focus on Jesus’ resurrection.
The
resurrection was a real and historic event as there were eye witnesses. The
critics of the resurrection had to accept Jesus after deeper investigations. Even
secular historians agree that something was obviously happened after his death
that made his disciples rise again with new vigor. His disciples were so
confident and determined that they gave their own life for the truth! Matthew Suffered
martyrdom in Ethiopia, Killed by a sword wound. Mark died in Alexandria, Egypt, after being dragged by
Horses through the streets until he was dead. Luke was hanged in Greece as a result of his tremendous
Preaching to the lost. John faced
martyrdom when he was boiled in huge Basin of boiling oil during a wave of persecution
in Rome. However, he was miraculously delivered from death. John was then
sentenced to the mines on the prison Island of Patmos. He wrote his prophetic
Book of Revelation on Patmos. The apostle John was later freed and returned to
serve as Bishop of Edessa in modern Turkey. He died as an old man, the only
apostle to die peacefully. Peter was crucified upside down on an x-shaped cross.
According to church tradition it was because he told his tormentors that he
felt unworthy to die in the same way that Jesus Christ had died. James the leader of the church in Jerusalem, was thrown over
a hundred feet down from the southeast pinnacle of the Temple when he refused
to deny his faith in Christ. When they discovered that he survived the fall,
his enemies beat James to death with a fuller's
club. Thomas was stabbed with a spear in India during one of his
missionary trips to establish the church in the Sub-continent. Jude was killed with arrows when he refused to deny his
faith in Christ. Paul was tortured and
then beheaded by the evil Emperor Nero at Rome in A.D. 67. Paul endured a
lengthy imprisonment, which allowed him to write his many epistles to the churches he had formed throughout the
Roman Empire. These letters, which taught many of the foundational Doctrines of
Christianity, form a large portion of the New Testament. Perhaps this is a reminder to us that our sufferings
here are indeed minor compared to the intense persecution and cold cruelty
faced by the apostles and disciples during their times for the sake of the
Faith. They were ready to give their own life for Jesus’ sake. They of course
had their own normal life yet they abandoned everything and followed Jesus.
Remaining with Jesus during 3 years of his ministry, they realized something
was unique with their teacher. The one who had no house of his own, no tomb of
his own, and no luxurious life on earth and yet he never stepped back to preach
the truth and faced every criticism.
Jesus’
dead made these poor people a fearing wanderer as they knew that they would
also be killed by Roman empires. They were in fear and in great sorrow because their master
was sentenced to death. Jesus did not defend himself. He let his enemies arrest
him. After seeing His great power over nature, diseases, demons, etc. many of
his followers decided to raise him against Roman Empire. But what was the
result? Jesus was crushed mercilessly that cannot be described in any words! He
was ultimately killed on the cross. People around him and Roman police also
challenged him saying he saved many now let him save himself. Here, I want you
to think for a while. This man Jesus healed many people, raised dead one,
claimed to be truth, way and life. He knew his time was coming and his
disciples will be a part of hatred to this world. Yet, he never stopped giving
them a hope of eternal life! He never stepped back proclaiming he is the truth!
He always said to trust him and believe in him. Now, think deeply. He was
beaten and wounded, the one who indeed healed many! He was accused with
conspiracy, the one who always claimed to be the truth. He was sentenced to
death, the one who indeed raised dead ones! He served his people till his
survival. But now what? He is wounded himself, he is accused and he died. Can
this man heal himself who healed many? Can this man still claim to be the truth
who was accused with conspiracy? Can this man make himself alive who is dead? And
he did it… He raised himself again! To him even the death failed to hold on. He
got victory over the death! The case of coming back to life is not even in hope
of people today. No matter how medical science has gone so far it its
advancement, scientists are yet searching for the ways to make people alive. Yes,
some have succeeded to some extent but the people yet die again. With the dead
of highly honored member of family or the rulers, there is great sorrow and
loss of hope to people as if the foundation is destroyed. It is not drama of
people to weep and even go under depression my friend. No one comes back to
life after they leave forever. But, this man Jesus did! The power of
resurrection made his disciples rise again and proclaim this truth to the world
and they gave their life for this truth.
Further, what was the effect of his resurrection? Jesus was true in what he claimed to be! His claims, as I have already told you to explain, indicates his essence in our life. As light, bread, door, etc. are essential for us in daily survival, Jesus is that much essential for us! We need Jesus!
He said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Is this claim important? Yes! His claim excludes all the alternative ways to God. First, he never claimed to have other incarnations. Second, in Old Testament times, there was theophany which is not same as reincarnation. Third, his incarnation was one time and he will again return back. Heb. 9:26-28. Jesus also commanded his disciples to go to the world and preach the gospel. He promised to be always with us till end of our life. He excluded any possibilities of alternate ways to God like rituals, different religions, etc.
You might argue that other
religions have their own theology. Resurrection of Jesus may not effect in
other religions. Yes, you are true. Like for Hindus, resurrection doesn’t have
any impact for they rely on karmic cycle and reincarnation. However, even if
theology differs, not all religions can be same and true. If it was to be as
many people expects, why would Jesus command his disciples and even those all
who believe in him to proclaim his gospel to the world? Jesus’ birth, mission,
death, resurrection and ascension was for all humanity! Jesus himself excluded
any possibility of other religions as way for human to get back to God.
Jesus’ claims of his
omnipresence, authority over the world, resurrection, second coming, becoming
sacrifice for all the humanity, way to God, sinless life, authority granting us
right to become children of God, etc. shows that he was indeed not just a
normal human but the Almighty God manifested in human! Only a man who was God
eternally and became fully man was able to reconcile both divine and human
world. He, being himself Son of God, was able to satisfy God’s justification
[Trinity]. He was God and so he was able to keep all his laws and live an
obedient life to God the Father. People were not able to keep the laws and they
were made slaves of sin but Jesus, being God, fulfilled all the laws and
abolished it as parameter for the salvation. He was God and so he took the
punishment of eternal death and abolished it for us. He was God and so death
couldn’t hold him up. He was God, so he lived a practical life and became our
example! He went through all human hurdles, pain, suffering and sorrows and so
today he is able to help us and sympathies us in our trouble. He is God and so
he practiced in action what he taught. His words and his actions had no
difference. He is God of his claims to be the God of the Old Testament!
No mere intellectual and enlightened persons are able to accomplish these except Jesus alone. You may collect all the gods around the world religions and accommodate them in one basket. But when you try putting Jesus in it, he no longer stays in that crowd! He alone stands as true God who became man to rescue us.
God Bless You
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